Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the king, he makes no attempt to punish him; and his death is at last effected by an incident which Hamlet had no part in producing.
The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme might easily have been formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.
The poet is accused of having shown little regard to poetical justice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the revenge which he demands is not obtained, but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification, which would arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious.
OTHELLO.
The beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection, inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; the cool malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance; the soft simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit, and conscious of innocence, her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she can be suspected, are such proofs of Shakespeare’s skill in human nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor’s conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him, are so artfully natural, that, though it will, perhaps, not be said of him as he says of himself, that he is “a man not easily jealous,” yet we cannot but pity him, when at last we find him “perplexed in the extreme.”
There is always danger, lest wickedness, conjoined with abilities, should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation; but the character of Iago is so conducted, that he is, from the first scene to the last, hated and despised.
Even the inferiour characters of this play would be very conspicuous in any other piece, not only for their justness, but their strength. Cassio is brave, benevolent and honest, ruined only by his want of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation. Roderigo’s suspicious credulity, and impatient submission to the cheats which he sees practised upon him, and which, by persuasion, he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend; and the virtue of Aemilia is such as we often find, worn loosely, but not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at atrocious villanies.
The scenes, from the beginning to the end, are busy, varied by happy interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story; and the narrative, in the end, though it tells but what is known already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.
Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been occasionally related, there had been little wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity.
The Play
17 Gough Square, north of Fleet Street, London — Johnsons’ home from 1748 to 1759, while he compiled his famous Dictionary
Inside the house, which now serves as a museum to the famous author. Out of the eighteen London residences lived in by the author, this is the only one to still remain standing.
IRENE
This tragedy, which was to be Johnson’s only play, was written between 1726 and 1749 and was considered by the author to be his greatest failure. First performed on 6 February 1749 in a production by his friend and former pupil, David Garrick, the play was a commercial success and earned Johnson more money than anything else he had written up to that point. It was never revived during his lifetime and there is no subsequent evidence of any other full-scale productions of Irene anywhere until 1999.
Johnson began writing the tragedy in his father’s bookshop, at a time when he had befriended Gilbert Walmesley, the Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield. Johnson would discuss Irene with Walmesley, reading him some of the early drafts. At one point, Walmesley told Johnson that “he was making Irene suffer so much in the first part of the play that there would be nothing left for her to suffer in the later part”. Johnson joked that there was “enough in reserve... I intend to put my heroine into the ecclesiastical court of Lichfield which will fill up the utmost measure of human calamity”.
Johnson next wrote a considerable part of the play while teaching at Edial Hall, his own established boarding school, in 1737. On one occasion David Garrick, Johnson’s student, performed a skit mocking the play. However, Irene was completed mostly at Mrs. Johnson’s urging, as she was fond of the story and hoped it would be a success. Her belief in the play inspired Johnson to finish the work and push to have it performed. When Edial Hall failed, Johnson travelled to London and brought the unfinished manuscript with him. He tried to submit Irene to Charles Fleetwood, the owner-manager of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, but Fleetwood rejected it on the grounds that there was no patron and his theatre was catering to other types of performances. Johnson tried in 1741 to have the play printed, but this too failed. He seems to have continued to revise it over the next several years, since a manuscript notebook contains draft material made not earlier than June 1746. It was not until Garrick took over as manager of Drury Lane Theatre that the play was guaranteed a production. By this time Johnson was hard at work on his Dictionary, but he found time for further revision work on Irene.
Johnson’s main source for the play was Richard Knolles’s Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603), which tells how the Sultan Mahomet conquers Constantinople in 1453 and captures a Greek Christian named Irene. He decides to take her as his mistress and while pursuing her romantically he ignores his duties as a monarch. Soon, the kingdom is falling apart from neglect and the subjects begin to riot, so Mahomet kills Irene to prove his dedication to his people. Johnson alters the story to emphasise the theme of Irene’s temptation. His Mahomet offers Irene a troubling arrangement: if she becomes a Muslim, he will preserve her life and give her power at his court.
The title page of the first edition
David Garrick (1717–1779) the renowned actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer that influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, was initially the pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson, helping him stage his one and only play, ‘Irene’.
CONTENTS
PREFATORY NOTICE TO THE TRAGEDY OF IRENE.
PROLOGUE.
PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.
ACT I. — SCENE I.
SCENE II.
SCENE III.
SCENE IV.
SCENE V.
ACT II. — SCENE I.
SCENE II.
SCENE III.
