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1749.

Ætat. 40.

should be revised and altered at the pleasure of an actor. Yet Garrick knew well, that without fome alterations it would not he fit for the stage. A violent difpute having ensued between them, Garrick applied to the Reverend Dr. Taylor to interpose. Johnfon was at first very obftinate. "Sir, (faid he) the fellow wants me to make Mahomet run mad, that be may have an opportunity of toffing his hands and kicking his heels'." He was, however, at last, with difficulty, prevailed on to comply with Garrick's wishes, so as to allow of fome changes; but still there were not enough.

Dr. Adams was present the first night of the representation of IRENE, and gave me the following account: "Before the curtain drew up, there were catcalls whistling, which alarmed Johnson's friends. The Prologue, which was written by himself in a manly strain, foothed the audience, and the play went off tolerably till it came to the conclufion, when Mrs. Pritchard, the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon the stage, and was to speak two lines with. the bow-ftring round her neck. The audience cried out "Murder, murder." She several times attempted to speak, but in vain. At last she was obliged to go off the stage alive." This passage was afterwards struck out, and she was carried off to be put to death behind the scenes, as the play now has it. The Epilogue was written by Sir William Young. I know not how Johnson's play came to be thus graced by the pen of a perfon then so eminent in the political world.

■ Mahomet was, in fact, played by Mr. Barry, and Demetrius by Mr. Garrick; but probably at this time the parts were not yet caft.

2 The expression used by Dr. Adams was "foothed." I should rather think the audience was ewed by the extraordinary spirit and dignity of the following lines :

" Be this at least his praise, be this his pride,
"To force applause no modern arts are tried :
" Should partial catcalls all his hopes confound,
" He bids no trumpet quell the fatal found;
"Should welcome fleep relieve the weary wit,
"He rolls no thunders o'er the drowsy pit;
"No snares to captivate the judgement spreads,
"Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads.

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Notwithstanding all the fupport of fuch performers as Garrick, Barry, Mrs. 1749. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, and every advantage of dress and decoration, the Ætat. 40. tragedy of Irene did not please the publick. Mr. Garrick's zeal carried it through for nine nights, so that the authour had his three nights' profits; and from a receipt signed by him, now in the hands of Mr. James Dodsley, it appears that his friend Mr. Robert Dodsley gave him one hundred pounds for the copy, with his usual refervation of the right of one edition.

IRENE, confidered as a poem, is intitled to the praise of fuperiour excellence. Analysed into parts, it will furnish a rich store of noble fentiments, fine imagery, and beautiful language; but it is deficient in pathos, in that delicate power of touching the human feelings, which is the principal end of the drama. Indeed Garrick has complained to me, that Johnfon not only had not the faculty of producing the impressions of tragedy, but that he had not the sensibility to perceive them. His great friend Mr. Walmsley's prediction, that he would " turn out a fine tragedy-writer," was, therefore, ill founded. Johnson was wife enough to be convinced that he had not the talents neceffary to write fuccefsfully for the stage, and never made another attempt in that species of compofition.

When asked how he felt upon the ill fuccefs of his tragedy, he replied, "Like the Monument;" meaning that he continued firm and unmoved as that column. And let it be remembered, as an admonition to the genus irritabile of dramatick writers, that this great man, instead of peevishly complaining of the bad taste of the town, fubmitted to its decision without a murmur. He had, indeed, upon all occafions a great deference for the general opinion: "A man (faid he) who writes a book, thinks himself wifer or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can inftruct or amuse them, and the publick to whom he appeals, must, after all, be the judges of his pretenfions."

On occafion of his play being brought upon the stage, Johnson had a fancy that as a dramatick authour his dress should be more gay than what he ordinarily wore; he therefore appeared behind the scenes, and even in one of the fide boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace. His necessary attendance while his play was in rehearsal, and during its performance, brought him acquainted with many of the performers of both sexes, which produced a more favourable opinion of their profession than he had harshly expressed in his Life of Savage. With fome of them he kept up an acquaintance as long as he and they lived, and was ever ready to shew them acts of kindness. He for a confiderable time used to frequent the Green Room, and seemed to take delight

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delight in diffipating his gloom, by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the Ætat. 40. motley circle then to be found there. Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick, that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement, from confiderations of rigid virtue, saying, "I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the filk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propenfities."

1750.

In 1750 he came forth in the character for which he was eminently qualified, a majestick teacher of moral and religious wisdom. The vehicle which he chose was that of a periodical paper, which he knew had been, upon former occafions, employed with great fuccess. The Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, were the last of the kind published in England, which had stood the

test of a long trial; and such an interval had now elapsed since their publication, as made him justly think that, to many of his readers, this form of instruction would, in fome degree, have the advantage of novelty. A few days before the first of his Essays came out, there started another competitor for fame in the fame form, under the title of "The Tatler Revived," which I believe was " born but to die." Johnson was, I think, not very happy in the choice of his title, "The Rambler," which certainly is not fuited to a feries of grave and moral difcourses; which the Italians have literally, but ludicrously, translated by Il Vagabondo; and which has been lately affumed as the denomination of a vehicle of licentious tales, "The Rambler's Magazine." He gave Sir Joshua Reynolds the following account of its getting this name: "What must be done, Sir, will be done. When I was to begin publishing that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I fat down at night upon my bedside, and refolved that I would not go to fleep till I had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it 3.

