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Summary of Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare

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Summary of Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare

SHAKESPEARE’S ENDURING APPEAL

Approach towards antiquity. Some people lament that the dead are praised unreasonably. They hold that the criteria of evaluating a writer should be the excellence of his work and not his antiquity. They are generally people, who have nothing to contribute to the universal truth and therefore try to win fame by offering controversial arguments or hope that posterity will be kind and sympathetic and will bestow them with the name that their contemporaries deny. Admittedly, antiquity has its blind votaries who indiscriminately praise everything merely because it dates back to the remote days. It is also true that spotlighting the merits of the ancients and the faults of contemporaries is more congenial to many critics. As long as an author is alive, the tendency is to judge him in the ‘light of his worst work, and after his death the practice is to regard his best work as his most characteristic and judge him from that view point.

Continuation of esteem: a criterion of merit. The criteria for judging works of art cannot be absolute as in case of works based on scientific principles. Johnson says that in the field of literature excellence is not absolute, but gradual and comparative. In weighing works of literature, the only test that can be aptly applied is length of duration and continuation of esteem. It is quite natural that mankind examines and compares works which they have possessed long, and in case they go on praising them, it shows that they have found them to be really valuable. No production of genius can be termed excellent until it has been impartially compared with other such works, just as no one can call a river deep unless he has seen and known several rivers and judges the particular one in comparison with the others. A literary work is primarily tentative and can be estimated only by its proportion to the general and collective of humanity, as this ability has been discovered in a long succession of endeavours. Scientific works can be adjudged perfect because of their objective base, whereas the greatness of Homers poems has not been given any specific explanation except that they have appealed to generation after generation. The reason why the works of antiquity are held in esteem is not blind adulation or superstitious brief in their superior wisdom but the fact that they have stood up to scrutiny of time.

The enduring eminence of Shakespeare. The works of Shakespeare have come to assume the status of a classic. They are credited with enduring fame and respect. As these works have outlived one whole century, which is the test normally laid down in such cases, they have attained the prestigious position of antiquity, the topical allusions to local customs and prevailing manners in Shakespeare’s works are no longer relevant and his works are read for the literary pleasure they provide. His works can hardly support any faction at present, nor can they satisfy the vanity or feelings of enmity, in people closely associated with him, since all such people have passed away. It is astonishing that they have withstood changes of manners and customs, and are read just for the pleasure they offer. They are thus praised disinterestedly by generation after generation. However, it would not do to blindly believe that human judgement is never infallible. Even though a few works have met with popular approval for a long period, it is possible that this approval may have been based on prejudice or fashion. It is indispensable therefore to probe into the facts which enable the works of Shakespeare to attain and retain the respect or esteem of his countrymen.

MERITS OF SHAKESPEARE

Just representation of general nature. It is the just representation of general nature that brings immorality and enduring approbation to literary works. A faithful portrayal of the prevailing manners of combinations of fanciful inventions is insufficient to confer immortality upon a work of art. Such pieces can only evoke pleasure or wonder which his soon exhausted. It is only truth that can afford a consistent place for the mind to rest upon. Shakespeare is, more than any one else, a poet of nature. Through his works he reflects life. Shakespeare’s characters do not belong to the society of a particular place or time; they are universal, representing every man. They are the genuine progeny of common humanity such as will always remain in this world and whom our eyes will always continue to .meet. What motivates his characters to speak and act are those general principles and emotions which stir all hearts; whereas in the works of other poets a character is often an individual, in Shakespeare it is commonly a species. The wide expanse of Shakespeare’s design is the main source of the wealth of instruction that his plays convey and owing to this fact they are filled with practical axioms and domestic wisdom. Critics used to say that even verse of Euripides is essentially a percept in itself and it may be said of Shakespeare’s plays that a whole pantheon of civil and economic prudence may be collected from them. Still it is not in the grandeur of particular passages but in the total progress of the fable and the tenor of the dialogue that Shakespeare’s spontaneity is unfolded. To reveal his genius through singled out passages is like describing the endurance and beauty of a house by showing a brick.

In order to know how and why Shakespeare excels other writers in depicting the sentiments that are true to life, we have to compare him with other renowned authors and their practices. A patient and laborious perusal of his plays does not disqualify the reader for the feasible world, whereas this may be the case of almost every other dramatist. In the dramas of these writers we meet characters who are never seeing the human world, their characters converse in a language which was never heard before; the topics upon which they speak are such as are not of any consequence in real life. In Shakespeare the dialogue is not accidental, it is occasioned by the incident which products it. It is so realistic and lucid that one does not come to think of it as belonging to a fanciful fiction. It seems rather than the dialogue has been gleaned out of common conversation through a wise selection.

Theme of love not over-emphasized. In a majority of the dramas of other dramatists love is the universal agent that causes all good and evil and hastens or retards every action. In their fables we meet stock characters such as a lover, a lady and a rival. These are involved in contrary obligations and haunted with violent but inconsistent desires. They are made to speak out in hyperbolic or exaggerated joy and outrageous sorrow. Actually, by doing so, these dramatists are violating probability and misrepresenting life. They deprave the language too. Love is not the only passion, it is just one among the many. Shakespeare never assigns any excessive role to this passion in his plays, for he catches his clues from the world of day to day life and exhibits in his plays what he finds in life. He knew that any passion would cause happiness or disaster depending on its being moderated or left uncontrolled.

Shakespeare’s methods of characterization; individualized but universal. Shakespeare’s characters are universally delineated but it is easy to distinguish one from another. Most of the speeches are so apt that they cannot be transplanted from the character to whom Shakespeare has given it. Shakespeare’s characters are not exaggerated. He does not give us purely virtuous or utterly depraved characters. We may even say he has no heroes as such in his play; on the contrary it is the common humanity that he depicts. The characters act and speak in a way which appears to the reader to be what he himself would have done in a similar situation. Even when the plot requires a supernatural agency, the tone of the dialogues of various characters are life-like and realistic, other writers draw the most natural passions and most common incidents in a way which makes them unrecognizable. Shakespeare “approximates the remote and familiarizes the wonderful’. Even when he describes an impossible incident, he makes it seem probable; we feel it would have been just the way in which Shakespeare has described it if it took place. He presents human nature not merely as it reacts to the common situations of real life but also as it may act in extraordinary situations.

Reflection of life . Other dramatists gain attention only by presenting fabulous, exaggerated characters which confuse our imagination, but those feverish experiences can be cured by reading Shakespeare’s- plays where we meet human sentiments in human language. His plays are informative and instructive, no matter who the reader is. A confessor as well as a sagacious hermit can draw lessons of practical wisdom from them.

Objection of some critics answered . Shakespeare’s emphasis on general human nature has invited censure and hostility from some critics. Dennis and Rymer complain that Shakespeare’s Romans are not sufficiently Roman. Voltaire’s protest is that his kings are not kingly in the strict sense; that one of them, Claudius in Hamlet, is depicted as a drunkard. In reality Shakespeare assigns nature a prominent role and gives less room to accidental features. lie is careful of preserving adventitious distinctions. His story or plot may demand Romans or kings but what Shakespeare thinks about is the human element in them. Romans and kings are essentially human beings, what befalls all human beings may befall them too. A usurper and murderer like Claudius can certainly be a lover of wine; buffoon may well be picked from among Roman senators. l’lie objections of the critics on this issue merely proves their petty mindedness.

Mixture of tragic and comic elements defended. Another allegation levelled against Shakespeare is that he was careless enough to mix tragedy and comedy in the same- play. Johnson take this point for a detailed consideration. Johnson agrees that in the strictest sense, Shakespeare’s plays are neither comedies or tragedies. They are compositions of a distinct kind which show the real state of nature. Life is an ebb and flow of sorrow and happiness, ,‘d and ill in various permutations and combinations. Hence a portrait of life should consist of both; such an intermingled expression life is unexceptionable ; the loss of one is the gain of another. In this world the treacherousness of one is sometimes beaten by the frolic of another, and at times people may contrive to help or harm others without in the least intending to do so. Ancient poets used select crimes and foolishness, vicissitudes and lighter incidents, kills of distress and joys of prosperity and modify them in several their plays. It must have been thus that tragedy comedy arose. But it comes to our particular attention that no single lurk or Roman author has attempted depicting both these aspects either in separate plays or in the same composition. Shakespeare’s genius is proved in his power to give rise to joy and sorrow through the same play. Almost all his plays have serious as well as absurd characters and thus sometimes cause seriousness and sorrow, and sometimes levity and laughter.

