And mark the future periods of the stage? 
Perhaps, if skill could distant times explore,
New Behns, new Durfeys, yet remain in store;
Perhaps, where Lear has ray’d, and Hamlet dy’d,
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride: 
Perhaps, (for who can guess th’ effects of chance?)
Here Hunt[a] may box, or Mahomet may dance. 
  Hard is his lot that, here by fortune plac’d,
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;
With ev’ry meteor of caprice must play,
And chase the new-blown bubbles of the day. 
Ah! let not censure term our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the publick voice;
The drama’s laws the drama’s patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live. 
  Then prompt no more the follies you decry,
As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die;
’Tis yours, this night, to bid the reign commence
Of rescued nature and reviving sense;
To chase the charms of sound, the pomp of show,
For useful mirth and salutary woe;
Bid scenick virtue form the rising age,
And truth diffuse her radiance from the stage.

[a] Hunt, a famous boxer on the stage; Mahomet, a ropedancer, who had
    exhibited at Covent garden theatre the winter before, said to be a
    Turk.

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[a], 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,