Garrick Corres., i. 80 (where the letters that passed are wrongly dated 1757). Mrs. Bellamy in her Life (iii. 109) says that on the evening of the performance she was provoked by something that Dodsley said, 'which,' she continues, 'made me answer that good man with a petulance which afterwards gave me uneasiness. I told him that I had a reputation to lose as an actress; but, as for his piece, Mr. Garrick had anticipated the damnation of it publicly, the preceding evening, at the Bedford Coffee-house, where he had declared that it could not pass muster, as it was the very worst piece ever exhibited.' Shenstone (Works, iii. 288) writing five weeks after the play was brought out, says:—'Dodsley is now going to print his fourth edition. He sold 2000 of his first edition the very first day he published it.' The price was eighteen-pence.
[969] Mrs. Bellamy (Life, iii. 108) says that Johnson was present at the last rehearsal. 'When I came to repeat, "Thou shalt not murder," Dr. Johnson caught me by the arm, and that somewhat too briskly, saying, at the same time, "It is a commandment, and must be spoken, Thou shalt not murder." As I had not then the honour of knowing personally that great genius, I was not a little displeased at his inforcing his instructions with so much vehemence.' The next night she heard, she says, amidst the general applause, 'the same voice which had instructed me in the commandment, exclaim aloud from the pit, "I will write a copy of verses upon her myself." I knew that my success was insured.' See post, May 11, 1783.
[970] Dodsley had published his London and his Vanity of Human Wishes (ante, pp. 124, 193), and had had a large share in the Dictionary, (ante, p. 183).
[971] It is to this that Churchill refers in the following lines:—
'Let them [the Muses] with Glover o'er Medea doze;
Let them with Dodsley wail Cleone's woes,
Whilst he, fine feeling creature, all in tears,
Melts as they melt, and weeps with weeping Peers.'
The Journey. Poems, ii. 328.
[972] See post p. 350, note.
[973] Mr. Samuel Richardson, authour of Clarissa. BOSWELL.
[974] In 1753 when in Devonshire he charged five guineas a head (Taylor's Reynolds, i. 89); shortly afterwards, when he removed to London, twelve guineas (ib. p. 101); in 1764, thirty guineas; for a whole length 150 guineas (ib. p. 224). Northcote writes that 'he sometimes has lamented the being interrupted in his work by idle visitors, saying, "those persons do not consider that my time is worth to me five guineas an hour."' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 83.
[975] 'Miss Reynolds at first amused herself by painting miniature portraits, and in that part of the art was particularly successful. In her attempts at oil-painting, however, she did not succeed, which made Reynolds say jestingly, that her pictures in that way made other people laugh and him cry; and as he did not approve of her painting in oil, she generally did it by stealth.' Ib. ii. 160.