_EVA MARIA, Relict of DAVID GARRICK, Esq., caused this Monument to be erected to the Memory of her beloved Husband, who died the 20th January 1779: Aged 63 years._
Garrick had not only the amiable qualities of private life, but such astonishing dramatic talents as to well verify the observations of his friend, which have already been quoted (p. 66), in reference to the memorial of Gilbert Walmesley.
Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, where his father was a bookseller; his shop is still standing, scarcely altered, on the west side of the Market Place, close to the monument of his famous son (see p. 136). David Garrick came with his parents to live in Lichfield when very young, and he and Johnson attended the Grammar School together. There was a difference of several years in their ages, but their life-long friendship must have begun early, seeing that Johnson wrote the Prologue for Garrick's performance of Farquhar's comedy, "The Recruiting Officer," which took place at the Bishop's Palace when Garrick was only eleven years old. Some years after, when Johnson had left Oxford and had set up a school in the neighbourhood of Lichfield, Garrick joined him as a pupil; but the venture did not prove successful, and master and pupil left Lichfield for London, where each in his own line reached the highest summit of fame.
These memorials stand side by side in the aisle; for some reason, the busts were removed to the library when the interior was being restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, but they have once again been replaced in the spot originally chosen for them. The friendship of Johnson and Garrick was long and cordial: it is fitting we should see that in their death they were not divided.
In this aisle, which until recently was used as the Dean's Consistory Court, is another monument by Westmacott; this is in memory of Andrew Newton, who was so munificent a friend to his native Lichfield. He founded the institution on the west side of the close for the widows and orphans of clergymen, which he also endowed; and on his death, in 1806, he left a library of books to the cathedral.
In the first bay of the aisle is a monument to the officers and men of the 80th Regiment (Staffordshire Volunteers). The design is Egyptian, and is surmounted by a sphinx. Over the monument hang colours taken from the Sikhs, and on the wall behind are the old regimental colours. At the south end is a very fine and costly altar tomb--to Admiral Sir William Parker, who, when he died in 1866, was the last survivor of Nelson's captains. The slab of Pyrenean jasper is inlaid with a gold cross, and the front is adorned with stones of porphyry and lapis lazuli. The window above has some of the Herkenrode glass left over from the Lady Chapel, together with some modern glass. The great south window, which, as has just been stated, is in the Perpendicular style, was in 1895 adorned with new glass; this was the gift of Mr A. P. Heywood-Lonsdale, in memory of his father and his uncle, Bishop Lonsdale. The subject is "I am the vine, ye are the branches," and represents Our Lord in the centre surrounded by angels, with the principal bishops of the Early Christian Church. The six early British bishops: St. Columba, Scotland; St. Wulstan, Worcester; St. Chad, Lichfield; St. Augustine, Canterbury; St. Aidan, Northumbria; St. Hugh, Lincoln, are at the feet of Our Lord. The other bishops are St. Basil, Caesarea; St. Cyril, Jerusalem; St. Patrick, Ireland; St. Ignatius, Antioch; St. Polycarp, Smyrna; St. Boniface, Germany; St. Martin, Tours; St. David, Wales; St. Gregory, Rome; St. Augustine, Hippo; St. Athanasius, Alexandria; St. Cyprian, Carthage; St. Isidore, Spain; St. Chrysostom, Constantinople; St. Ambrose, Milan; and St. Vigilius, Aries. This glass is by Mr C. E. Kempe. On the west side are several brasses and tablets, including one to John Saville, vicar choral of the cathedral, who died in 1803. The lines underneath are by the Miss Seward whose own memorial is in the north aisle of the nave; they, like so much of the elegiac poetry of the period, owe not only their style, but a good many of their phrases, to the poet Gray.