Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Johnson, Charles (1679-1748)
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—
Johnson, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning—
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:
- ‘The Gentleman Cully,’ a comedy in five acts, 1702, 4to.
- ‘Fortune in her Wits,’ 1705, 4to, a translation of Cowley's ‘Naufragium Joculare.’
- ‘Love and Liberty,’ a tragedy in five acts (verse), 1709, 4to.
- ‘The Successful Pyrate,’ a play in five acts (verse and prose), 1713, 4to.
- ‘The Victim,’ a tragedy in five acts (verse), 1714, 12mo, adapted from Racine's ‘Iphigénie.’
- ‘The Cobler of Preston,’ a farce in two acts, based upon the ‘Taming of the Shrew,’ 1716, 8vo; altered and set to music, 1817.
- ‘The Masquerade,’ a comedy in five acts, 1719, 8vo.
- ‘Love in a Forest,’ adapted from ‘As you like it,’ 1723, 8vo.
- ‘The Female Fortune Teller,’ a comedy in five acts, 1726, 8vo.
- ‘The Village Opera,’ in three acts (prose with songs), 1729, 8vo.
- ‘The Tragedy of Medea,’ in five acts (verse), with a preface containing some reflections on the new way of criticism, 1731, 8vo.
- ‘The Ephesian Matron,’ a farce, 1732.
[Baker's Biog. Dram.; Genest's Hist. of the English Stage, vols. ii. iii. passim; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. Hist. ii. 726; Dodsley's Theatrical Records, 1748, p. 99; The Playhouse Pocket Companion, 1779, p. 85; Brit. Mus. Catalogue; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, vols. iv–vi.; Whincop's Dramatic Lists.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.169
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 6 | i | l.l. | Johnson, Charles (1679-1748): for Estramaduran read Estremadurah |
| ii | 3 f.e. | after 1748. insert He was buried at Hendon on 18 March. |