Nature a higher court of appeal than rules of criticism . From the point of view of the rules of dramatic writing, Shakespeare’s mingling of the tragic and the comic may be considered unfavourable but the rules are less important than the claims of realism; there is always room for appealing from criticism to nature. The aim of poetry is to please and instruct and we may justify the drama which mingles the comic and the tragic, because it achieves this aim better than pure drama; for it is closer to reality. Nor are critics justified in alleging that such mingling results in the suspension of passions and interruption in their progress so that the principle event loses the power of moving the hearts of the spectators. The mingling of tragic and comic scenes succeeds in enhancing the intensity of passions. In any case mingled drama can give greater pleasure because pleasure consists in variety.

Classification of Shakespeare’s plays artificial. Besides, any rigorous differentiation between tragedy and comedy hardly existed in the time of Shakespeare when any play which had a denouement providing happiness for its chief characters was regarded as a comedy, and any play which had a catastrophe depicting death or disaster of the chief character was labelled as a tragedy. A history play was believed to be one which depicted a series of actions in a chronological order. It was not always clearly distinguished from tragedy. In any of these modes Shakespeare can be seen to have interchanged scenes of seriousness and happiness. This soothes the mind on one hand and exalts it on the other. Shakespeare always succeeds in achieving his purpose, whether it is to gladden or to depress, to -carry on with the story without vehemence or emotion. He makes us laugh or mourn, to keep silent in quite expectation, tranquil but not indifferent. Once we come to grasp Shakespeare’s plan in a particular play much of the criticism of Rymer and Voltaire loses its validity. Hamlet opens, without any impropriety, with a dialogue between two sentinels. In Othello Iago’s shouting at Brabantio’s window in the first Act does not harm the scheme of the play, although his phraseology may be too, vulgar for, a modern spectator. There is no gross impropriety either in the character of Polonius or in the grave-diggers’ conversation.

Shakespeare’s natural affinity for comedy . Shakespeare wrote his plays in keeping with his natural disposition. He was unaware of the ‘rules’ of dramatic writing. Rymer’s argument that Shakespeare’s natural disposition lay in the direction of comedy is correct. In writing tragedy Shakespeare seems to have – toiled hard. His comic scenes, on the other hand, are spontaneous and successful. Comedy was congenial to his nature. In his tragic scenes there is always something wanting but his comic scenes often surpass our expectations. His comedy pleases through the thoughts and language whereas his tragedy pleases mainly through incidents and action. His tragedy is a testimony of his skill; his comedy is the product of his instinct Though time has brought in many changes of customs and manners the force of his comic scenes has not abated. The intrigues and vexations of the characters in the comic scenes still continue to please us because of their originality or genuineness. The appeal of his comedies has stood the test of time. Shakespeare seems to have obtained his comic dialogues from the common intercourses of life, and not from the language of- ‘polite’ society or from that of the learned people who tend to depart from the established forms of speech. Shakespeare’s familiar dialogue is smooth and clear yet not wholly free of ruggedness or difficulty.

WEAKNESSES OF SHAKESPEARE

Virtue sacrificed to convenience. The excellence of Shakespeare must not blind us to the fact that his works have numerous defects too. Actually these defects are so serious that they would have sufficed to overwhelm the merit of any other writer. The first impropriety in Shakespeare is that he sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is more careful to please than to instruct. It is not incorrect to say that Shakespeare seems to write without any moral purpose. Although we can select a whole system of axioms his plays it is not – because he has paid any conscious thought to morality. These precepts seem to come from him in a casual manner. In Shakespeare’s plays there is no just distribution of evil and good. His virtuoues characters do not always show a disapproval of the wicked ones. His characters pass through right and wrong indifferently and at the end if they serve as examples, they do so by chance and not by the author’s efforts. The fact that the period in -which he lived was not too refined is not an excuse for this defect. Every writer has the duty of trying to make the world a better place to live in.

Carelessness about plot development. Shakespeare’s plots are often loosely knit and carelessly developed ; in a majority of the cases, just a little more attention would have been enough to improve them. In fact in his plays there are plenty of opportunities to instruct or delight, but he makes use of those the ate easy and rejects those which demand more effort and labour. In many of his plays the later part appears to have been neglected. It seems that when he was approaching the end of his work and the reward seemed near at hand, he exerted less labour on the work in order to complete in quickly and derive the profits immediately. As a matter of fact, it is the conclusion at which he ought to have exerted his maximum labour; lack of attention has resulted in the catastrophe in several of his plays being improbably produced or imperfectly represented.

Anachronism . Yet another fault in Shakespeare’s plays is anachronism—his violation of chronology, or his indifference to historical accuracy. Shakespeare is indifferent about the distinctions of time and place and gives to one age or nation the manners and opinions which pertain to another. This is detrimental to the effect of likelihood of the incidents. Alexander Pope opines that this defect is to be attributed not to Shakespeare himself but to those who interpolated unnecessary details of their own into his plays. But Johnson does not agree this. Shakespeare makes Hector quote Aristotle in Troilus and Cressida and mingles classical legend with Gothic mythology in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, it must be confessed that he was not the only violator of chronology; Sidney, a contemporary writer, who was also learned, in his Arcadia confounded the pastoral period with the feudal age, whereas the two ages were quite opposite to each other.

Coarseness of dialogues . Shakespeare’s plays also have faults of dialogue and diction. The dialogues in the comedies are exposed to objection when the characters are made to engage in contests of wit and sarcasm. Many of their jests are generally indecent and gross and there is much licentiousness and indelicacy even where ladies join the conversation. Even the refined characters speak on the same level as the clowns and often all distinction between the two is lost. Whether this was the real conversation of ladies and gentlemen of his period is difficult to say. But the coarseness of this conversation in Shakespeare’s plays cannot be approved; it is the writer’s duty to make suitable selection even in the forms of gaiety.

Performance in tragedies worse when more labour is spent . In his tragedies, Shakespeare’s performance is the worse where he seems to have spent the most labour. When he works hard to be effective, the result is unimpressive, tedious and obscure,

Undue verbosity and prolixity of words . The narrative parts of Shakespeare’s plays show an undue pomp of diction and verbosity full of repetition. Instead of enlivening the narration by making it brief, Shakespeare endeavours to make it effective through dignity and splendour.

Flamboyant speeches, inflated vocabulary. The set speeches in some of his plays are dispiriting, cold and feeble. It appears that as Shakespeare’s powers were natural, he perform badly whenever he endeavours to create a particular effect deliberately. Often he seems to be involved in some unwieldy sentiment which he seems unable to express and unwilling to drop. Complexity or intricacy of language does not always accompany subtlety of thought. Quite often the quality of words does not correspond to that or the thought or image for which they were employed. Trivial sentiments and vulgar ideas are, at times, clothed in sonorous epithets and high-sounding images. He often loses the heights of poetic loftiness by the use of some idle conceit or dry equivocation. In such cases terror and pity are degraded into a sort of frigidity. Thus the intense feelings roused by him suddenly lose their intensity and become weak.

Craze for puns word play . Lastly Shakespeare could never resist a quibble. Whatever be the occasion of the dialogue, whether the situation be amusing or tense, Shakespeare seizes the opportunity of employing a pun. Love of quibbling misleads Shakespeare just as the will-o-the wisp misleads the traveller in marshy places. A quibble is, after all, a trivial thing. But it had such a fascination for Shakespeare that he would sacrifice reason, propriety, and truth for its sake. It is to him like the golden apple for which he would always turn aside from his path; his fatal Cleopatra for which he would lose the world and be content to lose it. He was prepared to spoil his whole play for the sake of quibble.

THE THREE UNITIES OF SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare’s disregard of the unites not a defect . One practice in Shakespeare’s writing of dramas, which is regarded by critics as a defect but which is not really a defect, is his neglect of the unities of time and place. It is held that these rules have been laid down by the joint authority of poets and critics and hence ought not to be violated. Johnson does not agree with this view, and defends Shakespeare. One is not required to look for the unities in the history plays, for all that. they need is consistency and spontaneity of characterization. The events in them are not subject to the writer’s control. In other plays, Shakespeare has observed the unity of action. His plays have beginning, a middle and an end as laid down by Aristotle. Here and there we may find an incident which could be easily spared, but, on the whole, there is nothing superfluous in. them. There is a logical sequence of incidents and the conclusion follows naturally. Shakespeare had no consideration for the unities of time and place. In case the issue is closely examine it will be found that unlike the unity of action, he other two unities are no essential. They have given more trouble to the dramatist than pleasure to the spectator

Unities of time and place: pros and cons . The argument given in favour of the unities of time and place is that if they are limit preserved, credibility of the play is affected. No one will believe that an action of months or years can take place within hours, that the scene can change from Greece to Rome in the span if mimic act. Our mind, it is averred, revolts against apparent falsehood, fiction loses its impact when it does not resemble reality. Johnson calls this argument stupid. It is a mistake to imagine that the change of scene from Alexandria to Rome strains credibility; to do so would imply that the spectator actually imagines himself at Alexandria in the first act while he himself is sitting at a theatre in London. On the same grounds, we can say, that no audience can actually believe in point of time that they are witnessing events that took place in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. But if the audience can believe that in the first act they are at Alexandria they can also believe that in the next act, they are in Rome, and similarly they can also believe the changes in respect of time. The spectators are fully aware, from the first act to the last, that the stage on which events are being presented is only a stage and that the players are only players. There is nothing wrong in representing the stage as Athens in the first act of the drama and as Sicily in the second act when the stage is only a stage, and neither Athens nor Sicily. If we accept that the unity of place is dispensable, it is easy to accept that an extension of time is also valid. Drama presents successive imitations of sequential actions, and there is no reason why lapse of time is not to be allowed between cause and effect, or in other words, between one act and the next. The belief of the audience is not adversely affected by lapse of time between acts.

