I cannot agree that they exhibit the manner of each particular speaker, as Sir John Hawkins seems to think. But, indeed, what opinion can we have of his judgement, and taste in publick speaking, who presumes to give, as the characteristicks of two celebrated orators, 'the deep-mouthed rancour of Pulteney[1], and the yelping pertinacity of Pitt[2].'
This year I find that his tragedy of Irene had been for some time ready for the stage, and that Irene necessities made him desirous of getting as much as he could for it, without delay; for there is the following letter from Mr. Cave to Dr. Birch. in the same volume of manuscripts in the British Museum, from which I copied those above quoted. They were most obligingly pointed out to me by Sir William Musgrave, one of the Curators of that noble repository.
'I have put Mr. Johnson's play into Mr. Gray's[3] hands, in order to sell it to him, if he is inclined to buy it ; but 1 doubt whether he will or not. He would dispose of the copy, and whatever advantage may be made by acting it. Would your society[4] or any gentleman, or body of men that you know, take such a bargain? He and I are very unfit to deal with theatrical persons. Fleetwood was to have acted it last season, but Johnson's diffidence or [5] prevented it.'
I have already mentioned that Irene was not brought into publick notice till Garrick was manager of Drury-lane theatre.
- ↑ The characteristic of Pulteney's oratory is thus given in Hazlitt's Northcote's Conversations (p. 288):—'Old Mr. Tolcher used to say of the famous Pulteney—"My Lord Bath always speaks in blank verse."'
- ↑ Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 100. Boswell.
- ↑ A bookseller of London. Boswell.
- ↑ Not the Royal Society; but the Society for the encouragement of learning, of which Dr. Birch was a leading member. Their object was to assist authors in printing expensive works. It existed from about 1735 to 1746, when having incurred a considerable debt, it was dissolved. Boswell.
- ↑ There is no erasure here, but a mere blank; to fill up which may be an exercise for ingenious conjecture. Boswell.
