classes: the learned and the ignorant, the cultured and the vulgar;
great statesmen, poets, and even the fribbles of fashion were all
nearly unanimous in his praise. The dissentient voices were so few
that they were drowned in the clamor of applause. Quinn might snarl
and growl; and Horace Walpole, who seems to have grown alarmed at
so much of the incense of praise finding its way to the nostrils of
another, might give vent to a few feeble sneers; such as when he said,
"I do not mention the things written in his praise because he writes
most of them himself." But the battle was won. Nature in the place
of Artificiality, Originality in the place of Conventionality, had
triumphed on the stage once more.

Consternation reigned in the home at Lichfield when the news arrived
that brother David had become a play-actor; but ultimately the family
were reconciled to such degradation by the substantial results of the
experiment. Such reconcilements are not uncommon. Some young man of
good birth and position has taken to the stage; his family, who could
not afford to keep him, have been shocked, and in pious horror have
cast him out of their respectable circle; but at last success has
come, and they have managed to overcome their scruples and prejudices
and to profit by the harvest which the actor has reaped.

Garrick seems to have continued playing under the name of Lydall for
two months, though the secret must have been an open one. It was not
till December the second, the night of his benefit, that he was at
last announced under his own name; and henceforward his career was
one long triumph, checkered, indeed, by disagreements, quarrels and
heart-burnings (for Garrick was extremely sensitive), caused, for the
most part, by the envy and jealousy which invariably dog the heels of
success.

Second-rate actors, like Theophilus Gibber, or gnats such as Murphy,
and others, easily stung him. He was lampooned as "The Sick Monkey"
on his return to the stage after having taken a much needed rest.
But discretion and audacity seemed to go hand-in-hand, and the
self-satisfied satirizer generally over-shoots the mark. Garrick was
ever ready with a reply to his assailants; when Dr. Hill attacked his
pronunciation, saying that he pronounced his "i's" as if they were
"u's," Garrick answered--

"If 'tis true, as you say, that I've injured a letter,
I'll change my note soon, and I hope for the better.
May the just right of lette