The credulity of the audience: dramatic illusion. The fact that the spectators do not believe that they are witnessing actual events taking place at actual places does not mean hat they are totally incredulous of the various happenings on the stage. They take the dramatic performance not as reality itself but as a just representation of reality. The evils and vices that they see on the stage are not believed by the s spectators to be real evils, but they are accepted as evils to which they themselves may be exposed. If there is any illusion, it lies in the fact that the spectator fancies himself unhappy for a moment when he sees the actor represent unhappiness; it is not that the spectator believes the actor to be unhappy. The audience knows that they are witnessing only a fiction, and it is this consciousness of fiction that is a source of the pleasure of tragedy. If the audience took the murders in tragedy for reality it may no longer amuse them.

The stage brings life’s realities to mind . Events enacted on the stage cause pain or pleasure to the spectators not because they are seen as realities, but because they bring realities to the mind. For instance, when we view fountains or trees painted on a canvas, we do not, in fact, feel their refreshing coolness and comfort, but we do image the freshness we many derive if we were actually amidst the trees and fountains. We are agitated when we read Henry the Fifth but never do we take the pages of this play to be the battlefield of Again court. Witnessing a dramatic performance on the stage is similar to reading a book.

Comedy mere powerful on stage, and tragedy more effective when read. Comedy is really more effective when seen on the stage, but tragedy is often more stirring when read. Comic action enhances the pleasure conveyed by words in a comedy, but neither voice nor gesture can add dignity or force to the soliloquy of a tragic character like Cato.

About the spectators, acceptance of scenic change and the passage of time. A reader acknowledges the changes of location and the lapse of time in a narrative poem; similarly, one accepts these anomalies in the case of a drama enacted on the stage or read at home. It is a matter of indifference if the unities of time and place are disregarded by a dramatist and if a longer or shorter time is shown to have lapsed between the acts or if changes of scenes are implied.

Possible ignorance of Shakespeare in regard to the rules of he unities. It is not known whether Shakespeare was aware of the rules regarding the unities and deliberately rejected them or if he violated the rules in sheer ignorance of their existence. However, there must have been scholars enough to advise him on this matter when he gained repute. It is possible that he neglected the rules first in ignorance but later on deliberately. Either way, the neglect is not lamentable. Such violations of rules are in keeping with the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare, and only petty-minded critics would disapprove of such deviations from rules in his case.

Unities of time and place not essential. To keep the unities of time and place is not necessary although ‘authority’ is on the side of rules. True, the unities of time and place at time add much to the totality of the play; but there is no harm in sacrificing them for the sake of the nobler beauties of variety and instruction. A play that scrupulously observes the rules may be regarded as the product of superfluous and showy art. The greatest attributes of a play are to copy nature and instruct life. If a dramatist complies in this matter and can yet observe all the unities, he deserves honour for his accomplishment. Some of the critics who advocate these unities are men of renown and worthy of respect. But perhaps, says Johnson, the principles governing drama are in need of a fresh examination.

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10 Samuel Johnson: “Preface to Shakespeare

Dr. Anita Bhela

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Samuel Johnson, the son of Michael, a bookseller, was born at Lichfield, Staffordshire, on September 18, 1709. At an early age, he contracted a tubercular infection from his nurse that left him physically handicapped with bad eyesight and partial deafness. Later, a bout of smallpox left him with facial scars. In spite of his handicaps, he was determined to be independent and did not accept help from others. He was unable to play regular sports but made up by learning other skills:boxing, swimming, leaping and sliding on frozen lakes and ponds.He first went to Lichfield grammar schools and later to Stourbridge. At both schools, he was acknowledged as a leader, both by his teachers and his fellow-students. After a gap of two years, he went to PembrokeCollege, Oxford University and studied there for thirteen months but had to leave in 1729 because of financial difficulties. He was fiercely independent and refused any kind of charity. While at Oxford, he had only one pair of torn shoes with his toes coming through and one night, a manplaced a pair of new shoes in front of his room and when Johnson found them the next morning, he threw them away in anger and wounded pride. Once out of Oxford, he went into depression for nearly two years and fearing that he might become insane, even contemplated suicide. At this time, he also developed a compulsive tic that remained with him for the rest of his life.

In 1732, Johnson went to Birmingham. Here the Porters helped him get out of his depression and regain his self-confidence.Elizabeth Porter appreciated and cared for Johnson and in 1735, after the death of her husband, she married Johnson, twenty years his senior.In the same year, Johnson published his first book, a translation. With the financial support of his wife,Johnson opened a private school and David Garrick, who later became a famous actor of the day, was one of his pupils here. However, the school venture was not a success and he and Elizabeth moved to London in 1737. In London, he earned a meagre livelihood, working as translator and writer. While at Litchfield and London, he wrote his tragedy Irene . He wrote regularly for the Gentleman’s Magazine and contributed prefaces, short biographies, essays, reviews, and poems. His poem, London: A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal , published in May 1738, made his reputation. Pope pronounced that the author of this poem would become famous. In 1744, Johnson wrote An Account of the Life of Mr. Richard Savage, Son of the Earl Rivers , a revealing life account of his mysterious friend,Richard Savage.Todaythis is recognized as a significant milestone in the art of writing “critical biography”.

The year, 1745 proved a literary turning point in Johnson’s life. He published a pamphlet on Macbeth that won him Warburton’s praise, which he valued highly, because it came at a time when he most needed it. At this time, he also began thinking about publishing an English Dictionary. In 1746, he signed an agreement with a group of publishers, accepting a payment of 1575 pounds. The Italians published a dictionary in 1612, which took them 20 years to prepare. The French dictionary published in 1694, engaged 40 scholars, who took 55years to prepare it and then another 18 years to revise it. The Oxford English Dictionary, which was a collaborative work of more than 70 scholars, took nearly 70 years to complete. Johnson planned to complete his ambitious project in three years but it took him nearly eight years to complete. This in itself was a remarkable achievement. The dictionary was published in 1755. His financial condition improvedonce Johnson received 1,575 pounds for the project.

In 1749, Johnson published his much-acclaimed poem, “The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of Juvenal”. In the following years,he wrote a large number of essays for his journal The Rambler . In 1759, Johnson published his brilliant work Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia . In October 1765, Johnson’s last great work, The Plays of William Shak espeare, which had been delayed for so long, was published. The last period of Johnson’s life was spent in the company of his friends, especially the Thrales and James Boswell. On 17 June 1783, Johnson suffered a stroke.He made great efforts to overcome it,but was also plagued by various other ailments. He died quietly on 13 December 1784. On his death, his friend William Gerard Hamilton, Member of Parliament, paid a great tribute to him sayingthat Johnson had left a chasm that no man could fill. His friend and admirerBoswell later went on to write The Life of Samuel Johnson , which presents Johnson as anextraordinary man.

Preface to Shakespeare (1765)

In 1756, Johnson published his Proposal for printing by subscription, the Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare, corrected and illustrated by Samuel Johnson . Once the subscription was advertised,he received a large sum of money personally. He foolhardily promised to bring out the work in a year’s time but unable to bring it out at the promised time, he came under scathing attacks, especially by the poet Charles Churchill. The upbraiding in verse by Churchill made him restart work on his edition of Shakespeare. It was finally published in eight volumes, octavo size in 1765, and nine years after the publication of the Proposal .

