386 Essay on
��Johnson thought the opportunity fair to think of his tragedy of Irene, which was his whole stock on his first arrival in town, in the year 1737. That play was accordingly put into rehearsal in January 1749. As a precursor to prepare the way, and awaken the public attention, The Vanity of Human Wishes, a Poem in Imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, by the Author of London, was published in the same month T . In the Gentleman's Magazine, for February, 1749, we find that the tragedy of Irene was acted at Drury-lane, on Monday, February the 6th, and from that time, without interruption, to Monday, February the 2oth, being in all thirteen nights 2 . Since that time it has not been exhibited on any stage. Irene may be added to some other plays in our language, which have lost their place in the theatre, but continue to please in the closet. During the representation of this piece, Johnson attended every night behind the scenes. Conceiving that his character, as an author, required some ornament for his person, he chose, upon that occasion, to decorate himself with a handsome waistcoat, and a gold-laced hat. The late Mr. Topham Beauclerc, who had had a great deal of that humour which pleases the more for seeming undesigned 3 , used to give a pleasant description of this Green-room finery, as related by the author himself ; * But,' said
1 Life, i. 192. Gibber's Lives of the Poets, v. 339, Irene &&& Tom Jones are announced where it is stated that 'George Lillo
in the Gentleman's Magazine for rather chose George Barnwell should
February, p. 96. take its fate in the summer than run
2 In the Gentleman's Magazine for the more hazardous fate of encounter- 1749, p. 76, it is stated that 'Irene ing the winter criticks.'
was acted from Monday, Feb. 6, to 3 Johnson, speaking of Beauclerk,
Monday, Feb. 20, inclusive.' Accord- said, that ' no man ever was so free
ing to Boswell and Hawkins, it was when he was going to say a good
only acted nine nights. Life, i. 197 ; thing, from a look that expressed
Hawkins, p. 199. that it was coming ; or, when he
Gibbon, in a note to the Decline had said it, from a look that ex-
and Fall, ed. 1802, xii. 223, attacks pressed that it had come.' Life, ">
'the extravagance of the rant' in 425.
one of Mahomet's speeches. ' His Another time he said : ' Every-
passion soars above sense and thing comes from him so easily. It
reason.' appears to me that I labour when
The winter season was a trying I say a good thing.' Ib. v. 76. time for a new play, as is shown in
Johnson,
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