Note 118 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY
Reading edition
Dr. William Kenrick, the rampageous critic and playwright. His comedy The Duellist is his best-remembered work. In July 1774 he began a course of lectures in the “Theatre for Burlettas” at Marylebone Gardens, which he termed “a School of Shakespeare,” an entertainment which he also gave at the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street. Kenrick attacked Dr. Johnson’s Shakespeare. On Goldsmith saying that he had never heard of Kenrick’s writings, the doctor replied: “Sir, he is one of the many who have made themselves public, without making themselves known.”
It is curious that Smith omits to mention Dr. Johnson’s rampageous visit to the Gardens to see Torré’s fireworks, with his friend George Steevens, the Shakesperian commentator. It may have taken place in this year, 1774.