SCENE IV.
SCENE V.
SCENE VI.
SCENE VII.
ACT III. — SCENE I.
SCENE II.
SCENE III.
SCENE IV.
SCENE V.
SCENE VI.
SCENE VII.
SCENE VIII.
SCENE IX.
SCENE X.
SCENE XI.
ACT IV. — SCENE I.
SCENE II.
SCENE III.
SCENE IV.
SCENE V.
SCENE VI.
SCENE VII.
SCENE VIII.
SCENE IX.
ACT V. — SCENE I.
SCENE II.
SCENE III.
SCENE IV.
SCENE V.
SCENE VI.
SCENE VII.
SCENE VIII.
SCENE IX.
SCENE X.
SCENE XI.
SCENE XII.
SCENE XIII.
EPILOGUE.
Theatre Roy
al, Drury Lane, where this play was first performed
PREFATORY NOTICE TO THE TRAGEDY OF IRENE.
The history of this tragedy’s composition is interesting, as affording dates to distinguish Johnson’s literary progress. It was begun, and considerably advanced, while he kept a school at Edial, near Lichfield, in 1736. In the following year, when he relinquished the task of a schoolmaster, so little congenial with his mind and disposition, and resolved to seek his fortunes in the metropolis, Irene was carried along with him as a foundation for his success. Mr. Walmsley, one of his early friends, recommended him, and his fellow-adventurer, Garrick, to the notice and protection of Colson, the mathematician. Unless Mrs. Piozzi is correct, in rescuing the character of Colson from any identity with that of Gelidus, in the Rambler, Johnson entertained no lively recollection of his first patron’s kindness. He was ever warm in expressions of gratitude for favours, conferred on him in his season of want and obscurity; and from his deep silence here, we may conclude, that the recluse mathematician did not evince much sympathy with the distresses of the young candidate for dramatic fame. Be this, however, as it may, Johnson, shortly after this introduction, took lodgings at Greenwich, to proceed with his Irene in quiet and retirement, but soon returned to Lichfield, to complete it. The same year that saw these successive disappointments, witnessed also Johnson’s return to London, with his tragedy completed, and its rejection by Fleetwood, the patentee, at that time, of Drury lane theatre. Twelve years elapsed, before it was acted, and, after many alterations by his pupil and companion, Garrick, who was then manager of the theatre, it was, by his zeal, and the support of the most eminent performers of the day, carried through a representation of nine nights. Johnson’s profits, after the deduction of expenses, and together with the hundred pounds, which he received from Robert Dodsley, for the copy, were nearly three hundred pounds. So fallacious were the hopes cherished by Walmsley, that Johnson would “turn out a fine tragedy writer.”
“The tragedy of Irene,” says Mr. Murphy, “is founded on a passage in Knolles’s History of the Turks;” an author highly commended in the Rambler, No. 122. An incident in the life of Mahomet the great, first emperor of the Turks, is the hinge, on which the fable is made to move. The substance of the story is shortly this: — In 1453, Mahomet laid siege to Constantinople, and, having reduced the place, became enamoured of a fair Greek, whose name was Irene. The sultan invited her to embrace the law of the prophet, and to grace his throne. Enraged at this intended marriage, the janizaries formed a conspiracy to dethrone the emperor. To avert the impending danger, Mahomet, in a full assembly of the grandees, “catching, with one hand,” as Knolles relates it, “the fair Greek by the hair of her head, and drawing his falchion with the other, he, at one blow, struck off her head, to the great terror of them all; and, having so done, said unto them, ‘Now, by this, judge whether your emperor is able to bridle his affections or not.’” We are not unjust, we conceive, in affirming, that there is an interest kept alive in the plain and simple narrative of the old historian, which is lost in the declamatory tragedy of Johnson.
It is sufficient, for our present purpose, to confess that he has failed in this his only dramatic attempt; we shall endeavour, more fully, to show how he has failed, in our discussion of his powers as a critic. That they were not blinded to the defects of others, by his own inefficiency in dramatic composition, is fully proved by his judicious remarks on Cato, which was constructed on a plan similar to Irene: and the strongest censure, ever passed on this tragedy, was conveyed in Garrick’s application of Johnson’s own severe, but correct critique, on the wits of Charles, in whose works
“Declamation roar’d, while passion slept.”
