More than once he talked of retiring, for the strain of his life was heavy, and he looked forward to years of restful enjoyment with his "sweet wife," who had been before her marriage the celebrated dancer Mademoiselle Violette. But the very mention of such an idea raised a storm of excitement. Once even the king intervened when David had taken an unusually long holiday, and his Majesty requested Mr. Garrick to shortly appear again. The night when, thus commanded, he reappeared in "The Beggar's Opera," was one of his greatest triumphs; again "the town went half mad," and the theatre was crowded to an alarming extent. All ideas of retirement vanished from David's mind; the old magic had not lost its spell, and for more than ten years longer he went on with his work as vigorously as ever.
His fame became even more widespread, his public loved him even more dearly, and from far-away country places people journeyed to London so that they might boast of once having seen the great Mr. Garrick.
But in 1776, an illness, which he had long kept at bay, made itself felt, and he was the first to recognise that the time had nearly come for the curtain to fall. He gave a series of his greatest representations, ending with Richard II. "I gained my fame in Richard," he said, "and I mean to close with it."--Though he confessed to being in agonies of pain, in the eyes of his enraptured audience he was as great as he had ever been in his palmiest days of success, as graceful, as winsome, and as gay. His real farewell play, however, was "The Wonder," in which he took his favourite part, that of Don Felix, and "as his grand eyes wandered round the crowded house, he saw a sea of faces, friends, strangers, even foreigners, a boundless amphitheatre representing most affectionate sympathies and exalted admiration. He played as he had never played before. When the last note of applause had died away, the other actors left the stage and he stood there alone. The house listened in awe-struck silence. At first he tried in vain to speak; for once the ready words would not come for his calling. When at last he went on to thank his friends for their wonderful kindness to him, he broke down, and his tears fell fast. Sobs rang through the theatre. "Farewell! Farewell!" was cried in many a quivering voice. Mrs. Garrick wept bitterly in her box, and David slowly walked off the stage with one last wistful glance at the sea of faces all around him.