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Aetat. 28.] by the writers of his life, a similar enthusiasm may be pardoned in the biographer of Johnson. His tragedy being by this time, as he thought, completely finished and fit for the stage, he was very desirous that it should be brought forward. Mr. Peter Garrick told me, that Johnson and he went together to the Fountain tavern, and read it over, and that he afterwards solicited Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury-lane theatre, to have it acted at his house; but Mr. Fleetwood would not accept it, probably because it was not patronized by some man of high rank ; and it was not acted till 1749, when his friend David Garrick was manager of that theatre. The Gentleman's Magazine, begun and carried on by Mr. Edward Cave, under the name of, had attracted the notice and esteem of Johnson, in an eminent degree, before he came to London as an adventurer in literature. He told me, that when he first saw St. John's Gate, the place where that deservedly popular miscellany was originally printed, he 'beheld it with reverence .' I suppose, I.—9