CHAP. II.] DAVID GAREICK.

at present. He has not a debt of twenty shillings upon him; 1759.
c£ so in that," he concludes, "be very easy. I am sorry my .st.31.
" sisters are under such uneasinesses, and, as I really love
" both them and you, will ever make it my study to appear
" your affectionate Brother, D. Garrick."

The post brings back the letter asked for, but as far as
ever from the tone desired. Peter still protests, urges,
entreats, casts discredit on Giffard, and, while he washes
his own hands of the consequences he sees impending,
warns David against them with such persevering emphasis,
that, but for each day's felt and palpable increase to
the actor's unexampled success, it might have gone hard
with him in this epistolary war. But how should he
now turn back with the incentives that on the other side
urged him on — plebeian Goodman's Fields lighted up
with the splendour of Grosvenor-square and St. James's !
grand people's coaches jammed up in the narrow alleys
between Temple-bar and Whitechapel! and, though he has
not yet been three weeks on the stage, the very patriots from
Whitehall, in the agony of their struggle with "Walpole,
flocking to that wretched little theatre in the lowest and
most vulgar of the suburbs ? Has not the Prince's confidant,
Mr. Glover, been every night to see him ? And, since he
wrote last to Lichfield, even grave Mr. Lyttelton has been
there, the Prince himself is daily expected, and he has been
praised and encouraged by that fiery young orator Mr. Pitt,
who, already reckoned the greatest actor in the House of Com-
mons, has given eager welcome to an actor reported to be even
greater than himself. " Sometimes, at Goodman's Fields,"
writes Gray to Chute, " there are a dozen dukes of a night." *

* " Did I tell you about Mr. Garrick, that the town are horn-mad after : there
" are a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman's-fields sometimes, and yet I am stiff
" in the opposition.'1 Works, ii. 185.b, and