"His necessary attendance while his play was in rehearsal, and during its performance, brought him acquainted with many of the performers of both sexes.... With some of them he kept up an acquaintance as long as he and they lived, and was ever ready to shew them acts of kindness. He for a considerable time used to frequent the Green Room, and seemed to take delight in dissipating his gloom, by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there."
He felt, too, that his own dress should be in keeping with the gay clothes of those around him:
"On occasion of his play being brought upon the stage, Johnson had a fancy that as a dramatick authour his dress should be more gay than what he ordinarily wore; he therefore appeared behind the scenes, and even in one of the side boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and a gold-laced hat."
But Irene was not a success.
"Notwithstanding all the support of such performers as Garrick, Barry, Mrs Cibber, Mrs Pritchard, and every advantage of dress and decoration, the tragedy of Irene did not please the publick." However "Mr Garrick's zeal carried it through for nine nights, so that the authour had his three nights' profits."
These, together with the hundred pounds which Johnson received from Mr Dodsley for the copyright, made it, at any rate, a profitable adventure and "when asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, he replied, 'Like the Monument'; meaning that he continued firm and unmoved as that column."
In the following year, 1750, he set out upon another adventure. It was nearly forty years since the last numbers of The Tatler and The Spectator, written by the famous essayists of Queen Anne's reign—Joseph Addison and Richard Steele—had appeared.
Johnson now embarked upon a similar periodical paper in which, as Boswell says, "he came forth as a majestick teacher of moral and religious wisdom."
The choice of a title gave him some trouble: "What must be done, Sir," he afterwards told Sir Joshua Reynolds "will be done. When I was to begin publishing that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it."