Lichfield on the main routes from London to the north-west and Birmingham to the north-east. It also became a centre of great intellectual activity, being the home of many famous people including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward; this prompted Johnson's remark that Lichfield was "a city of philosophers". In the 1720s Daniel Defoe described Lichfield as 'a fine, neat, well-built, and indifferent large city', the principal town in the region after Chester. During the late 18th and early 19th century much of the medieval city was rebuilt with the red-brick Georgian style buildings still to be seen
David Garrick as Richard III David Garrick as Richard III David Garrick as Richard III is a painting dating from 1745 by the English artist William Hogarth. The painting shows the actor and stage manager David Garrick in the role of Richard III in Shakespeare's play "Richard III". It depicts a dramatic moment in the play on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth. The king, who had been asleep in his tent on the battlefield, has just woken from a dream in which he has seen the ghosts of the opponents he had previously murdered. Hogarth was a friend of Garrick, who had gained