 Garrick employed the temple not just as a museum but as a working building . As well as using it as a quiet place to learn his lines and write letters , the actor used it to entertain his wife and guests for afternoon tea and dinner . The painter Johann Zoffany , a protégé of Garrick , painted a number of scenes of the actor , his wife and their friends on the lawn and in front of the temple . One of his guests , the letter @-@ writer Mrs Delany , described the scene at one such entertainment in a letter of 1770 : 
