Life of Johnson Volume I Part 68

[574] In the original _Inquirer_.

[575] '... nonumque prematur in annum.' Horace, _Ars Poet_. l. 388.

[576] 'Of all authors,' wrote Johnson, 'those are the most wretched who exhibit their productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate first the manager and then the public. Many an humble visitant have I followed to the doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch the knocker with a shaking hand, and after long deliberation adventure to solicit entrance by a single knock.' _Works_, v. 360.

[577] Mahomet was, in fact, played by Mr. Barry, and Demetrius by Mr.

Garrick: but probably at this time the parts were not yet cast. BOSWELL.

[578] The expression used by Dr. Adams was 'soothed.' I should rather think the audience was _awed_ 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 sound; Should welcome sleep 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.

Unmov'd, though witlings sneer and rivals rail, Studious to please, yet not asham'd to fail, He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain, With merit needless, and without it vain; In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust; Ye fops be silent, and ye wits be just!'

BOSWELL.

[579] Johnson said of Mrs. Pritchard's playing in general that 'it was quite mechanical;' _post_, April 7, 1775. See also _post_ under Sept. 30, 1783.

[580] 'The strangling of Irene in the view of the audience was suggested by Mr. Garrick.' Davies's _Garrick_, i. 128. Dryden in his _Essay of Dramatick Poesie_ (edit. 1701, i. 13), says:--'I have observed that in all our tragedies the audience cannot forbear laughing when the actors are to die; 'tis the most comick part of the whole play.' 'Suppose your Piece admitted, acted; one single ill-natured jest from the pit is sufficient to cancel all your labours.' Goldsmith's _Present State of Polite Learning_, chap. x.

[581] In her last speech two of the seven lines are very bad:--

'Guilt and despair, pale spectres! grin around me, And stun me with the yellings of d.a.m.nation!'

Act v. sc. 9.

[582] Murphy referring to Boswell's statement says:--'The Epilogue, we are told in a late publication, was written by Sir William Young. This is a new discovery, but by no means probable. When the appendages to a Dramatic Performance are not a.s.signed to a friend, or an unknown hand, or a person of fashion, they are always supposed to be written by the author of the Play.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 154. He overlooks altogether the statement in the _Gent. Mag_. (xix. 85) that the Epilogue is 'by another hand.' Mr. Croker points out that the words 'as Johnson informed me' first appear in the second edition. The wonder is that Johnson accepted this Epilogue, which is a little coa.r.s.e and a little profane.

Yonge was Secretary at War in Walpole's ministry. Walpole said of him 'that nothing but Yonge's character could keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character.' Horace Walpole's _Letters_, i. 98, note.

[583] I know not what Sir John Hawkins means by the _cold reception_ of _Irene_. (See note, p. 192.) I was at the first representation, and most of the subsequent. It was much applauded the first night, particularly the speech on _to-morrow_ [Act iii. sc. 2]. It ran nine nights at least.

It did not indeed become a stock-play, but there was not the least opposition during the representation, except the first night in the last act, where Irene was to be strangled on the stage, which _John_ could not bear, though a dramatick poet may stab or slay by hundreds. The bow-string was not a Christian nor an ancient Greek or Roman death. But this offence was removed after the first night, and Irene went off the stage to be strangled.--BURNEY.

[584] According to the _Gent. Mag_. (xix. 76) 'it was acted from Monday, Feb. 6, to Monday, Feb. 20, inclusive.' A letter in the _Garrick Corres_, (i. 32), dated April 3, 1745, seems to shew that so long a run was uncommon. The writer addressing Garrick says:--'You have now performed it [_Tancred_] for nine nights; consider the part, and whether nature can well support the frequent repet.i.tion of such shocks. Permit me to advise you to resolve not to act upon any account above three times a week.' Yet against this may be set the following pa.s.sage in the _Rambler_, No. l23:--'At last a malignant author, whose performance I had persecuted through the nine nights, wrote an epigram upon Tape the critic, which drove me from the pit for ever.' Murphy writing in 1792 said that _Irene_ had not been exhbited on any stage since its first representation. Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 52.

[585] Mr. Croker says that 'it appears by a MS. note in Isaac Reed's copy of Murphy's Life, that the receipts of the third, sixth, and ninth nights, after deducting sixty guineas a night for the expenses of the house, amounted to 195 17s.: Johnson cleared therefore, with the copyright, very nearly 300.' _Irene_ was sold at the price of 1s. 6d. a copy (_Gent. Mag_. xix. 96); so that Dodsley must have looked for a very large sale.

[586] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_ for Johnson's estimate of _Irene_ in later life.

[587] Aaron Hill (vol. ii. p. 355), in a letter to Mr. Mallett, gives the following account of _Irene_ after having seen it: 'I was at the anomalous Mr. Johnson's benefit, and found the play his proper representative; strong sense ungraced by sweetness or decorum.' BOSWELL.