“Addison speaks the language of poets,” says Johnson, in his preface to Shakespeare, “and Shakespeare of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties, which enamour us of its author, but we see nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments, or human actions; we place it with the fairest and the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning; but Othello is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of observation, impregnated by genius. Cato affords a splendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated and harmonious; but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart: the composition refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of Cato, but we think on Addison.” The critic’s remarks on the same tragedy, in his Life of Addison, are as applicable as the above to his own production. “Cato is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama; rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language, than a representation of natural affections, or of any state probable or possible in human life. Nothing here ‘excites or assuages emotion:’ here is no ‘magical power of raising phantastick terrour or wild anxiety.’ The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. Of the agents we have no care; we consider not what they are doing, or what they are suffering; we wish only to know what they have to say.”
But, while we thus pronounce Johnson’s failure in the production of dramatic effect, we will not withhold our tribute of admiration from Irene, as a moral piece. For, although a remark of Fox’s on an unpublished tragedy of Burke’s, that it was rather rhetorical than poetical, may be applied to the work under consideration; still it abounds, throughout, with the most elevated and dignified lessons of morality and virtue. The address of Demetrius to the aged Cali, on the dangers of procrastination; Aspasia’s reprobation of Irene’s meditated apostasy; and the allusive panegyric on the British constitution, may be enumerated, as examples of its excellence in sentiment and diction.
Lastly, we may consider Irene, as one other illustrious proof, that the most strict adherence to the far-famed unities, the most harmonious versification, and the most correct philosophy, will not vie with a single and simple touch of nature, expressed in simple and artless language. “But how rich in reputation must that author be, who can spare an Irene, and not feel the loss .”
PROLOGUE.
Ye glitt’ring train, whom lace and velvet bless,
Suspend the soft solicitudes of dress!
From grov’ling bus’ness and superfluous care,
Ye sons of avarice, a moment spare!
Vot’ries of fame, and worshippers of power,
Dismiss the pleasing phantoms for an hour!
Our daring bard, with spirit unconfin’d,
Spreads wide the mighty moral for mankind.
Learn here, how heaven supports the virtuous mind,
Daring, though calm; and vig’rous, though resign’d;
Learn here, what anguish racks the guilty breast,
In pow’r dependant, in success depress’d.
Learn here, that peace from innocence must flow;
All else is empty sound, and idle show.
If truths, like these, with pleasing language join;
Ennobled, yet unchang’d, if nature shine;
If no wild draught depart from reason’s rules;
Nor gods his heroes, nor his lovers fools;
Intriguing wits! his artless plot forgive;
And spare him, beauties! though his lovers live.
Be this, at least, his praise, be this his pride;
To force applause, no modern arts are try’d.
Should partial catcals all his hopes confound,
He bids no trumpet quell the fatal sound.
Should welcome sleep relieve the weary wit,
He rolls no thunders o’er the drowsy pit;
No snares, to captivate the judgment, spreads,
Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads.
Unmov’d, though witlings sneer, and rivals rail,
Studious to please, yet not asham’d to fail,
He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain,
With merit needless, and without it vain.
In reason, nature, truth, he dares to trust:
Ye fops, be silent: and,
ye wits, be just!
PERSONS OF THE DRAMA.
MEN.
MAHOMET, Emperour of the Turks, Mr. BARRY.
CALI BASSA, First vizier, Mr. BERRY.
MUSTAPHA, A Turkish aga, Mr. SOWDEN.
ABDALLA, An officer, Mr. HAVARD.
HASAN, / Mr. USHER,
Turkish captains,
CARAZA, / Mr. BURTON.
DEMETRIUS, / Mr. GARRICK,
Greek noblemen,
LEONTIUS, / MR. BLAKES.
MURZA, An eunuch, Mr. KING.
WOMEN.
ASPASIA, / Mrs. GIBBER,
Greek ladies,
IRENE, / Mrs. PRITCHARD.
Attendants on IRENE.
ACT I. — SCENE I.
DEMETRIUS and LEONTIUS, in Turkish habits.
LEONTIUS.
And, is it thus Demetrius meets his friend,
Hid in the mean disguise of Turkish robes,
With servile secrecy to lurk in shades,
And vent our suff’rings in clandestine groans?
DEMETRIUS.
Till breathless fury rested from destruction,
These groans were fatal, these disguises vain:
But, now our Turkish conquerors have quench’d
Their rage, and pall’d their appetite of murder,
No more the glutted sabre thirsts for blood;
And weary cruelty remits her tortures.
LEONTIUS.
Yet Greece enjoys no gleam of transient hope,
No soothing interval of peaceful sorrow:
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson Page 597
