Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/12

 1728, 12mo, and it appeared in French as an appendix to an edition of Exquemelen's ‘Histoire des Avanturiers,’ 1726, vol. iv. The second volume was reprinted at Norwich, 1814, 12mo.

In 1734 was published ‘A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the most famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street Robbers, &c., to which is added a genuine Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the most notorious Pyrates, interspersed with several diverting Tales and pleasant Songs, and adorned with the Heads of the most remarkable Villains in copper.’ The authorship is ascribed to ‘Captain Charles Johnson;’ the book, a handsome folio, was published in seventy-two weekly twopenny numbers; some copies bear the date of 1736. The original edition is very rare, and is sought after for the plates, as well as for the letterpress, which is more sprightly than decent. Johnson's ‘Highwaymen,’ however, is merely a reprint of Captain Alexander Smith's ‘Highwaymen’ (1714 and other editions), with the addition of most of the lives of the ‘Pyrates’ (editorially improved), included in the first volume mentioned above. The book was reprinted in a smaller size and with inferior engravings at Birmingham, 1742, fol. The text is bowdlerised in the subsequent editions of Edinburgh, 1814, and London, 1839 (Tegg), with additions by C. Whitehead, 1840, 1842 (Bohn), and 1853.



JOHNSON, CHARLES (1679–1748), dramatist, born in 1679, was bred to the law, and admitted a student to the Middle Temple in 1701, but, forming an acquaintance with Robert Wilks [q. v.] the actor, left the law and took to writing plays. When Wilks became joint-manager of Drury Lane, Johnson found no difficulty in getting his plays produced, and a note to the ‘Dunciad’ quotes the ‘Characters of the Times’ (p. 19) to show that he was chiefly famous for writing a play every season, and for being at Button's every day. After he had published four plays, which Genest overlooks, his ‘Force of Friendship,’ a tragedy in verse, was acted at the Haymarket, together with a farce, also by him, entitled ‘Love in a Chest,’ on 1 May 1710. Wilks took the chief part in the play. Genest describes it as very poor, both in plot and language. Johnson's next play, ‘The Generous Husband, or the Coffee-house Politician,’ is stated by Genest to be a tolerable effort. It was founded upon Cervantes's novel, ‘The Jealous Estremaduran,’ and Fielding adopted the second title for one of his comedies. Johnson's first undoubted success was ‘The Wife's Relief, or the Husband's Cure,’ ‘a good play on the whole,’ according to Genest, which was acted at Drury Lane on 12 Dec. 1711, the chief parts, Riot, Volatil, and Sir Tristram Cash, being played by Cibber, Wilks, and Doggett respectively. Henry Cromwell mentions in a letter to Pope that it ‘held seven nights, and got Johnson three hundred pounds.’ Johnson was ill-advised enough to make a disparaging allusion to Pope in the prologue to his ‘Sultaness,’ a tragedy founded upon Racine's ‘Bajazet,’ 1717, and he was consequently introduced into the early edition of the ‘Dunciad,’ where he is ridiculed for the fatness of his person and the number of his plays. The well-known lines—

first appeared in a ‘Fragment of a Satire’ (subsequently embodied in the ‘Epistle to Arbuthnot’), but were afterwards applied to ‘pastoral Philips.’ Johnson's ‘Country Lasses, or the Custom of the Manor,’ 1715, is included in Bell's ‘British Theatre’ (vol. ix.), and held the stage until nearly the end of the century. It is largely indebted to Fletcher's ‘Custom of the Country’ and Middleton's ‘A Mad World, my Masters,’ and it was adapted in its turn by John Philip Kemble for his ‘Farm House,’ 1789, and by William Kenrick for his comic opera, ‘The Lady of the Manor.’ Johnson's last play, ‘Cœlia, or the Perjured Lover,’ was acted on 11 Dec. 1733, and this is, says Genest, ‘far his best. He was in general a plagiary, without acknowledging his obligations to others, and without pretending to have only borrowed a hint, when he had borrowed a great deal;’ but yet, ‘on the whole, his dramatic writings do him credit.’ Some severe strictures on Johnson's habits of plagiarism appear in ‘Critical Remarks on the four taking plays of this season,’ 1719, a short pamphlet in the form of a dialogue between Corinna and Mrs. Townley, published anonymously, and dedicated to the ‘Wits at Button's Coffee House, Covent Garden,’ London, 1719. Johnson wrote nineteen plays in all, and after 1733 he is said to have married a young widow with a fortune, and to have set up a tavern in Bow Street, Covent Garden. He quitted business at his wife's death, and lived privately upon his savings, which appear to have been considerable, until his death on 11 March 1748.

Besides the plays already mentioned, Johnson wrote:
 * 1) ‘The Gentleman Cully,’ a