The collection has a Preface (72 pages in Johnson’s first edition), which is acknowledged as the best part of the edition and considered a great piece of neo-classical literary criticism. The Preface enumerates Shakespeare’s “excellencies” as well as his “defects. His biographer and friend Boswell states: “A blind indiscriminate admiration of Shakespeare had exposed the British nation to the ridicule of foreigners. Johnson, by candidly admitting the faults of his poet, had the more credit in bestowing on him deserved and indisputable praise”.

The Preface has two sections: one dealing with Johnson’s critical analysis of Shakespeare as a dramatist, and the other part dealing with an explication of the editorial methods used by Johnson in his Edition of Shakespeare. Johnson begins the Preface by asserting that people cherish the works of writers who are dead and neglect the modern. Johnson partly agrees with the 18th century critics that antiquity be honored, especially in the arts, as opposed to the sciences because the only test that can be applied to them is that of “length of duration and continuance of esteem”. He states that if a writer is venerated by posterity, it is a proof of his excellence and he cites the example of Homer. He says the ancients are to be honored not merely because they are ancient but because the truths that they present have stood the test of time. He then applies this criterion to Shakespeare: Shakespeare “may now begin to assume the dignity of an ancient, and claim the privilege of established fame and prescriptive veneration. He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit”.

In his analysis of Shakespeare, Johnson adopts a multidimensional approach. He examines the bard’s works from different angles and presents him as timeless and universal, but he also presents him as a product of his age and time. As a neo-classicist, he tries to maintain a structural balance of praise and blame for Shakespeare. He adopts a n“ahistorical and a historical” approach to our understanding of Shakespeare (Desai 5). He tries to make a distinction between the appeal of Shakespeare to his contemporaries and to future generations. He says that since times and customs have changed, the depiction of the particular manners of Shakespeare’s age, are no longer of interest to contemporary audiences. In his opinion,Shakespeare continues to be admired not for depicting the customs and manners of his own age but for the representation of universal truths: “Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature”.

Shakespeare “a poet of Nature”

In the first part of the Preface Johnson praises Shakespeare as “a poet of Nature”, who “holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life”: all his characters be they Romans, Danes or kings represent general human passions and principles common to all humans. In Johnson’s view, Shakespeare’s scenes are populated “only by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks he should himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion”. Another merit he finds in Shakespeare is that though Shakespeare’s characters depict universal human passions, yet they are distinctly individualized. He also appreciates Shakespeare for not focusing only on the passion of love but dealing with different kinds of passion exhibited by humankind. He refutes the charge levelled against Shakespeare by critics that Shakespeare represents noble characters of different nations as buffoons and drunkards. He considers these charges ‘petty cavils of petty minds”. He says Shakespeare “always makes nature predominate over accident; and that if he preserves the essential character, he is not very careful about the accidental distinctions”. He clinches his argument by saying: “a poet overlooks the casual distinctions of country and condition, as a painter, satisfied with a figure, neglects the tapestry”. He concludes with a metaphorical tribute to Shakespeare: “The stream of time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets; passes by the adamant of Shakespeare”.

He views Shakespeare’s plays as neither tragedies nor comedies but as just representations “exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow”(17). While the ancients concentrated on producing either comedy or tragedy and no Greek or Roman author attempted to do both, Shakespeare possessed the genius to do both in the same composition. His mingled drama violated the rules of dramatic writing but for Johnson realism supersedes the claim of rules: “there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature….The end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing”. He further states that “mingled drama may convey all the instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes both in its alterations of exhibition and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life”. Johnson considers this mingling justified as Shakespeare’s plays both “instruct and delight”. Nor does he feel that the mixing of tragic and comic scenes in any way diminish or weaken the passions the dramatist aims at representing on the other hand he feels that variety contributes to pleasure.

Shakespeare – A Genius in Writing Comedy

Johnson considers Shakespeare a genius in writing comedy.He agrees with Rhymer that Shakespeare possessed a natural flair for comedy. He thinks Shakespeare had to toil hard for the tragic scenes but the comic scenes appear to be written with great spontaneity: “His tragedy seems to be skill. His comedy to be instinct”. He asserts that Shakespeare obtained his comic dialogues from the common intercourse of life and therefore their appeal has not diminished over time.

Shakespeare’s Faults

After his praise of Shakespeare, Johnson goes on to point out the faults of Shakespeare. Johnson distinguishes between art and life. He says the audience is always aware that they are watching a fictionalized representation and can enjoy tragedy only for this reason, although the enjoyment is directly proportional to the realism with which the characters are depicted.

As a true neo-classicist, Johnson is extremely didactic in his approach to Shakespeare. He believes that however true to life an artist proposes to be, the creative artist may not sacrifice “virtue to convenience”. Johnson thinks Shakespeare is more concerned about pleasing than instructing. In the eyes of Johnson, Shakespeare lacks a clear and distinct moral purpose and sometimes seems to write without any moral purpose at all. He disapproves of Shakespeare on moral grounds: “he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to show in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his person’s indifferently through right and wrong and at the close dismisses them without further care and leaves their examples to operate by chance”. This “barbarity” Johnson cannot pardon for he believes that it is always the duty of the writer “to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independent on time or place”. In this connection, in his notes on King Lear , he condemns Shakespeare for sacrificing the virtue of Cordelier: “Shakespeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles”. He goes on to say:

A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry may doubtless be good, because it is a just representation of the common events of human life; but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or, that if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.

Johnson also finds faults with Shakespeare’s plots and thinks they are loosely formed and not pursued with diligence. He finds this reflected in Shakespeare’s neglect to utilize the opportunities that come his way to instruct and delight. Additionally, he adds that Shakespeare seems not to labour enough towards the ending of his plays such that “his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented”. He also finds Shakespeare guilty of violating chronology and verisimilitude relating to time and place for “ he gives to one age or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions and opinions of another”(36). He criticizes Shakespeare for making Hector quote Aristotle in Troilus and Cressida and also critiques him for combining the love of Theseus and Hippolyta with that of the Gothic mythology of Fairies.

Although Johnson lauds Shakespeare’s skill in writing comic scenes, yet he does not gloss over the faults. He finds Shakespeare’s language coarse and the jests gross in many comic dialogues. He comments that the gentlemen and ladies indulging in these coarse exchanges appear to be no different than the clowns. Johnson cannot excuse Shakespeare even if this coarseness was prevalent in Shakespeare’s time, for he thinks that as a poet he should have known better.The meanness, tediousness and obscurity in Shakespeare’s tragedies Johnson considers the undesirable effect of excessive labor. He finds Shakespeare’s narration often verbose and prolix, full of verbiage and unnecessary repetition. He also accuses Shakespeare of not matching his words to the occasion. His set speeches he finds “cold and weak” and designed by Shakespeare to show his knowledge but resented by the reader. At times, he finds Shakespeare’s language high sounding and not appropriate to the sentiment or the thought he wishes to express.

“Repeatedly Johnson finds Shakespeare’s tragic scenes marred by a sudden drop in emotional temperature caused by some infelicity of language – a pun,a conceit, a hyperbole” (Desai 77). Johnson directs a scathing attack on Shakespeare’s fondness for a quibble. He describes Shakespeare’s love for a quibble through various amusing analogies. He says a quibble was to him “the golden apple for which he will stoop from his elevation” or “the fatal Cleopatra for which he was willing to lose the world and was content to lose it” (44). Desai remarks: “had Shakespeare been a lesser poet, Johnson’s expectations would have been proportionately modest. But with Shakespeare the potential is always so great; the fulfilment sometimes inadequate. In short, Johnson’s criticism of Shakespeare’s tragic scenes is born out of his admiration for him”.

Shakespeare’s Violation of The Unities

Shakespeare violated the law of the unities of time and place established and recognized by both dramatists and critics. 18th century critics considered this violation a defect in Shakespeare. Johnson disagrees and thinks it is possible to defend Shakespeare on this account. He argues that the Histories by virtue of their very nature need to keep changing time and place and additionally since they are neither comedies nor tragedies, they remain outside the purview of violation. He believes that Shakespeare, apart from the Histories, maintains the unity of action and follows the Aristotelian rules. His plots have a beginning, middle and an end and the plot also moves slowly but surely towards an end that meets the expectations of the reader. Johnson acknowledges that Shakespeare does neglect to follow the unities of time and place that have been held in high esteem since the time of Corneille, but according to him, the rules are not founded on tenable principles. His critical analysis reveals their irrelevance. He says that the critics insist on the observance of the unities of time and place, as they believe it contributes to dramatic credibility. They hold that the audience would find it difficult to believe in an action spread over many months and years when the actual stage performance lasts only three hours. In addition, since the audience is seated in the same place for the duration of the play, their belief would be strained if one action takes place in Alexandria and the other in Rome. To refute these arguments Johnson states that all art is artifice and that the audience too is aware of this. His argument is that if the audience sitting in a theatre in London can believe in the reality of the first act taking place in Alexandria, then they can very well imagine the second act taking place in another country. By the same logic, the spectators can imagine the lapse of months or years between acts. However, he argues the audience is not totally incredulous; rather, the audience is, as would be stated later by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in a “willing suspension of disbelief”. Johnson states that tragic actions would not give pleasure if the audience thought that it was all happening in reality on stage. The real source of pleasure lies in the fact that the enactment brings realities to mind.

