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CHAP. II.] DAVID GARRICK.

" says in the Recruiting Officer" His father was then 1759.
stationed at Gibraltar, having taken the place of an officer m.3i
who had occasion to return, and whose full pay Captain
Garrick's increasing family made it desirable that he should
exchange for his own half-pay, even at the sacrifice of a
lengthened exile from his home at Lichfield. What Johnson
said of his old Mend, the year after his death, stands out on
the very face of this correspondence. " Garrick, sir, was a
" very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age. He began
" the world with a great hunger for money. The son of a half-
" pay officer, he was bred in a family whose study was to make
" fourpence do as much as others made fourpence halfpenny
" do. But when he had got money he was very liberal."*

In no querulous or complaining spirit, the boy's letters yet
show us, from year to year, the straitened circumstances of
that otherwise happy home. Their " accoutrements," as, in
the necessity of describing the family wardrobe to his father,
he prefers dramatically to express himself, are shabby.
Another year, his mother's health is not strong, and wine has
to be purchased for her. Another, and he is himself showing
off quite grand at a fine house in the neighbourhood, on the
strength of two half-crowns which Mr. Walmsley has given
him to bestow on the servants. Then, sisters Lenny and Jenny
(Magdalen and Jane) want small sums to buy lace for their
head-dresses, or how otherwise distinguish them from, the
vulgar madams ? And at length he has to inform his dear
papa that he is himself quite turned philosopher; but yet, to
show that he is not vain of it, he protests that he would
gladly "get shut" of the philosopher's characteristic, to wit,
a ragged pair of breeches (especially as he has lately had a
pair of silver breeches-buckles presented to him); wherefore,

* BosweU, vii. 262.



	CHAP. II.] DAVID GARRICK. " says in the Recruiting Officer" His father was then 1759. stationed at Gibraltar, having taken the place of an officer m.3i who had occasion to return, and whose full pay Captain Garrick's increasing family made it desirable that he should exchange for his own half-pay, even at the sacrifice of a lengthened exile from his home at Lichfield. What Johnson said of his old Mend, the year after his death, stands out on the very face of this correspondence. " Garrick, sir, was a " very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age. He began " the world with a great hunger for money. The son of a half- " pay officer, he was bred in a family whose study was to make " fourpence do as much as others made fourpence halfpenny " do. But when he had got money he was very liberal."* In no querulous or complaining spirit, the boy's letters yet show us, from year to year, the straitened circumstances of that otherwise happy home. Their " accoutrements," as, in the necessity of describing the family wardrobe to his father, he prefers dramatically to express himself, are shabby. Another year, his mother's health is not strong, and wine has to be purchased for her. Another, and he is himself showing off quite grand at a fine house in the neighbourhood, on the strength of two half-crowns which Mr. Walmsley has given him to bestow on the servants. Then, sisters Lenny and Jenny (Magdalen and Jane) want small sums to buy lace for their head-dresses, or how otherwise distinguish them from, the vulgar madams ? And at length he has to inform his dear papa that he is himself quite turned philosopher; but yet, to show that he is not vain of it, he protests that he would gladly "get shut" of the philosopher's characteristic, to wit, a ragged pair of breeches (especially as he has lately had a pair of silver breeches-buckles presented to him); wherefore, * BosweU, vii. 262.