113. the poems of Homer. Cf. Johnson's remark recorded in the Diary of the Right Hon. William Windham, August, 1784 (ed. 1866, p. 17): “The source of everything in or out of nature that can serve the purpose of poetry to be found in Homer.”

114. his century. Cf. Horace, Epistles, ii. 1. 39, and Pope, Epistle to Augustus, 55, 56.

Nothing can please many, etc. This had been the theme of the 59th number of the Idler.

115. Hierocles. See the Asteia attributed to Hierocles, No. 9 (Hieroclis Commentarius in Aurea Carmina, ed. Needham, 1709, p. 462).

116. Pope. Preface, p. 48.

117. Dennis. See pp. 26, etc. In replying to Voltaire, Johnson has in view, throughout the whole preface, the essay Du ThÉÂtre anglais, par Jerome CarrÉ, 1761 (Oeuvres, 1785, vol. 61). He apparently ignores the earlier Discours sur la tragÉdie À Milord Bolingbroke, 1730, and Lettres Philosophiques (dix-huitiÈme lettre, “Sur la tragÉdie”), 1734. Voltaire replied thus to Johnson in the passage “Du ThÉÂtre anglais” in the Dictionnaire philosophique: “J'ai jetÉ les yeux sur une Édition de Shakespeare, donnÉe par le sieur Samuel Johnson. J'y ai vu qu'on y traite de petits esprits les Étrangers qui sont ÉtonnÉs que, dans les piÈces de ce grand Shakespeare, ‘un senateur romain fasse le bouffon, et qu'un roi paraisse sur le thÉÂtre en ivrogne.’ Je ne veux point soupÇonner le sieur Johnson d'Être un mauvais plaisant, et d'aimer trop le vin; mais je trouve un peu extraordinaire qu'il compte la bouffonnerie et l'ivrognerie parmi les beautÉs du thÉÂtre tragique; la raison qu'il en donne n'est pas moins singuliÈre. ‘Le poÈte, dit il, dÉdaigne ces distinctions accidentelles de conditions et de pays, comme un peintre qui, content d'avoir peint la figure, nÉglige la draperie.’ La comparaison serait plus juste s'il parlait d'un peintre qui, dans un sujet noble, introduirait des grotesques ridicules, peindrait dans la bataille d'Arbelles Alexandre-le-Grand montÉ sur un Âne, et la femme de Darius buvant avec des goujats dans un cabaret,” etc. (1785, vol. 48, p. 205). On the question [pg 322] of Voltaire's attitude to Shakespeare, see Monsieur Jusserand's Shakespeare en France, 1898, and Mr. Lounsbury's Shakespeare and Voltaire, 1902.

118. comic and tragic scenes. The ensuing passage gives stronger expression to what Johnson had said in the Rambler, No. 156.

I do not recollect, etc. Johnson forgets the Cyclops of Euripides. Steevens compares the passage in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, where Dryden says that “Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Seneca never meddled with comedy.”

119. instruct by pleasing. Cf. Horace, Ars poetica, 343-4.

alternations (line 15). The original reads alterations.

120. tragedies to-day and comedies to-morrow. As the Aglaura of Suckling and the Vestal Virgin of Sir Robert Howard, which have a double fifth act. Downes records that about 1662 Romeo and Juliet “was made into a tragi-comedy by Mr. James Howard, he preserving Romeo and Juliet alive; so that when the tragedy was reviv'd again, 'twas play'd alternately, tragically one day and tragi-comical another” (Roscius Anglicanus, ed. 1789, p. 31: cf. Genest, English Stage, i., p. 42).

120-1. Rhymer and Voltaire. See Du ThÉÂtre anglais, passim, and Short View, pp. 96, etc. The passage is aimed more directly at Voltaire than at Rymer. Like Rowe, Johnson misspells Rymer's name.

122. Shakespeare has likewise faults. Cf. Johnson's letter of 16th October, 1765, to Charles Burney, quoted by Boswell: “We must confess the faults of our favourite to gain credit to our praise of his excellences. He that claims, either in himself or for another, the honours of perfection, will surely injure the reputation which he designs to assist.”

124. Pope. Preface, p. 56.

In tragedy, etc. Cf. Pope (Spence's Anecdotes, 1820, p. 173): “Shakespeare generally used to stiffen his style with high words and metaphors for the speeches of his kings and great men: he mistook it for a mark of greatness.”

