G.—Of Garrick’s generosity I never heard; I understood his character to be totally the reverse, and that he was reckoned to have loved money.
J.—That he loved money nobody will dispute; who does not? But if you mean by loving money he was parsimonious to a fault, sir, you have been misinformed. To Foote and such scoundrels, who circulated those reports, to such profligate spendthrifts, prudence is meanness, and economy is avarice. That Garrick, in early youth, was brought up in strict habits of economy, I believe, and that they were necessary, I have heard from himself; to suppose that Garrick might inadvertently act from this habit, and be saving in small things, can be no wonder, but let it be remembered at the same time, that if he was frugal by habit, he was liberal from principle; that when he acted from reflection, he did what his fortune enabled him to do, and what was expected from such a fortune. I remember no instance of David’s parsimony, but once, when he stopped Mrs. Woffington from replenishing the teapot; it was already, he said, as red as blood; and this is doubtful, and happened many years ago. In the latter part of his life, I observed no blameable parsimony in David; his table was elegant, and even splendid; his house both in town and country, his equipage, and I think all his habits of life were such as might be expected from a man who had acquired great riches. In regard to his generosity, which you seem to question, I shall only say there is no man to whom I would apply with more confidence of success, for the loan of £200 to assist a common friend, than to David, and this too with very little, if any, probability of its being repaid.
G.—You were going to say something about him as a writer. You don’t rate him very high as a poet?
J.—Sir, a man maybe a respectable poet without being an Homer, as a man may be a good player without being a Garrick. In the lighter kind of poetry, in the appendages of the drama, he was, if not the first, in the very first class. He had a readiness, and a facility, a dexterity of mind that appeared extraordinary even to men of experience, and who are not apt to wonder from ignorance. Writing prologues, epilogues, and epigrams, he said he considered as his trade, and he was what a man should be, always, and at all times, ready at his trade. He required two hours for a prologue or an epilogue, and five minutes for an epigram. Once at Burke’s table, the company proposed a subject, and Garrick finished his epigram within the time: the same experiment was repeated in the garden, and with the same success.
(To be continued.)
The History of Gilds.
By Cornelius Walford, F.S.S., Barrister-at-Law.
PART IV.