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 (play) going. Good-bye, mother of seventy children. MRS. SMITH. Oh! GARRICK. Good-bye, Cold Muffins. SMITH. Cold Muffins! GARRICK. Farewell! (pathetically.) Farewell, and treasure deep that which I love the most yet leave behind. Farewell! SMITH (follows GARRICK up C.) Jones, kick him out. GARRICK (turns fiercely and SMITH runs down L. C., front). Kick! According to several sources, Robertson originally fashioned the story as a novel, "David Garrick: A Love Story", which was first printed in 1864 as a serial in the magazine "The Young Englishwoman". However, in the 1865 printing in book form, Robertson says in his preface that it