[588] See _ante_, p. 102

[589] Murphy (_Life_, p. 53) says that some years afterwards, when he knew Johnson to be in distress, he asked Garrick why he did not produce another tragedy for his Lichfield friend? Garrick's answer was remarkable: "When Johnson writes tragedy, declamation roars, and pa.s.sion sleeps: when Shakespeare wrote; he dipped his pen in his own heart."

Johnson was perhaps aware of the causes of his failure as a tragedy-writer. In his criticism of Addison's _Cato_ he says: 'Of _Cato_ it has been not unjustly determined that it is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language than a representation of natural affections, or any state probable or possible in human life ... The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow.... Its success has introduced or confirmed among us the use of dialogue too declamatory, of unaffecting elegance and chill philosophy.' _Works_, vii. 456. 'Johnson thought: _Cato_ the best model of tragedy we had; yet he used to say, of all things the most ridiculous would be to see a girl cry at the representation of it.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 207. _Cato_, if neglected, has added at least eight 'habitual quotations' to the language (see Thackeray's _English Humourists_, p. 98). _Irene_ has perhaps not added a single one. It has neverthingless some quotable lines, such as--

'Crowds that hide a monarch from himself.' Act i. sc. 4.

'To cant ... of reason to a lover.'

Act iii. sc. 1.

'When e'en as love was breaking off from wonder, And tender accents quiver'd on my lips.' Ib.

'And fate lies crowded in a narrow s.p.a.ce.' Act iii. sc. 6.

'Reflect that life and death, affecting sounds, Are only varied modes of endless being.' Act ii. sc. 8.

'Directs the planets with a careless nod.' Ib.

'Far as futurity's untravell'd waste.'

Act iv. sc. 1.

'And wake from ignorance the western world.' Act iv. sc. 2.

'Through hissing ages a proverbial coward, The tale of women, and the scorn of fools.' Act iv. sc. 3.

'No records but the records of the sky.' Ib.

'... thou art sunk beneath reproach.'

Act v. sc. 2.

'Oh hide me from myself.'

Act v. sc. 3.

[590] Johnson wrote of Milton:--'I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.'

Johnson's _Works_, vii. 108.

[591]

'Genus irritabile vatum.'

'The fretful tribe of rival poets.'

Francis, _Horace_, Ep. ii. 2. 102.

[592] This deference he enforces in many pa.s.sages in his writings; as for instance:--'Dryden might have observed, that what is good only because it pleases, cannot be p.r.o.nounced good till it has been found to please.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 252. 'The authority of Addison is great; yet the voice of the people, when to please the people is the purpose, deserves regard.' _Ib_. 376. 'About things on which the public thinks long, it commonly attains to think right.' _Ib_. 456. 'These apologies are always useless: "de gustibus non est disputandum;" men may be convinced, but they cannot be pleased against their will.' _Ib_.

viii. 26. 'Of things that terminate in human life, the world is the proper judge; to despise its sentence, if it were possible, is not just; and if it were just, is not possible.' _Ib_. viii. 316. Lord Chesterfield in writing to his son about his first appearance in the world said, 'You will be tried and judged there, not as a boy, but as a man; and from that moment _there is no appeal for character_.' Lord Chesterfield's _Letters_, iii. 324. Addison in the _Guardian_, No. 98, had said that 'men of the best sense are always diffident of their private judgment, till it receives a sanction from the public. _Provoco ad populum_, I appeal to the people, was the usual saying of a very excellent dramatic poet, when he had any disputes with particular persons about the justness and regularity of his productions.' See _post_, March 23, 1783.

[593] 'Were I,' he said, 'to wear a laced or embroidered waistcoat, it should be very rich. I had once a very rich laced waistcoat, which I wore the first night of my tragedy.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct.

27, 1773.

[594] 'Topham Beauclerc used to give a pleasant description of this greenroom finery, as related by the author himself: 'But,' said Johnson, with great gravity, 'I soon laid aside my gold-laced hat, lest it should make me proud.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 52. In _The Idler_ (No. 62) we have an account of a man who had longed to 'issue forth in all the splendour of embroidery.' When his fine clothes were brought, 'I felt myself obstructed,' he wrote, 'in the common intercourse of civility by an uneasy consciousness of my new appearance; as I thought myself more observed, I was more anxious about my mien and behaviour; and the mien which if formed by care is commonly ridiculous.'

[595] See _ante_, p. 167.

[596] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_.

[597] _The Tatler_ came to an end on Jan 2, 1710-1; the first series of _The Spectator_ on Dec 6, 1712; and the second series of _The Spectator_ on December 20, 1714.

[598] 'Two new designs have appeared about the middle of this month [March, 1750], one ent.i.tled, _The Tatler Revived; or The Christian Philosopher and Politician_, half a sheet, price 2_d_. (stamped); the other, _The Rambler_, three half sheets (un-stamped); price 2_d_.'

_Gent. Mag_. xx. 126.

[599] Pope's _Essay on Man_, ii. 10.

[600] See _post_, under Oct. 12, 1779.

[601] I have heard Dr. Warton mention, that he was at Mr. Robert Dodsley's with the late Mr. Moore, and several of his friends, considering 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 sallad, for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!'

[_Retaliation_, line II.]