38

“IRENE” ON THE STAGE.

to the boards of Drury Lane. But not without considerable difficulty even now; for Garrick had decided that without several alterations the play was unfitted for representation. Johnson proved rebellious, and a violent quarrel ensued. "Sir," said he to a friendly mediator, "the fellow wants me to make Mahomet run mad, that he may have an opportunity of tossing his hands and kicking his heels." The enraged dramatist was at last prevailed upon to allow a few changes, that the tragedy might have at least a chance of success. Doctor Adams, who was present on the first night of its representation, gives the following description of the scene: "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, soothed the audience, and the play went off tolerably, till it came to the conclusion, when Mrs. Pritchard, the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon the stage, and was to speak two lines with the bow-string 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 "damned" passage was afterwards deleted, and the lady, very properly declining to die so much against the will of the audience, allowed herself to be quietly despatched behind the scenes. But all would not suffice. The very best actors did their very best work in its behalf; but, after dragging out a weary existence of nine days (nine days of wonder that the thing was living so long), it peacefully gave up the ghost, and was seen no more. The author had his three nights' profits, however, and from Mr. Robert Dodsley he received 100l. as the price of the copy so that, in a pecuniary respect, "Irene" was not such a failure after all.

When Johnson was asked how he brooked the ill-success of his tragedy, he replied, "like the Monument." He did not lash himself into fury because the public had declared him no dramatist; he had appealed to the public, and, as he himself said, "the public must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions." One little anecdote of his behaviour while his tragedy was being represented must not be omitted. He had decided that it was. becoming in a great dramatist to dress differently and more

"IRENE" ON THE STAGE.

39

gorgeously while his work was before the world; he therefore appeared behind the scenes, and even in one of the side-boxes in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and a gold-laced hat. He observed to a friend that "when in that dress he could not treat people with the same ease as when in his usual plain clothes.' The sage moralist had not read "Sartor Resartus," but he had used his eyes too well not to see that clothes have a great deal to do with the making of a man.

There were two classes of people whom Johnson seems to have had almost a constitutional tendency to inveigh against: actors and Scotchmen. JOHNSON: "Players, Sir ! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs."—" But, Sir, you will allow that some players are better than others?" JOHNSON : "Yes, Sir, as some dogs dance better than others." And of his attacks upon the Scotch there was no end.

But circumstances were gradually bringing about a modification in his harsh judgments of both these classes. His dictionary labours connected him almost hourly with honest and hard-working Scotchmen, and the performance and rehearsal of his play had now shown him many good qualities in the much-despised actors and actresses. From this time forward to his death he kept up acquaintance with some of these, and was always ready to do them a kindness. For a good while after the public appearance of "Irene" Johnson was a pretty frequent visitor to the Green Room; but his virtue by-and-by took alarm, and he fled from this novel temptation. "I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities."

As a poem "Irene" is not devoid of merit, but it is not, in any sense, a drama. There is no life in it, no action, no characterization. All the dramatis personæ are but the author himself under the flimsiest of veils; even Irene, the heroine, is only, in Garrick's words applied to a different case, "Johnson in petticoats." There is only one real person in the play, and that is the author. Every

40

"IRENE" ON THE STAGE.

body is like everybody else, and everybody else is like Johnson. Goldsmith was right when he said that if Johnson had tried to compose fables, after the fashion of Æsop, he would have made "the little fishes talk like great whales." The fact is, there was no vestige of the dramatic faculty in his nature; and his failure on this occasion was so complete that he never attempted this sort of work again. One or two small pieces excepted, "Irene" was the last of Johnson's poetical efforts also. And we are not sorry that this element in his life and work is dropping out of our sight thus early; for, with all our willingness to do justice to the thing called poetry in that period of our literature, the influences of a poetical school so utterly different, and, as we think, so infinitely grander, have played upon us so long and to such fine issues, that we can hardly allow the sacred name of poetry to anything which does not breathe and burn-as the verse-compositions of that age scarcely ever do. As little episodes in the writer's own inner life Johnson's poems were all-important to him, and are still interesting to us; but as solid contributions to the poetical literature of our country they are almost valueless. Yet the attempt was good, and did him good; and if the result of his endeavour was only one other proof of the "vanity of human wishes," the desire expressed in it to rise into the clear heaven of song, and to make his great thoughts march grandly to their own music, is something that must enter into the very foreground of any true picture of JOHNSON THE MAN.

"THE RAMBLER.”

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CHAPTER VI.

THE RAMBLER”—JOHNSON'S STYLE-HIS WIFE's death.

(1750-1752.)

SINCE the death of Steele's "Guardian" in 1712, periodical writing in this country had been directed almost exclusively towards political subjects. But, in 1750, Johnson made an effort to bring it back to literature once more by the publication of the first number of "The Rambler," which appeared on Tuesday, the 20th of March, that year. In this publication he put forth his first decided claim to a distinct place among British Essayists. The title of the work scarcely suits its matter; for "The Rambler" is anything but rambling, either as regards the subjects chosen or the manner in which they are treated. Not crinolines, patches on ladies' faces, fans, and trifling little fashions are here discussed; but solemn figures, like Ambition, Revenge, Life, Death, move over its pages, and with a kind of gloomy grandeur in their air, which is the direct outcome of one portion, and that not the least imposing portion, of Johnson's noble nature. There are, indeed, lighter papers interspersed; but even these are, most of them, only stately moral essays trying to fancy themselves easy, genial reading. Notwithstanding the rollicking title of these papers, let not him that runs try to read them, and never let any one dream of opening a Rambler in a railway carriage. Johnson was conscious of this misnomer himself: he once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, "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 sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. The 'Rambler' seemed the best that occurred, and I took it." The Italians have unconously put the absurdity of the name in its strongest light by

42

"THE RAMBLER."

their translation of it into their own language in the form of "II Vagabondo."

But all this seems mere trifling and wretched quibbling in the face of a grand fact like the following: "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 beseech Thee, that in this undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others grant this, O Lord, for the sake of thy Son, Jesus Christ. Amen." Here is a man who dare not write an essay even, except in the name of the Lord! It is a most beautiful and refreshing fact. For this is a strong man, and no sentimentalist; a broad man, and no bigot; a religious man, and no fanatic: and this prayer of his is well worth recording.

"The Rambler" was published twice a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and went on without interruption till the 14th of March, 1752-when it breathed its last. Before he undertook the work at all the author had no doubt collected materials for many of the future papers, arranging them in the form of notes. The following specimen of these Notanda may interest the reader: it is a rough draft of the 196th number of "The Rambler":—

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 subjects he has changed, it would make vols. but the changes not always observed by man's self.From pleasure to bus. [business] to quiet; from thoughtfulness to reflect. to piety; from dissipation to domestic. by impercept. gradat. but the change is certain. Dial non progredi progress. esse conspicimus. Look back, consider what was thought at some dist. period.

"Hope predom. in youth. Mind not willingly indulges unpleasing thoughts. The world lies enamelled before him, as a distant prospect sun-gilt ;-the qualities only found by coming to it. Love is to be all joy-children excellent-Fame to be constantcaresses of the great-applauses of the learned-smiles of Beauty.