and the other managers of Drurylane
theatre, and after examination was rejected by them, as not likely to
prove successful. The managers of the other theatre had a more correct
anticipation of the issue of this production, and hailed it with joy
and gladness. The event justified their opinion--for never was there a
more extraordinary degree of success than attended this rejected
performance. It had the unprecedented run of fifty three nights, I
believe successively, the first season in London--It spread into every
town in the three kingdoms, where there was a theatre, and was every
where received with unbounded applause. The songs were printed on
ladies' fans--and Miss Fenton, who performed the part of Polly, and who,
previous to her appearance in that character was in an inferior grade,
became a first rate favourite, and was so high in the public opinion,
that she was finally married to a peer of the realm. Gay's profits by
this piece were above two thousand pounds sterling, or nearly nine
thousand dollars.[F]

_A Wine merchant._

Garrick, soon after his arrival in London, went into partnership with
his brother Peter, in the wine trade. Their circumstances were very
moderate. Foote, with whom it was a universal rule, never to spoil a
good story by a scrupulous adherence to truth; very often, at a
subsequent period, excited merriment at the expense of the modern
Roscius, by the narrative of his adventures at that era of his life. He
used to amuse his companions by telling them, that he remembered the
time when little Davy lived in Durham court, with three quarts of
_vinegar_ in his cellar, and took upon himself the style and title of a
wine merchant.

_Garrick once more._

It is mortifying to reflect how the fairest fame may be destroyed, and
the best character be travestied in the public estimation, by a jest, a
bon mot, or an epigram, which contains any very pointed allusion. The
story tells to advantage. It is no diminution of its chance of progress,
that it is in the very last degree void of even the shadow of
foundation. Its wit, its humour, or its malignity embalms it, and saves
it from destruction. It enlivens social circles--It spreads abroad, and
gathers strength as it goes: It is received as complete evidence almost
as if it had been judicially established.

These ideas are excited by the excellent and revered character, whose
name I have prefixed to this sketch. Of his avarice Foote circulated
some