Shakespeare and Elizabethan England

In Johnson’s analysis of Elizabethan England, England emerges as a nation “just emerging from barbarity” where “literature was yet confined to professed scholars, or to men and women of high rank” and the general public was raised on popular romances. Johnson states that very often Shakespeare uses these familiar and popular romance sources as the building blocks for his plays so that the not-so-learned spectators could easily follow the story.

In the absence of any established facts about Shakespeare’s learning, Johnson believes that Shakespeare did not know French and Italian and that what he borrowed from foreign sources was borrowed from English translations of foreign works. Johnson asserts that since English literature was yet in its infancy in Elizabethan England,Shakespeare had no English models of drama or poetry to follow – neither character nor dialogue was yet understood. Therefore, Johnson considers Shakespeare a pioneer who introduced character and dialogue into drama. He attributes Shakespeare’s excellence not so much to learning but to his own genius. Repeatedly, Johnson stresses the fact that Shakespeare’s natural genius was aided by his close personal observation and experience of life. Johnson states that Shakespeare’s extraordinary presentation of human nature and character could not have come from reading psychology because no psychology books were available at this time, but emerged from his talent of observing life, as Shakespeare’s knowledge of the inanimate world was as wide and exact as that of human beings. Johnson considers Shakespeare, a pioneer. He says:

Shakespeare is always original; nothing is derived from the works of other writers. He is comparable only to Homer in his invention.

Shakespeare is the pioneer of English drama – the originator of the form, the characters, the language and the performances.

Shakespeare was the first playwright to establish the harmony of blank verse and to discover the qualities of the English language for smoothness and harmony.

Shakespeare was the first successful playwright whose tragedies as well as comedies were successful and gave appropriate pleasure.

Shakespeare’s Texts

The rest of the Preface concentrates on the lack of availability of authentic texts, Shakespeare’s carelessness in not getting his plays published, the various emendations made by critics since the time of Shakespeare until Johnson’s own time, and his own editorial methods.

Background to the publication of Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare

Most of Shakespeare’s plays were published almost seven years after his death. Johnson is critical about Shakespeare’s indifference to getting his plays published and for writing for immediate profit and pleasure. He says that not only did Shakespeare not care to leave authentic versions of his plays for posterity; rather, even the few that were published in his lifetime did not get his attention and scrutiny. As a result, corrupted texts with alterations and additions based on conjecture survived and created confusion and obscurity. He feels other causes too contributed to the corruption of the texts: (a) the printing method (b) the use of copiers(c) the mutilation of speeches by actors who wished to shorten them and (d) Shakespeare’s own ungrammatical style of writing.

The fourth Folio of Shakespeare’s plays was published in 1685. A number of editions of Shakespeare were published between1709, Johnson’s year of birth and 1765, the year of publication of Johnson’s edition. The following editions were printed between 1709 and 1765:

Nicolos Rowe, First Edition, 1709: “ Rowe divided the play into acts and scenes, modernized the spellings, marked the entrances and exits of characters, and prefixed a list of dramatis personae to each play; in short , he made the text of Shakespeare more intelligible and attractive to eighteenth-century readers than it was before”(Desai 27). He also added a formal biography of Shakespeare that Johnson retained for his edition although he was unhappy with its style.

Alexander Pope’s Edition, 1725:Further mutilation of the text as Pope made copious arbitrary emendations.

Lewis Theobald’s Edition, 1734: Unlike his predecessors, did not use the unreliable fourth Folio as his text. He based his texts on the Quartos and the first Folio.

Sir Thomas Hamner’s Edition, 1744: Was of little value.

Warburton’s Edition, 1747: Was not of much significance.

Johnson’s Editorial Method

Johnson had access to all the above given editions while writing his own edition. In the Preface, he acknowledges his debt to his predecessors and includes all their Prefaces. In a way, Johnson is to be credited with bringing out a variorum edition of Shakespeare’s plays. Johnson not only commented on the merits and faults of the earlier emendatory critics but also included the different versions of lines and passages of the available texts and the subsequent emendations along with his own notes and emendations. Johnson states that his edition of Shakespeare’s plays carries three kinds of notes (a) illustrative: to explain difficulties (b) judicial: to comment on “faults and beauties” (c) emendatory: to correct corruptions in the text. He acknowledges that he exercised restraint in making the emendations and was “neither superfluously copious nor scrupulously reserved” (131). Johnson states that he has been successful in shedding light on some obscure passages and made them more understandable to the readers. However, with great humility he accepts that there are many others passages that he himself was unable to understand and leaves their interpretation to posterity. Johnson also states that he treads the middle ground between “presumption and timidity” by trusting in those publishers “who had a copy before their eyes” and also avoids too much conjectural criticism .

Johnson’s Advice to the Readers

Johnson advises the readers to enjoy the complete play first without interruption and without thinking about the obscurities. Only when the pleasure of novelty ceases should the reader turn to his notes to understand and appreciate individual lines and passages and get more enjoyment. Johnson exhorts the readers to form their own judgement about Shakespeare’s plays. He thinks notes are “necessary evils”and proclaims that he wishes to serve only as a guide and instructor. He cautions the readers not to go by his judgement of praise or condemnation, as his judgement might be flawed. He also humbly acknowledges that his work is not perfect.

Johnson ends his Preface by once again acknowledging Shakespeare’s greatness and dismissing the views of those who did not find him learned by stating that “he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature” and that he possessed the “largest and most comprehensive soul”.

Johnson’s Achievement

Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare, even by modern standards is an exemplary piece of literary criticism although it does have its limitations. Johnson boldly went against the grain of his time in defending Shakespeare for not following the unities of time and place and for mingling tragic and comic elements. He considered the text superior to any rules and his judgement depended on how the text affected him and not on whether it followed the rules or not. Johnson can also be credited with giving critics the comparative and historical basis of criticism. Many of his judgements of Shakespeare are so insightful that modern generations can only repeat his judgments on Shakespeare’s universality and in-depth understanding of human nature. Johnson’s editorial method though deficient by modern standards was yet way above that of the earlier editors and editors of his own time.The restraint he exercised in making emendations is indeed creditable.Many of Johnson’s pronouncements on Shakespeare reflect neo-classical beliefs, with which many today do not agree, especially the insistence on moral rectitude. Johnson has also come under criticism for preferring Shakespeare’s comedies to his tragedies.However, his achievements outdo his shortcomings and the greatest proof of his greatness is that his age is often called The Age of Johnson.

Desai, R. W. Johnson on Shakespeare . Delhi: Orient Longman, 1979.
Boswell, James. Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.:A New Edition in Four Volumes. London,1820 .
DeMaria, Robert. Samuel Johnson: A Critical Biography . Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993.

Preface to Shakespeare summary

Samuel Johnson’s “Preface to Shakespeare ” was published in 1765 and it is an important contribution to English literary criticism. Although Johnson is a neo-classical critic and writer, he is completely unbiased when he assesses Shakespeare .

Johnson eulogizes as well as specifies Shakespeare’s flaws or weaknesses. According to Harold Bloom, Johnson invariably within Shakespeare’s plays to examine them as if he is examining human life without considering the fact that Shakespeare’s main purpose is to bring life to mind.

Table of Contents

Shakespeare’s Merits:

Johnson on shakespeare’s characters in the preface to shakespeare: .

“Nothing can please many and please long, but just the representation of general nature” ({7} Preface to Shakespeare by Johnson). For Johnson, the fundamental necessity of artistic greatness is truthfulness to the details of nature. This guides Johnson to make a number of unforgettable assertions about Shakespeare’s grandeur. For instance, the characters of Shakespeare are the “genuine progeny of common humanity” and they speak in the language of everyday life and convey feelings and emotions which resonate in every soul. Johnson states that Shakespeare’s characters are not affected by the practices of certain places or by the incidents of short-lived trends or transient beliefs. “His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated and the whole system of life is continued in motion.” ({8} Preface to Shakespeare by Johnson).

