David Garrick
Of his personal character Johnson said even finer things and when Boswell tried to press him, he retired, as usual, defeated:
"Johnson. 'Garrick was a very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family, whose study was to make four-pence do as much as others made four-pence halfpenny do. But, when he had got money, he was very liberal....'
[Boswell] 'You say, Sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations.' Johnson. 'I could not have said more nor less. It is the truth; eclipsed, not extinguished; and his death did eclipse; it was like a storm.' Boswell. 'But why nations? Did his gaiety extend farther than his own nation?' Johnson. 'Why, Sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said—if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, and to have gaiety,—which they have not. You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.' Beauclerk. 'But he is a very unnatural Scotchman.'"
Oliver Goldsmith once wrote a series of playful epitaphs for his friends. These were his first two lines on Garrick:
Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] The manager of Goodman's Fields theatre.