that his hero is the principal Englishman of letters throughout the rich second half of the eighteenth century. In this Johnson is unique. Coleridge, for instance, was much more than a writer of readable works in prose and verse; but let an age arrive in which the _Ancient Mariner_, _Christabel_, and the _Biographia Literaria_ are no longer read or admired, and Coleridge will scarcely be able, on the score of his personality alone, to retain his lofty position among men of letters. Yet this is what Johnson promises to succeed in continuing to do. No one will ever say again, with Byron, that the _Lives of the Poets_ is “the finest critical work extant,” but that does not make Johnson ever so little a less commanding figure to us than he was to Byron. Let us consider for one moment the case of the unfortunate tragedy of _Irene_. There are very few of us who are capable of placing our hands upon our bosoms in the open sight of heaven and swearing that we have ever read it quite through. The _Mourning Bride_ still counts its admirers, and even _Cato_, but not _Irene_. Who among the staunchest and strongest Johnsonians can tell what hero it was that confessed, and upon what occasion, “I thought (forgive me, fair!) the noblest aim, The strongest effort of a female soul Was but to choose the graces of the day.” without peeping furtively at the text? Nevertheless _Irene_ lives and always will live in the memory of men. But while other dramas exist on the strength of their dramatic qualities, this of Johnson’s lives on the personal qualities of the author himself. It is not the blank, blank verse, nor the heroine’s reflections regarding the mind of the Divine Being, nor the thrilling Turkish fable, nor the snip-snap dialogue about prodigies between Leontius and Demetrius, that preserves the memory of this tragedy. It is the anecdote of how Walmsley asked, melted by the sorrows of Irene, “How can you possibly contrive to plunge her into deeper calamity?” and how Johnson answered, with a reference to his friend’s office, “Sir, I can put her into the spiritual court!” It is the eagerness which George III. expressed to possess the original MS. of the play. It is the monstrous folly which made Cave suppose that the Royal Society would be a likely body to purchase the copyright of it. It is the screams of the audience at Drury Lane when they saw Mrs. Pritchard with the bowstring round her neck. It is the garb in which Johnson insisted on dressing to look on at the performance, in a scarlet waistcoat, and with a gold-laced hat on his head. It is the tragedian’s unparalleled frankness about the white silk stockings. These are the things which we recall when _Irene_ is mentioned, and if the play had been performed in dumb show, if it had been a ballet, an opera, or a farce, its place in literary history would be just where it is, no higher and no lower. Such is the curious fate which attends all Johnson’s works, the most interesting of them is