Johnson on Mingled drama in the preface to Shakespeare:

Shakespeare has blended tragedy and comedy in most of his plays and Johnson defends this blending of tragic and comic ingredients on the grounds of the neoclassical theory itself. For the neoclassicist, art is a realistic portrayal of mankind. On this ground, one can defend Shakespeare’s exercise of blending comic and tragic elements, for such a blending shows real human life which partakes good and bad, delight and sadness. Through his plays, Shakespeare presents a world where all human efforts and activities have similar significance. In Shakespeare’s plays, all types of men and women are fairly presented.

Read More: Preface to Lyrical Ballads summary

Johnson and the unities in the Preface to Shakespeare:

Johnson supports Shakespeare’s negligence of the unities of time, place, and action. The neo-classical persistence on the three unities denotes that a drama should consist of those episodes and incidents which cover a restricted time span of twelve or twenty-four hours and take place in a single area. Supporting Shakespeare Johnson states that the action of his dramas is dependent on some conventions which the spectator takes gladly. For example, if the audience can accept that the person standing on the stage is Julius Caesar or Antony, then the spectators can also approve of moving scenes from one place to another or the span of an extended time period. Johnson says that the unities of time and place are used to make the drama more credible. But the fact is that the audience already knows that it is a stage and not Athens or Sicily and the person who is performing on the stage is a performer and not Julies Caesar or Antonio or Hamlet .

Johnson on Shakespeare’s Demerits in the Preface to Shakespeare:

Virtue is not distributed wisely.

Johnson says that Shakespeare’s biggest defect is that he abandons virtue to pleasure. According to Johnson, Shakespeare didn’t write his plays because he wanted to convey any moral purpose . Instead, he wanted to convey delight and pleasure through his plays. Johnson also states that Shakespeare did not pay much attention to ‘poetic justice’ ; he develops his characters regardless of their right and wrong actions and at the end expels them casually. Johnson states that it is the job of the writer to make the world peaceful and that is why he emphasizes poetic justice.

A defect on Shakespeare’s plot:

The second defect that Johnson points out about Shakespeare’s plays is the plot. Johnson’s complaint is that Shakespeare’s plots are loosely knit and if he had paid a little more attention and time, he could have improved. Johnson also implies that the end part of Shakespeare’s plays is promptly rounded off. And for this reason, the end parts of his plays do not seem as artistically ordered as their earlier sections. Johnson explains the reason by saying that Shakespeare used to reduce his hard work at the end of the plays because he was in a hurry to take the profit.

Anachronism in Shakespeare’s plays:

Another defect that Johnson points out about Shakespeare’s plays is an anachronism. Johnson says that in Shakespeare’s plays the conventions, ideas, and manners of one age or country are used randomly for another age or country. This creates a sense of implausibility and impossibility within a play. For example, on one occasion in Shakespeare’s play, Hector quotes the words of Aristotle , which is unrealistic on a historical basis.

Read More: Aristotle’s concept of imitation and catharsis

Dialogues in Shakespeare’s comedy:

Another defect that Johnson points out about Shakespeare’s plays is his dialogues . Johnson claims that the banter in which the comic characters indulge is generally gross and immoral. Because most of his characters are guilty of this, it often becomes hard to differentiate between refined characters and low characters. Johnson thinks that Shakespeare should have been judicious in his choice of modes of merriment.

Shakespeare’s use of word-play and conceit:

Johnson turns critical about Shakespeare’s propensity to employ conceits as well as obscure word-play. Johnson states that Shakespeare’s love for conceit and puns ruins many paragraphs which are otherwise sorrowful and warm, or could have aroused pity or fear. Shakespeare’s unrestrained love for quibbles and puns guides him to produce meaningless just as will-o-the-ship deceive a traveler.

Short note on elegy
Justify the title Pride and Prejudice
The use of irony in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Women Characters in Pride and Prejudice
The Monk in “The Canterbury Tales”

Preface to Shakespeare

By samuel johnson, edited by jack lynch , rutgers university — newark.

The text comes from The Plays of William Shakespeare , ed. Samuel Johnson (London, 1765); this abridged edition is roughly half the length of the whole. The notes and paragraph numbers are my own. Please send comments and corrections to Jack Lynch .

This text has been prepared by Jack Lynch . You’re welcome to use it for non-exclusive and nonprofit purposes.

Analysis of “Preface to Shakespeare” by Samuel Johnson

Introduction.

“Preface to Shakespeare” is one of the classic and universally recognized documents in the field of literary criticism in English society, which came from the pen of Samuel Johnson. This work is a collection of reliable knowledge, assumptions, and ideas of the author about the great playwright’s life moments and creative heritage. The critic easily and enthusiastically introduces a reader to the specifics and peculiarities of Shakespeare’s creative potential, his extraordinary views, and judgments on the nature of things and human phenomena. Johnson, despite the opinions of his “colleagues,” defends and elevates the English playwright, skillfully refuting all doubts about the works of the poet, relating Shakespeare’s creations to something truly unique and inimitable phenomena in literature. This paper will present a brief analysis of “Preface to Shakespeare” based on the neoclassical view.

From the point of view of neoclassical approaches, views, and concepts, the following key elements can be distinguished in “Preface to Shakespeare” by Samuel Johnson. For instance, it is worth noting that such moments as the elevation and exaltation of the English poet are so vividly expressed in the “Preface.” Johnson (3) claims that: “Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature.” Moreover, the critic also highlights the fact that: “the Poet […] may now begin to assume the dignity of an ancient” (Johnson 2). Thus, Johnson equates Shakespeare with those great ancient classics, whose contributions to literary creativity are challenging to overestimate. In Samuel’s view, the poet appears to the same extent as an innovator and a pioneer who formed further trends and styles in culture, art, philology, and literature. Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays are endowed with the richness, variety, expressiveness, and breadth of imagination that the works are fully recognized as classical and traditional. Indeed, the creations of the English poet can be represented as a kind of role model and in the form of an ideal, which is extremely difficult to achieve, but quite fascinating.

However, it is also worth paying attention to the unique feature that appears in the critical essay. Samuel Johnson’s task was not only to defend and justify Shakespeare but also to provide a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the poet’s creations. For example, the man noted that Shakespeare in some way neglected the unity of place and time and did not pay due attention to these stylistic and literary elements. Although, indeed, the composition of the creative works of the predecessors included such significant aspects. However, this phenomenon can hardly be called a substantial drawback since the author’s works themselves are “plastic,” and the sequence of events there is not violated. In addition, the playwright tried to please everyone, “sacrificing virtue for convenience.” The plots are poorly developed and interconnected, the dialogues are worked out in a rather rough form, sometimes ridiculous wordplay is manifested in the works, and the result does not always justify itself. Anyway, some of these moments are insignificant, and they are swept into the background by the greatness of colorfully described life moments and phenomena, universality, as well as the wealth of wisdom and inclusiveness.

In conclusion, Shakespeare, according to Johnson’s opinion in “Preface,” is a kind of central link connecting ancient features with several modern trends and directions that continue to live and gain their significance to this day. Moreover, the great poet was able to catch a special thought inherent in his scale of perception and thought, as well as to feel and develop it. William Shakespeare set a memorable and unique pace and rhythm for further transformations of the public domain’s literary and cultural creations and objects. In this key, the English playwright himself is a kind of indivisible absolute. Everyone else is either an imitator or a lover of literature, who is never destined to write a genuine, authentic poetic, living text, as Shakespeare and his predecessors did.

Johnson, Samuel. Preface to Shakespeare Together with Selected Notes on Some of the Plays . E-book ed., Adelaide, 2004.

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Dr. Samuel Johnson's "Preface to Shakespeare": Points to Remember

Points Discussed Here

Dr. Samuel Johnson's "Preface to Shakespeare" highlights the importance of Shakespeare's work in the literary canon, praising his creativity and mastery of language.
Johnson criticizes French classical rules and argues for Shakespeare's deviation from them, emphasizing the authenticity and naturalness of his plays.
He defends Shakespeare's use of comedic elements in his tragedies, stating that they provide relief and contribute to a more realistic portrayal of human nature.
Johnson acknowledges Shakespeare's occasional flaws, such as irregularities in plot construction, but asserts that these do not diminish his overall genius.
He praises Shakespeare's ability to capture the diversity and complexity of human emotions, creating characters that resonate with audiences across time and cultures.
Johnson calls for a more objective and balanced approach to Shakespeare's works, urging critics to appreciate his brilliance while acknowledging his imperfections.

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Critical Analysis of Samuel Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare

Shakespeare is great because in his work there is a just representation of general human nature. His characters are the faithful representations of humanity. His characters are universal but they are individual also. They are also true to the age, sex or profession to which they belong. They are also true to type.

