and despair, pale spectres! grin around me,
And stun me with the yellings of damnation!’
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 assigned 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 coarse 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 repetition 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 passage 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 passion 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
space.’ 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 passages in his writings; as for instance:—‘Dryden might have observed, that what is good only because it pleases, cannot be pronounced 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