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 tea-pot ; it was already, he said, as red as blood; and this instance is doubtful, and happened many years ago 1 . 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 2 . 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 two hundred pounds to assist a common friend, than to David, and this too with very little, if any, probability of its being repaid 3 .
GIB. You were going to say something of him as a writer you don't rate him very high as a poet.
JOHNS. Sir, a man may be a respectable poet without being a Homer, as a man may be a good player without being a Garrick. In the lighter kinds of poetry, in the appendages of the drama, he was, if not the first, in the very first class*. He had a readiness and 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 5 , and he was, what a man should be, always, and at all times, ready at his trade. He required two hours for a prologue 6 or
1 Reynolds had the anecdote from ostentatious views.' Ib. iii. 70. See Johnson, who had been present at also ib. iii. 264, n. 3.
the tea party. Life> iii. 264, n. 4. 4 ' As a wit, if not first, in the very
2 ' Garrick might have been much first line.'
better attacked for living with more Goldsmith's Retaliation.
splendour than is suitable to a player.' s Garrick said: 'I am a little
Ib. iii. 71. of an epigrammatist myself, you
3 * Yes, Sir, I know that Garrick know.' Life, iii. 258.
has given away more money than 6 < Dryden (said Johnson) has any man in England that I am ac- written prologues superior to any quainted with, and that not from that David Garrick has written ; but
epilogue
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