125. What he does best, he soon ceases to do. This sentence first appears in the edition of 1778.

126. the unities. Johnson's discussion of the three unities is perhaps the most brilliant passage in the whole preface. Cf. the Rambler, No. 156; Farquhar, Discourse upon Comedy (1702); Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet (1736); Upton, Critical Observations (1746), 1. ix.; Fielding, Tom Jones, prefatory chapter of Book V.; Alexander Gerard, Essay on Taste (1758); Daniel Webb, Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry (1762); and Kames, Elements of Criticism (1762). “Attic” Hurd had defended Gothic “unity of design” in his Letters on Chivalry (1762).

127. Corneille published his Discours dramatiques, the second of which [pg 323] dealt with the three unities, in 1660; but he had observed the unities since the publication of the Sentiments de l'AcadÉmie sur le Cid (1638).

130. Venice ... Cyprus. See Voltaire, Du ThÉÂtre anglais, vol. 61, p. 377 (ed. 1785), and cf. Rymer's Short View.

131. Non usque, etc. Lucan, Pharsalia, iii. 138-140.

132. Every man's performances, etc. Cf. Johnson, Life of Dryden: “To judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourselves to his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means of supplying them.”

Nations have their infancy, etc. Cf. Johnson's Dedication to Mrs. Lennox's Shakespear Illustrated, 1753, pp. viii, ix. See note, p. 175.

133. As you like it. Theobald, Upton, and Zachary Grey were satisfied that As you like it was founded on “the Coke's Tale of Gamelyn in Chaucer.” But Johnson knows that the immediate source of the play is Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie. The presence of the Tale of Gamelyn in several MSS. of the Canterbury Tales accounted for its erroneous ascription to Chaucer. It was still in MS. in Shakespeare's days. Cf. Farmer's Essay, p. 178.

old Mr. Cibber,—Colley Cibber (1671-1757), actor and poet-laureate.

English ballads. Johnson refers to the ballad of King Leire and his Three Daughters. But the ballad is of later date than the play. Cf. p. 178.

134. Voltaire, Du ThÉÂtre anglais, vol. 61, p. 366 (ed. 1785). Cf. Lettres philosophiques, Sur la TragÉdie, ad fin., and Le SiÈcle de Louis XIV., ch. xxxiv.

Similar comparisons of Shakespeare and Addison occur in William Guthrie's Essay upon English Tragedy (1747) and Edward Young's Conjectures on Original Composition (1759). The former may have been inspired by Johnson's conversation. Cf. also Warburton's comparison incorporated in Theobald's preface of 1733.

135. A correct and regular writer, etc. Cf. the comparison of Dryden and Pope in Johnson's life of the latter: “Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and levelled by the roller.” The “garden-and-forest” comparison had already appeared, in a versified form, in the Connoisseur, No. 125 (17th June, 1756). Cf. also Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes of Johnson, p. 59, “Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.”

135. small Latin and less Greek. Ben Jonson's poem To the Memory of Mr. William Shakespeare, l. 31. The first edition of the Preface read by mistake no Greek. Cf. Kenrick's Review, 1765, p. 106, the London Magazine, October, 1765, p. 536, and Farmer's Essay, p. 166, note.

[pg 324]

136. Go before, I'll follow. This remark was made by Zachary Grey in his Notes on Shakespeare, vol. ii., p. 53. He says that “Go you before and I will follow you,” Richard III., i. 1. 144, is “in imitation of Terence, ‘I prae, sequar.’ Terentii Andr., i., l. 144.”

The Menaechmi of Plautus. See note on p. 9, and cf. Farmer, p. 200.

137. Pope. Pp. 52, 53.

Rowe. P. 4.

138. Chaucer. Johnson has probably his eye on Pope's statement, p. 53.

139. Boyle. See Birch's Life of Robert Boyle, 1744, pp. 18, 19.

Dewdrops from a lion's mane. Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 224.

140. Dennis. P. 25.

Hieronymo. See Farmer's Essay, p. 210.

there being no theatrical piece, etc. “Dr. Johnson said of these writers generally that ‘they were sought after because they were scarce, and would not have been scarce had they been much esteemed.’ His decision is neither true history nor sound criticism. They were esteemed, and they deserved to be so” (Hazlitt, Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth, i.).

141. the book of some modern critick. Upton's Critical Observations on Shakespeare, Book iii. (ed. 1748, pp. 294-365).

present profit. Cf. Pope, Epistle to Augustus, 69-73.

142. declined into the vale of years. Othello, iii. 3. 265.

143. as Dr. Warburton supposes. P. 96.