With what devout and confcientious sentiments this paper was undertaken, is evidenced by the following prayer, which he composed and offered up on the occafion: "Almighty God, the giver of all good things, without whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly; grant, I befcech Thee, that in this undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be with-held from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the falvation of myself and others: grant this, O LORD, for the fake of thy fon JESUS CHRIST. Amen."

3 I have heard Dr. Warton mention, that he was at Mr. Robert Dodsley's with the late Mr. Moore, and several others of his friends, confidering what should be the name of the periodical paper which Moore had undertaken. Garrick proposed the Sallad, which, by a curious coincidence, was afterwards applied to himself by Goldsmith:

"Our Garrick's a fallad, for in him we fee
"Oil, vinegar, fugar, and faltness agree!"

At laft the company having separated, without any thing of which they approved having been offered, Dodsley himself thought of The World.

help • Prayers and Meditations, p. 9.

The first paper of the Rambler was published on Tuesday the 20th of March, 1750; and its authour was enabled to continue it, without interruption, every Tuesday and Friday, till Saturday the 17th of March, 1752, on. which day it closed. This is a strong confirmation of the truth of a remark of his, which I have had occafion to quote elfewhere, that " a man may write at any time, if he will fet himself doggedly to it;" for, notwithstanding his conftitutional indolence, his depreffion of spirits, and his labour in carrying on his Dictionary, he answered the stated calls of the press twice a week from the stores of his mind, during all that time having received no assistance, except four billets in No. 10 by Mifs Mulfo, now Mrs. Chapone; No. 30, by Mrs. Catharine Talbot; No. 97, by Mr. Samuel Richardson, whom he defcribes in an introductory note as "An authour who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature, and taught the paffions to move at the command of virtue;" and Numbers 44 and 100, by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter.

Posterity will be aftonished when they are told, upon the authority of Johnfon himself, that many of these discourses, which we should suppose had been laboured with all the flow attention of literary leifure, were writen in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed. It can be accounted for only in this way; that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspection of life, he had accumulated a great fund of mifcellaneous knowledge, which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at his call, and which he had constantly accustomed himself to clothe in the most apt and energetick expression. Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him by what means he had attained his extraordinary accuracy and flow of language. He told him, that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occafion, and in every company; to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in; and that by conftant practice, and never fuffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the cleareft manner, it became habitual to him.

Yet he was not altogether unprepared as a periodical writer; for I have in my poffeffion a small duodecimo volume, in which he has written, in the

5 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 28.

form:

1750.

Ætat. 41.

!

1750.

Ætat. 41.

form of Mr. Locke's Common-Place Book, a variety of hints for essays on different fubjects. He has marked upon the first blank leaf of it, "To the 128th page, collections for the RAMBLER;" and in another place, “In fiftytwo there were seventeen provided; in 97-21; in 190-25." At a subsequent period (probably after the work was finished) he added, "In all, taken of provided materials, 30."

Sir John Hawkins, who is unlucky upon all occafions, tells us, that "this method of accumulating intelligence had been practised by Mr. Addifon, and is humourously described in one of the Spectators, wherein he feigns to have dropped his paper of notanda, consisting of a diverting medley of broken fentences and loose hints, which he tells us he had collected, and meant to make use of. Much of the fame kind is Johnson's Adverfaria"." But the truth is, that there is no resemblance at all between them. Addison's note was a fiction, in which unconnected fragments of his lucubrations were purpofely jumbled together, in as odd a manner as he could, in order to produce a laughable effect. Whereas Johnson's abbreviations are all diftinct, and applicable to each fubject of which the head is mentioned.

For instance, there is the following specimen :

" Youth's Entry, &c.

" Baxter's account of things in which he had changed his mind as he grew up. Voluminous. -No wonder.-If every man was to tell, or mark, on how many fubjects he has changed, it would make vols. but the changes not always observed by mans felf. From pleasure to bus. [business.] to quiet; from thoughtfulness to reflect. to piety; from diffipation to domeftic. by impercept. gradat. but the change is certain. Dial non progredi, progress. esse confpicimus. Look back, confider what was thought at some dist. period.

" Hope predom. in youth. Mind not willingly indulges unpleasing thoughts. The world lies all enameld before him, as a distant profpect fun-gilt";inequalities only found by coming to it. Love is to be all joy-children excellent-Fame to be constant-caresses of the great-applaufes of the learned-fmiles of Beauty.

"Fear of disgrace-Bashfulness-Finds things of less importance. Miscarriages forgot like excellencies;-if remembered, of no import. Danger of

• Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 268.

7 This most beautiful image of the enchanting delusion of youthful prospect has not been used in any of Johnson's essays.

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