forted to for the purpose of exhilaration, or that, at times, he should find entertainment in turning over Knolles's voluminous and neglected hiftory of the Tuks. In the many hours of leifure which he may be faid rather to have endured than enjoyed, we must fuppofe fome employed in the contemplation of his fortunes, the means of improving them, and of refifting the adverfe accidents to which human life is expofed, and of which he had already had fome experience. The stage holds forth temptations to men of genius, which many have been glad to embrace : the profits arifing from a tragedy, including the reprefentation and printing of it, and the connections it fometimes enables the author to form, were in Johnfon's idea ineftimable; and, it is not impoffible, but that Garrick, who, before this time, had manifefted a propensity towards the ftage, had fuggested to him the thought of writing one: certain it is, that during his refidence at Edial, and under the eye of his friend Mr. WalmЛley, he planned and completed that poem which gave this gentleman occafion to fay, he was likely to become a fine tragedy-writer. He chofe for his ftory an action related by Knolles in his history above-mentioned with all the powers of the most affecting eloquence: to give it at large would be to tranfgrefs the limits I have prefcribed myself, and to abridge it would injure it: I will do neither; but referring the reader to the hiftorian himself, will relate it as a bare hiftorical fact. Mahomet the Great, firft emperor of the Turks, in the year 1453 laid fiege to the city of Conftantinople, then poffeffed by the Greeks, and, after an obftinate refistance, took and facked it. Among the many young young women whom his commanders thought fit to lay hands on and prefent to him, was one, named Irene, a Greek, of incomparable beauty and fuch rare perfection of body and mind, that the emperor becoming enamoured of her, neglected the care of his government and empire for two whole years, and thereby fo exasperated the Janizaries and other of his warlike fubjects, that they mutinied, and threatened to dethrone him. To prevent this mischief, Mustapha Baffa, a perfon of great credit with him, undertook to represent to him the great danger to which he lay exposed by the indulgence of his paffion: he called to his remembrance the characters, actions, and atchievements of many of his predeceffors, and the ftate of his government; and, in fhort, fo roufed him from his lethargy, that he took a horrible refolution to filence the clamours of his people, by the facrifice of this admirable creature: accordingly, on a future day, he commanded her to be dreffed and adorned in the richest manner that the and her attendants could devife, and against a certain hour iffued orders for the nobility and leaders of his army to attend him in the great hall of his palace. When they were all affembled, himfelf appeared with great pomp and magnificence, leading his late captive, but now abfolute mistress, by the hand, unconscious of guilt and ignorant of his defign. With a furious and menacing look, he gave the beholders to understand, that he knew the cause of their difcontent, and that he meant to remove it; but bade them first view that Jady, whom he ftill held with his left hand, and fay whether any of them being poffeffed of a jewel fo rare and precious, a woman fo lovely and fair, would for for any cause forego her; to which they answered, that he had great reafon for his affection towards her. To this the emperor replied, that this being their opinion, he would convince them that his actions were in his own power, and that he was yet master of himself. And having fo faid,' fays my author, presently with one of his hands catching the fair Greek by the hair of the head, and drawing his falchion with the other, he, at one blow, ftruck off her head, to the great terror of them all; and • having fo done, faid unto them, " Now by this, « judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his "affections or not."* It no where appears that, in this journey to London, Mrs. Johnson was one of the company; it is rather to be conjectured, that her husband, having abandoned the hope of fucceeding in his attempt to raise a school, left to her the care of the houfe, and the management of the fmall part of her fortune, which, after the fitting up and furnishing the fame, together with two years' expenditure, must be fuppofed to be left; and, that this could be no other than finall, may be inferred from her natural temper, • Two tragedies founded on this ftory had already appeared, before Johnfon conceived his intention of producing a third. The former of thefe was written by Gilbert Swinhoe, Efq; a native of Northumberland, who lived temp. Car. I. & Car. II.; and was published in 4to. 1658, with the title of Unhappy Fair Irene her Tragedy. See Langbaine's Account of Dramatic Poets, edit. 1691, p. 499. Of the latter, entitled, Irene or the Fair Greek, 4to. 1708, one Charles Goring, Efq; fuppofed to be the fame perfon with one of that name who was of Magdalen college, Oxford, and in 1687 took the degree of Mafter of Arts, was the author. See Biographia Dramatica, art. Goring, Charles, Efq. which it is faid was as little difpofed to parfimony as that of her husband. It is not my intention to pursue the history of Mr. Garrick's progrefs in life, both because I have not taken upon me to be his biographer, and, becaufe the principal events of it occur in the memoirs of him, written with great candour and, I dare fay, truth, by Mr. Thomas Davies, and by him published in two volumes, octavo; but the courfe of this narration requires me occafionally to mention fuch particulars concerning him, as in any manner conne& him with the subject I am engaged in; and this leads me to mention a fact concerning them both, that I had from a perfon now living, who was a witnefs to it, and of whofe veracity the leaft doubt cannot be entertained. They had been but a fhort time in London before the stock of money that each fet out with, was nearly exhausted; and, though they had not, like the prodigal fon, wafted their fubftance. in riotous living,' they began, like him, to be in want. In this extremity, Garrick suggested the thought of obtaining credit from a tradefiman, whom he had a flight knowledge of, Mr. Wilcox, a bookfeller, in the Strand: to him they applied, and reprefenting themselves to him, as they really were, two young men, friends, and travellers from the fame place, and just arrived with a view to fettle here, he was fo moved with their artlefs tale, that, on their joint note, he advanced them all that their modefty would permit them to afk, (five pounds), which was, foon after, punctually repaid, C It has been before related, that Johnfon had engaged his pen in the fervice of Cave; as it feems, under under fome fictitious name, perhaps, that common one of Smith, which he directs Cave to addrefs him by, in his letter of 25th Nov. 1734. Being now come to town, and determined, or rather conftrained, to rely on the labour of his brain for fupport, he, to improve the correfpondence he had formed, thought proper to difcover himself, and in his real name to communicate to Cave a project which he had formed, and which the following letter will explain: • SIR, Greenwich, next door to the Golden-Heart, Having obferved in your papers very uncom⚫ mon offers of encouragement to men of letters, I ⚫ have chofen, being a stranger in London, to communicate to you the following defign, which, I hope, if you join in it, will be of advantage to < both of us. The hiftory of the Council of Trent, having been lately tranflated into French, and published with large notes by Dr. Le Courayer, the reputation of that book is fo much revived in England, that, it is prefumed, a new tranflation of it from the Italian, together with Le Courayer's notes from the French, could not fail of a favourable reception. • If it be answered that the history is already in English, it must be remembered that there was .. the fame objection against Le Courayer's undertaking, with this difadvantage, that the French had a verfion by one of their best tranflators, whereas you cannot read three pages of the English'hiftory without difcovering that the ftyle is capable of < great |