Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare Part 30

118. _comic and tragic scenes._ The ensuing pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 Anglica.n.u.s_, ed. 1789, p. 31: cf. Genest, _English Stage_, i., p. 42).

120-1. _Rhymer and Voltaire._ See _Du Theatre anglais_, _pa.s.sim_, and _Short View_, pp. 96, etc. The pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sist."

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 pa.s.sage 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 dealt with the three unities, in 1660; but he had observed the unities since the publication of the _Sentiments de l'Academie sur le Cid_ (1638).

130. _Venice ... Cyprus._ See Voltaire, _Du Theatre 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 Ill.u.s.trated_, 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 _c.o.ke'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 Theatre anglais_, vol. 61, p. 366 (ed. 1785). Cf.

_Lettres philosophiques, Sur la Tragedie, ad fin._, and _Le Siecle de Louis XIV._, ch. x.x.xiv.

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.

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._ _Oth.e.l.lo_, 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 pa.s.sed 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 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 pa.s.sage 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 t.i.tle is given incorrectly as _The Review_, etc. See note, p. 171.