Cradock is ‘landed’

Abstract

The first time I dined in company with Dr Johnson was at T. Davies’s,¹ Russell Street, Covent Garden, as mentioned by Mr Boswell in his Life of Johnson. On mentioning my engagement previously to a friend, he said, ‘Do you wish to be well with Johnson?’ ‘To be sure, Sir,’ I replied, ‘or I should not have taken any pains to have been introduced into his company.’ ‘Why then, Sir,’ says he, ‘let me offer you some advice: you must not leave him soon after dinner to go to the play; during dinner he will be rather silent — it is a very serious business with him; between six and seven he will look about him, and see who remains, and, if he then at all likes the party, he will be very civil and communicative.’ He exactly fulfilled what my friend had prophesied. Mrs Davies did the honours of the table: she was a favourite with Johnson, who sat betwixt her and Dr Harwood; I sat next, below, to Mr Boswell opposite. Nobody could bring Johnson forward more civilly or properly than Davies. The subject of conversation turned upon the tragedy of Oedipus. This was particularly interesting to me, as I was then employed in endeavouring to make such alterations in Dryden’s play,² as to make it suitable to a revival at Drury Lane theatre. Johnson did not seem to think favourably of it; but I ventured to plead that Sophocles wrote it expressly for the theatre, at the public cost, and that it was one of the most celebrated dramas of all antiquity.

Johnsonian Miscellanies, II, 61–5, 68–71. Cradock’s anecdotes originally appeared in his Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs (1826), and were reprinted, with alterations and additions, in the Gentleman’s Magazine (January 1828).