success, manager of Drury Lane Theatre. The relation between him
and his old preceptor was of a very singular kind. They repelled
each other strongly, and yet attracted each other strongly.
Nature had made them of very different clay; and circumstances
had fully brought out the natural peculiarities of both. Sudden
prosperity had turned Garrick's head. Continued adversity had
soured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw with more envy than became
so great a man the villa, the plate, the china, the Brussels
carpet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with
grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men had written; and the
exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought
that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he
could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was
impossible to despise, scarcely any compliment not acidulated
with scorn. Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early
recollections in common, and sympathised with each other on so
many points on which they sympathised with nobody else in the
vast population of the capital, that, though the master was often
provoked by the monkey-like impertinence of the pupil, and the
pupil by the bearish rudeness of the master, they remained
friends till they were parted by death. Garrick now brought
Irene out, with alterations sufficient to displease the author,
yet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the audience.
The public, however, listened with little emotion, but with much
civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. After nine
representations the play was withdrawn. It is, indeed,
altogether unsuited to the stage, and, even when perused in the
closet, will be found hardly worthy of the author. He had not
the slightest notion of what blank verse should be. A change in
the last syllable of every other line would make the