his wife nearly broken-hearted for his loss, ill,
poor, and despairing, but leaving also behind him
"Little Davie," or, as Mr. Fitzgerald describes
him, "a useful comforter—a boy of surprising
sense and spirit—the most zealous and
affectionate of children—who seemed now to take
the whole responsibility of the family on his
childish shoulders with a tact and ardour
surprising in one who was barely sixteen." He
wrote to his father by every mail, and these
letters are among the most charming parts of
Mr. Fitzgerald's book.*
* The Life of David Garrick, by Percy
Fitzgerald, M.A.

His acknowledgment of the captain's first
letter, announcing his safe arrival, is very
characteristic in its enthusiastic affection. "It
is not to be expressed," he says, "the joy the
family was in at the receipt of dear papa's
letter. Mamma was in very good spirits two or
three days after she received your letter, but
now begins to grow moloncolly, and has little
ugly fainting fits. My mamma," he goes on,
"received the thirty pounds you was so good
as to send. She paid ten pounds to Mr. Rider,
one year's rent, and ten pounds to the baker;
and if you can spare her a little more, or tell
her you will, she is in hopes of paying all your
debts, that you may have nothing to fret you
when you come home." Another time he writes
that "my mamma has cleared off all the debts"
save the irrepressible butcher, who had received
a sop, and would wait for the remainder;
then he tells "dear papa" that he has been
presented with a pair of silver breeches-buckles,
and that he hears "velvet is very cheap at
Gibraltar. Amen, and so be it." Then, his
sisters "Lenny and Jenny, with the greatest
duty and obedience, request a small matter to
purchase their head-ornaments;" for how otherwise
are people to distinguish them from the
vulgar madams? Again, "my mamma is very
weak, attended with a lowness of spirits, which
compelled her to drink wine, which gives a
great deal of uneasiness upon two accounts, as
it goes against her inclination and pockett."
Sometimes they are all very "moloncolly;" and
sometimes he tells the absent one of all the fine
doings in the town; then he goes off into
loving praise of a certain miniature, "one
piece of Le Grout" which he values above
all the pieces of Zeuxis, and of which he would
sooner have one glance than look a whole day
at the finest picture in the world. "It is the
figure of a gentleman, and I suppose military,
by his dress," he says. "I think Le Grout told
me his name was one Captain Peter Garrick;
perhaps, as you are in the army, you may know
him. He is pretty, and, I believe, not very tall."

But all these loving messages could not
soften the hard fact of absence. Time dragged
wearily on, and it was not until 1736 that the
"pretty" captain managed to exchange his exile
at Gibraltar, for home, wife, and children once
more at Lichfield. The next year he died,
leaving over two thousand pounds among his
children, but giving to David only the traditionary
shilling. This, as Mr. Fitzgerald says, was not
on account of any estrangement or displeasure
with the loving boy, but because his uncle, the
Lisbon wine-merchant, with whom David would
not stay, had put him down in his will for a legacy of a thousand pounds, and so the father
thought him sufficiently provided for without
his help.

This death took place only a month after
David's enrolment as a student at Lincoln's
Inn; but about the same time, too, died the
wine-merchant, whereby the youth came in for
his legacy at once, and so was as well off as if
his father had lived. His first act, now that he
was his own master, was to put himself under
the tuition of the Reverend Mr. Colson, of
Rochester, supposed to be the Gelidus of the
Rambler; which shows that his ambition was
of the right kind, and that he knew the
difference between reality and sham. After a
time he set up a wine business, in partnership
with his brother Peter—Peter living at
Lichfield, and looking after the interests of the firm,
among "the most sober decent people in
England, the most orthodox, the genteelest, in
proportion to their wealth, and who spoke the
purest English," as Johnson said of the
Lichfieldites; while David represented the same
interests in London, dating from Durham-yard,
where he had his vaults and offices. Even then
it was said that they contrived to form a sort of
theatrical connexion, most of the coffee-houses
about the theatres giving them their custom.
Mr. Cooke once saw a business receipt of the
firm's, to a Mr. Robinson, of the Strand, close
by, who had given an order for two dozen of red
port, at eighteen shillings a dozen. It was
signed, "For self and Co., October, 1739, D.
Garrick." When the actor was rich and flourishing,
Foote was often heard to whisper that he
remembered Garrick in Durham-yard, with three
quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a
wine-merchant.

One of David's most intimate friends at
this time was an Irish actor of rough humour
and ability, belonging to Drury Lane, a good
fives player, and full of promise in his
profession. He was struggling hard to get rid of
a very "pronounced" brogue, and had already
so far anglicised himself as to change his
uncouth name of M'Laughlin into Mechlin, and
later, Macklin. He was quarrelsome and
overbearing, full of genius; but as Garrick was
not a man who would quarrel with any one—
indeed, one might almost apply to him the
coarse expression of an American paper, "that
the boots were not made which could kick him
into a fight"—the two got on very well together,
and for some five or six years were scarcely a
day out of each other's company. Later, they
quarrelled, as was, perhaps, only the natural
reaction from such an excessive intimacy. Dr.
Barrowby was also Garrick's friend in those
days, as were Johnson, Hogarth, Chancellor
Hoadley, and others of the greater, with some
of the minor, notabilities. But his heart lay