Not because a poet was to be published by a poet, as Warburton had said. P. 97.

As of the other editor's, etc. In the first edition of the Preface, this sentence had read thus: “Of Rowe, as of all the editors, I have preserved the preface, and have likewise retained the authour's life, though not written with much elegance or spirit.” This criticism is passed on Rowe's Account as emended by Pope, but is more applicable to it in its original form.

144. The spurious plays were added to the third Folio (1663) when it was reissued in 1664.

the dull duty of an editor. P. 61. Cf. the condensed criticism of Pope's edition in the Life of Pope.

146. Johnson's appreciation of Hanmer was shared by Zachary Grey. “Sir Thomas Hanmer,” says Grey, “has certainly done more towards the emendation of the text than any one, and as a fine gentleman, good scholar, and (what was best of all) a good Christian, who has treated every editor with decency, I think his memory should have been exempt [pg 325] from ill treatment of every kind, after his death.” Johnson's earliest criticism of Hanmer's edition was unfavourable.

147. Warburton was incensed by this passage and the many criticisms throughout the edition, but Johnson's prediction that “he'll not come out, he'll only growl in his den” proved correct. He was content to show his annoyance in private letters. See note, p. 101.

148. Homer's hero. “Achilles” in the first edition.

149. The Canons of Criticism. See note, p. 101. Cf. Johnson's criticism of Edwards as recorded by Boswell: “Nay (said Johnson) he has given him some sharp hits to be sure; but there is no proportion between the two men; they must not be named together. A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still” (ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 263).

The Revisal of Shakespear's text was published anonymously by Benjamin Heath (1704-1766) in 1765. According to the preface it had been written about 1759 and was intended as “a kind of supplement to the Canons of Criticism.” The announcement of Johnson's edition induced Heath to publish it: “Notwithstanding the very high opinion the author had ever, and very deservedly, entertained of the understanding, genius, and very extensive knowledge of this distinguished writer, he thought he saw sufficient reason to collect, from the specimen already given on Macbeth, that their critical sentiments on the text of Shakespear would very frequently, and very widely, differ.” In the first three editions of the Preface the title is given incorrectly as The Review, etc. See note, p. 171.

girls with spits. Coriolanus, iv. 4. 5 (iv. 3. 5 in Johnson's own edition): “lest that thy wives with spits, and boys with stones, In puny battle slay me.”

A falcon tow'ring. Macbeth, ii. 4. 12. The first edition read, “An eagle tow'ring,” etc.

150. small things make mean men proud. 2 Henry VI., iv. 1. 106.

154. collectors of these rarities. This passage is said to have been aimed specially at Garrick. At least Garrick took offence at it. On 22nd January, 1766, Joseph Warton writes to his brother that “Garrick is intirely off from Johnson, and cannot, he says, forgive him his insinuating that he withheld his old editions, which always were open to him” (Wooll's Biographical Memoirs of Joseph Warton, 1806, p. 313). Cf. the London Magazine, October, 1765, p. 538.

155. Huetius. Pierre Daniel Huet (1630-1721), bishop of Avranches, author of De Interpretation libri duo: quorum prior est de optimo genere interpretandi, alter de claris interpretibus, 1661. The best known of his French works is the TraitÉ de l'origine de romans. See Huetiana, 1722, and Memoirs of Huet, translated by John Aikin, 1810.

four intervals in the play. Cf. Rambler, No. 156.

[pg 326]

157. by railing at the stupidity, etc. Johnson has Warburton in his mind here, though the description is applicable to others.

158. Criticks, I saw, etc. Pope, Temple of Fame, 37-40.

the Bishop of Aleria. Giovanni Antonio Andrea (Joannes Andreas), 1417-c. 1480, successively bishop of Accia and Aleria, librarian and secretary to Pope Sixtus IV., and editor of Herodotus, Livy, Lucan, Ovid, Quintilian, etc.

160. Dryden, in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy. In the Life of Dryden Johnson refers to this passage as a “perpetual model of encomiastic criticism,” adding that the editors and admirers of Shakespeare, in all their emulation of reverence, cannot “boast of much more than of having diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence.”

should want a commentary. Contrast Rowe, Account, ad init. In the editions of 1773 and 1778 Johnson ended the preface with the following paragraph: “Of what has been performed in this revisal, an account is given in the following pages by Mr. Steevens, who might have spoken both of his own diligence and sagacity, in terms of greater self-approbation, without deviating from modesty or truth.”