[966] Juvenal, Sat. iii. 1.
'Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel,
When injured Thales bids the town farewell,
Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend,
I praise the hermit, but regret the friend;
Resolved at length from vice and London far
To breathe in distant fields a purer air,
And fixed on Cambria's solitary shore
Give to St. David one true Briton more.'
Johnson's London, l. 1.
[967] Mr. Garrick. BOSWELL.
[968] Mr. Dodsley, the Authour of Cleone. BOSWELL. Garrick, according to Davies, had rejected Dodsley's Cleone, 'and had termed it a cruel, bloody, and unnatural play.' Davies's Garrick, i. 223. Johnson himself said of it:—'I am afraid there is more blood than brains.' Post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. The night it was brought out at Covent Garden, Garrick appeared for the first time as Marplot in the Busy Body at Drury Lane. The next morning he wrote to congratulate Dodsley on his success, and asked him at the same time to let him know how he could support his interest without absolutely giving up his own. To this Dodsley returned a cold reply. Garrick wrote back as follows:—
'Master Robert Dodsley,
When I first read your peevish answer to my well-meant proposal to you, I was much disturbed at it—but when I considered, that some minds cannot bear the smallest portion of success, I most sincerely pitied you; and when I found in the same letter, that you were graciously pleased to dismiss me from your acquaintance, I could not but confess so apparent an obligation, and am with due acknowledgements,
Master Robert Dodsley,
Your most obliged
David Garrick.'