The misery of this time was such that long years after Johnson burst into tears at the memory of it.  But it did not conquer him, he conquered it.  He got work to do at last, and became one of the first newspaper reporters.

Nowadays, during the debates in Parliament there are numbers of newspaper reporters who take down all that is said in shorthand, and who afterwards write out the debates for their various newspapers.  In Johnson’s day no such thing had been thought of.  He did not hear the debates, but wrote his accounts of them from a few notes given to him by some one who had heard them.  The speeches which appeared in the paper were thus really Johnson’s, and had very little resemblance to what had been said in the House.  And being a Tory, Johnson took good care, as he afterwards confessed, “that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.”  After a time, however, Johnson began to think this so-called reporting was not quite honest, and gave it up.  He found other literary work to do, and soon, although he was still poor, he had enough money to make it possible for his wife to join him in London.

Among other things he wrote one or two poems and the life of Richard Savage, a strange, wild genius with whom he had wandered the streets in the days of his worst poverty.  The tragedy called Irene which Johnson had brought with him to London was at length after twelve years produced by Garrick, who had by that time become a famous actor.  Johnson had, however, no dramatic genius.  “When Johnson writes tragedy,” said Garrick, “’declamation roars and passion sleeps’:* when Shakespeare wrote, he dipped the pen in his own heart.”  Garrick did what he could with the play, but it was a failure, and although Johnson continued to believe that it was good, he wrote no more tragedies.

Garrick is here quoting from one of Johnson’s own poems in which he describes the decline of the drama at the Restoration.

The story of Irene is one of the fall of Constantinople in 1453.  After Mahomet had taken Constantinople he fell in love with a fair Greek maiden whose name was Irene.  The Sultan begged her to become a Mohammedan so that he might marry her.  To this Irene consented, but when his soldiers heard of it they were so angry that they formed a conspiracy to dethrone their ruler.

Hearing of this Mahomet resolved to make an end of the conspiracy and rescue his throne from danger.  Calling all his nobles together he bade Irene appear before him.  Then catching her by the hair with one hand and drawing his sword with the other he at one blow struck off her head.  This deed filled all who saw it with terror and wonder.  But turning to his nobles Mahomet cried, “Now by this, judge if your Emperor is able to bridle his affections or not.”

It seems as if there were here a story which might be made to stir our hearts, but Johnson makes it merely dull.  In his long words and fine-sounding sentences we catch no thrill of real life.  The play is artificial and cold, and moves us neither to wonder nor sorrow.