London life began to try her strength. In a note to Garrick, at the close of the year: “I’m hurried to death with assemblies,” is the form of her excuse for not calling on Mrs. Garrick; “and I am forced to manage _mon souffle de vie_.” She hardly dares hope to secure Lord Lyttelton’s company to meet Garrick, unless on a Saturday or Sunday; “for the peers are as inactive as Jews on Saturday, and as jolly as the idlest Christians on Sunday.” The shadow of the loved brother Morris falls on the following letter: “_January 8, 1778._ ... My spirits felt a great damp at first returning to London, where I used to enjoy the friendly converse of my poor departed brother. Death, disasters, and incidents have reduced a large fireside to a small circle. A few years, indeed, shows me that the flattering hopes one entertained in the nursery, of living and social gaiety and freedom with those nearly allied in blood, were mere pleasing delusions. If other things do not sever these natural connections, the fatal scissors cuts their thread. “Tho’ my poor brother never had opportunity of amassing great wealth, I was in hopes he would have left some thousands more behind him; but the easiness and flexibility of his temper, and a certain placid indolence, made him give into more expense than was prudent. The world lays the whole blame on him, and is loud in compassionate lamentations for his widow. Indeed, her present condition is very lamentable, and I pity her extremely; but certainly she loved expense better than he did. I imagine, poor man, he thought her fine dress and appearance raised her in the eyes of the world. There is no end of the bad consequences of an improper marriage. When men and women make an indiscreet match, they say it is no concern of any one; but when any distress is the consequence, the friends who were thought impertinent if they troubled themselves about the match, are thought cruel if they take no part of the evil. “... M. de Jarnac, who married an Irish beauty, in the mistaken opinion that she was also a fortune, has been stock-jobbing here prodigiously; but if we should really have a French war, he will be bit. “A very superb theatre is going to be built in the Haymarket. It is to be in prices the same as the opera; no places taken, and the play to begin at eight o’clock, which certainly suits better the present hour of dining. Once a week, each of the other theatres, on certain conditions, are to lend their actors; so they will each save the expence of a sixth part at least of their theatrical shows. The other five nights their houses will be the fuller. If ye London apprentices of these days are half as bold as he who kill’d the lion, I think they will assault our new theatre. Neither its price, hours, nor situation will suit them. The town has been very sickly. Lady George Germaine has been dangerously ill of the measles, but is better.