His works are a storehouse of practical axioms and domestic wisdom. From them can be formulated a philosophy of life of great practical value in real life. That his plays are a just representation of human nature is also seen in the fact the love is not all. Love is only one of the many passions and as his plays mirror life, they represent other passions as well. Undue importance is not attached to any one passion. His characters are not exaggerated. He has no heroes, but only human beings. Thus his plays increase our knowledge of human nature.

Shakespeare has been criticized for mixing comedy and tragedy. But Johnson defends him as follows: In the use of tragic-comedy, Shakespeare is true to nature. In real life also there is a mingling of the good and evil, joys and sorrows, tears and smiles and so in mixing tragedy and comedy Shakespeare merely holds a mirror to nature. Tragi-comedy is nearer to life than either tragedy or comedy, and so it combines within itself the pleasure as well as the instruction of both. The interchange of the serious and the gay, of the comic and tragic, does not interrupt the progress of the passions, i.e. it does not result in any weakening of effect. Moreover, it should be remembered that all pleasure consists in variety. Tragi comedy can satisfy a greater variety of tastes.

Comedy came natural to him, and not tragedy. In tragedy he writes with great appearance of toil and study what is written at last with little felicity; but in comic scenes he seems to produce without labour what no labour can improve. His comic scenes are natural and, therefore, durable. The language of his comic scenes is the language of real life. Shakespeare has serious faults, serious enough to obscure his many excellences:

He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct.
His plots are loosely formed.There are many faults of chronology and many anachronisms in his plays.
Often his jokes are gross and licentious.
In his narration there is much pomp of diction and circumlocution.
What he does best, he soon ceases to do.
He is too fond of puns and quibbles. For a pun he sacrifices reason, propriety and truth.

Johnson defended Shakespeare and the Three unities. His histories being neither comedies nor tragedies are not subject to the ‘classic’ rules of criticism which were devised for tragedies and comedies. The only Unity they need is consistency and naturalness in character, and this Shakespeare has imparted to them. In his other works, he has well maintained the Unity of Action. He is the poet of nature, and his plots have the complexity and variety of nature. But his plots have a beginning, a middle, and an end, one event is logically connected with another.

He shows no regard for the Unities of Time and Place, and in the opinion of Johnson, these Unities have given more trouble to the poet than pleasure to the auditor. When a spectator can imagine the stage to be Alexandria and the actors to be Antony and Cleopatra, he can surely imagine much more. Drama is a delusion and delusion has no limits. The spectators know the stage is a stage, and the actors are actors. There is no absurdity in showing different actions at different places. The Unity of Time also has no validity. A drama imitates successive actions, and just as they may be represented at successive places, so also they may be represented at different period, separated by several years. The only condition is that the events so represented should be connected with each other with nothing but time intervening between them. In short the unities are not essential to drama. Their violation often results in variety and instruction. The rules may be against Johnson but he justifies Shakespeare on grounds of nearness to life and nature.

Summary of Johnson Letter to Lord Chesterfield

Summary of Samuel Johnson The Good Sort of Woman

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Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson

That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.

Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind, has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but from prejudice. Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever has been long preserved, without considering that time has sometimes co-operated with chance; all perhaps are more willing to honour past than present excellence; and the mind contemplates genius through the shades of age, as the eye surveys the sun through artificial opacity. The great contention of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the ancients. While an authour is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.

To works, however, of which the excellence is not absolute and definite, but gradual and comparative; to works not raised upon principles demonstrative and scientifick, but appealing wholly to observation and experience, no other test can be applied than length of duration and continuance of esteem. What mankind have long possessed they have often examined and compared, and if they persist to value the possession, it is because frequent comparisons have confirmed opinion in its favour. As among the works of nature no man can properly call a river deep or a mountain high, without the knowledge of many mountains and many rivers; so in the productions of genius, nothing can be stiled excellent till it has been compared with other works of the same kind. Demonstration immediately displays its power, and has nothing to hope or fear from the flux of years; but works tentative and experimental must be estimated by their proportion to the general and collective ability of man, as it is discovered in a long succession of endeavours. Of the first building that was raised, it might be with certainty determined that it was round or square, but whether it was spacious or lofty must have been referred to time. The Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.

The reverence due to writings that have long subsisted arises therefore not from any credulous confidence in the superior wisdom of past ages, or gloomy persuasion of the degeneracy of mankind, but is the consequence of acknowledged and indubitable positions, that what has been longest known has been most considered, and what is most considered is best understood.

The Poet, of whose works I have undertaken the revision, may now begin to assume the dignity of an ancient, and claim the privilege of established fame and prescriptive veneration. He has long outlived his century, the term commonly fixed as the test of literary merit. Whatever advantages he might once derive from personal allusions, local customs, or temporary opinions, have for many years been lost; and every topick of merriment or motive of sorrow, which the modes of artificial life afforded him, now only obscure the scenes which they once illuminated. The effects of favour and competition are at an end; the tradition of his friendships and his enmities has perished; his works support no opinion with arguments, nor supply any faction with invectives; they can neither indulge vanity nor gratify malignity, but are read without any other reason than the desire of pleasure, and are therefore praised only as pleasure is obtained; yet, thus unassisted by interest or passion, they have past through variations of taste and changes of manners, and, as they devolved from one generation to another, have received new honours at every transmission.

But because human judgment, though it be gradually gaining upon certainty, never becomes infallible; and approbation, though long continued, may yet be only the approbation of prejudice or fashion; it is proper to inquire, by what peculiarities of excellence Shakespeare has gained and kept the favour of his countrymen.

Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight a-while, by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.

Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will always supply, and observation will always find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those general passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the writings of other poets a character is too often an individual; in those of Shakespeare it is commonly a species.

It is from this wide extension of design that so much instruction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shakespeare with practical axioms and domestick wisdom. It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and oeconomical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendour of particular passages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue; and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.

It will not easily be imagined how much Shakespeare excells in accommodating his sentiments to real life, but by comparing him with other authours. It was observed of the ancient schools of declamation, that the more diligently they were frequented, the more was the student disqualified for the world, because he found nothing there which he should ever meet in any other place. The same remark may be applied to every stage but that of Shakespeare. The theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by such characters as were never seen, conversing in a language which was never heard, upon topicks which will never arise in the commerce of mankind. But the dialogue of this authour is often so evidently determined by the incident which produces it, and is pursued with so much ease and simplicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the merit of fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent selection out of common conversation, and common occurrences.

Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action quickened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady and a rival into the fable; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, perplex them with oppositions of interest, and harrass them with violence of desires inconsistent with each other; to make them meet in rapture and part in agony; to fill their mouths with hyperbolical joy and outrageous sorrow; to distress them as nothing human ever was distressed; to deliver them as nothing human ever was delivered, is the business of a modern dramatist. For this probability is violated, life is misrepresented, and language is depraved. But love is only one of many passions, and as it has no great influence upon the sum of life, it has little operation in the dramas of a poet, who caught his ideas from the living world, and exhibited only what he saw before him. He knew, that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness or calamity.

Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated and preserved, yet perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more distinct from each other. I will not say with Pope, that every speech may be assigned to the proper speaker, because many speeches there are which have nothing characteristical; but, perhaps, though some may be equally adapted to every person, it will be difficult to find, any that can be properly transferred from the present possessor to another claimant. The choice is right, when there is reason for choice.

Other dramatists can only gain attention by hyperbolical or aggravated characters, by fabulous and unexampled excellence or depravity, as the writers of barbarous romances invigorated the reader by a giant and a dwarf; and he that should form his expectations of human affairs from the play, or from the tale, would be equally deceived. Shakespeare has no heroes; his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion: Even where the agency is supernatural the dialogue is level with life. Other writers disguise the most natural passions and most frequent incidents: so that he who contemplates them in the book will not know them in the world: Shakespeare approximates the remote, and familiarizes the wonderful; the event which he represents will not happen, but if it were possible, its effects would be probably such as he has assigned; and it may be said, that he has not only shewn human nature as it acts in real exigences, but as it would be found in trials, to which it cannot be exposed. This therefore is the praise of Shakespeare, that his drama is the mirrour of life; that he who has mazed his imagination, in following the phantoms which other writers raise up before him, may here be cured of his delirious extasies, by reading human sentiments in human language; by scenes from which a hermit may estimate the transactions of the world, and a confessor predict the progress of the passions.

His adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure of criticks, who form their judgments upon narrower principles. Dennis and Rhymer think his Romans not sufficiently Roman; and Voltaire censures his kings as not completely royal. Dennis is offended, that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon; and Voltaire perhaps thinks decency violated when the Danish Usurper is represented as a drunkard. But Shakespeare always makes nature predominate over accident; and if he preserves the essential character, is not very careful of distinctions superinduced and adventitious. His story requires Romans or kings, but he thinks only on men. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to shew an usurper and a murderer not only odious but despicable, he therefore added drunkenness to his other qualities, knowing that kings love wine like other men, and that wine exerts its natural power upon kings. These are the petty cavils of petty minds; a poet overlooks the casual distinction of country and condition, as a painter, satisfied with the figure, neglects the drapery.

The censure which he has incurred by mixing comick and tragick scenes, as it extends to all his works, deserves more consideration. Let the fact be first stated, and then examined.

Shakespeare’s plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolick of another; and many mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without design.

Out of this chaos of mingled purposes and casualties the ancient poets, according to the laws which custom had prescribed, selected some the crimes of men, and some their absurdities; some the momentous vicissitudes of life, and some the lighter occurrences; some the terrours of distress, and some the gayeties of prosperity. Thus rose the two modes of imitation, known by the names of tragedy and comedy, compositions intended to promote different ends by contrary means, and considered as so little allied, that I do not recollect among the Greeks or Romans a single writer who attempted both.

Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost all his plays are divided between serious and ludicrous characters, and, in the successive evolutions of the design, sometimes produce seriousness and sorrow, and sometimes levity and laughter.

That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature. The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey all the instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes both in its alterations of exhibition, and approaches nearer than either to the appearance of life, by shewing how great machinations and slender designs may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the low co-operate in the general system by unavoidable concatenation.

It is objected, that by this change of scenes the passions are interrupted in their progression, and that the principal event, being not advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at last the power to move, which constitutes the perfection of dramatick poetry. This reasoning is so specious, that it is received as true even by those who in daily experience feel it to be false. The interchanges of mingled scenes seldom fail to produce the intended vicissitudes of passion. Fiction cannot move so much, but that the attention may be easily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleasing melancholy be sometimes interrupted by unwelcome levity, yet let it be considered likewise, that melancholy is often not pleasing, and that the disturbance of one man may be the relief of another; that different auditors have different habitudes; and that, upon the whole, all pleasure consists in variety.

The players, who in their edition divided our authour’s works into comedies, histories, and tragedies, seem not to have distinguished the three kinds, by any very exact or definite ideas.

An action which ended happily to the principal persons, however serious or distressful through its intermediate incidents, in their opinion constituted a comedy. This idea of a comedy continued long amongst us, and plays were written, which, by changing the catastrophe, were tragedies to-day and comedies to-morrow.

Tragedy was not in those times a poem of more general dignity or elevation than comedy; it required only a calamitous conclusion, with which the common criticism of that age was satisfied, whatever lighter pleasure it afforded in its progress.

History was a series of actions, with no other than chronological succession, independent of each other, and without any tendency to introduce or regulate the conclusion. It is not always very nicely distinguished from tragedy. There is not much nearer approach to unity of action in the tragedy of “Antony and Cleopatra”, than in the history of “Richard the Second”. But a history might be continued through many plays; as it had no plan, it had no limits.

Through all these denominations of the drama, Shakespeare’s mode of composition is the same; an interchange of seriousness and merriment, by which the mind is softened at one time, and exhilarated at another. But whatever be his purpose, whether to gladden or depress, or to conduct the story, without vehemence or emotion, through tracts of easy and familiar dialogue, he never fails to attain his purpose; as he commands us, we laugh or mourn, or sit silent with quiet expectation, in tranquillity without indifference.

When Shakespeare’s plan is understood, most of the criticisms of Rhymer and Voltaire vanish away. The play of “Hamlet” is opened, without impropriety, by two sentinels; Iago bellows at Brabantio’s window, without injury to the scheme of the play, though in terms which a modern audience would not easily endure; the character of Polonius is seasonable and useful; and the Grave-diggers themselves may be heard with applause.

Shakespeare engaged in dramatick poetry with the world open before him; the rules of the ancients were yet known to few; the publick judgment was unformed; he had no example of such fame as might force him upon imitation, nor criticks of such authority as might restrain his extravagance: He therefore indulged his natural disposition, and his disposition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him to comedy. In tragedy he often writes with great appearance of toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but in his comick scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no labour can improve. In tragedy he is always struggling after some occasion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his tragick scenes there is always something wanting, but his comedy often surpasses expectation or desire. His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct.

The force of his comick scenes has suffered little diminution from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. As his personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all places; they are natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of personal habits, are only superficial dies, bright and pleasing for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of former lustre; but the discriminations of true passion are the colours of nature; they pervade the whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits them. The accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes are dissolved by the chance which combined them; but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase, nor suffers decay. The sand heaped by one flood is scattered by another, but the rock always continues in its place. The stream of time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabricks of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.

If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a stile which never becomes obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so consonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language as to remain settled and unaltered; this stile is probably to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance. The polite are always catching modish innovations, and the learned depart from established forms of speech, in hope of finding or making better; those who wish for distinction forsake the vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but there is a conversation above grossness and below refinement, where propriety resides, and where this poet seems to have gathered his comick dialogue. He is therefore more agreeable to the ears of the present age than any other authour equally remote, and among his other excellencies deserves to be studied as one of the original masters of our language.

These observations are to be considered not as unexceptionably constant, but as containing general and predominant truth. Shakespeare’s familiar dialogue is affirmed to be smooth and clear, yet not wholly without ruggedness or difficulty; as a country may be eminently fruitful, though it has spots unfit for cultivation: His characters are praised as natural, though their sentiments are sometimes forced, and their actions improbable; as the earth upon the whole is spherical, though its surface is varied with protuberances and cavities.

Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I shall shew them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or superstitious veneration. No question can be more innocently discussed than a dead poet’s pretensions to renown; and little regard is due to that bigotry which sets candour higher than truth.

His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose. From his writings indeed a system of social duty may be selected, for he that thinks reasonably must think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop casually from him; he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to shew in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer’s duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independant on time or place.

The plots are often so loosely formed, that a very slight consideration may improve them, and so carelessly pursued, that he seems not always fully to comprehend his own design. He omits opportunities of instructing or delighting which the train of his story seems to force upon him, and apparently rejects those exhibitions which would be more affecting, for the sake of those which are more easy.

It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and, in view of his reward, he shortened the labour, to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented.

He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one age or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but of possibility. These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to transfer to his imagined in interpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothic mythology of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his “Arcadia”, confounded the pastoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet and security, with those of turbulence, violence and adventure.

In his comick scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of smartness and contest of sarcasm; their jests are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are sufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant. There must, however, have been always some modes of gayety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chuse the best.

In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his labour is more. The effusions of passion which exigence forces out are for the most part striking and energetick; but whenever he solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity.

In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatick poetry is, naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumbrance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and splendour.

His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and instead of inquiring what the occasion demanded, to show how much his stores of knowledge could supply, he seldom escapes without the pity or resentment of his reader.

It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express, and will not reject; he struggles with it a while, and if it continues stubborn, comprises it in words such as occur, and leaves it to be disentangled and evolved by those who have more leisure to bestow upon it.

Not that always where the language is intricate the thought is subtle, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial sentiments and vulgar ideas disappoint the attention, to which they are recommended by sonorous epithets and swelling figures.

But the admirers of this great poet have never less reason to indulge their hopes of supreme excellence, than when he seems fully resolved to sink them in dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, or the crosses of love. He is not long soft and pathetick without some idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no sooner begins to move, than he counteracts himself; and terrour and pity, as they are rising in the mind, are checked and blasted by sudden frigidity.

A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures, it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his disquisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that he was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.

It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities; his violation of those laws which have been instituted and established by the joint authority of poets and of criticks.

For his other deviations from the art of writing, I resign him to critical justice, without making any other demand in his favour, than that which must be indulged to all human excellence; that his virtues be rated with his failings: But, from the censure which this irregularity may bring upon him, I shall, with due reverence to that learning which I must oppose, adventure to try how I can defend him.

His histories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not subject to any of their laws; nothing more is necessary to all the praise which they expect, than that the changes of action be so prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the characters consistent, natural and distinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to be sought.

In his other works he has well enough preserved the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled; he does not endeavour to hide his design only to discover it, for this is seldom the order of real events, and Shakespeare is the poet of nature: But his plan has commonly what Aristotle requires, a beginning, a middle, and an end; one event is concatenated with another, and the conclusion follows by easy consequence. There are perhaps some incidents that might be spared, as in other poets there is much talk that only fills up time upon the stage; but the general system makes gradual advances, and the end of the play is the end of expectation.

To the unities of time and place he has shewn no regard, and perhaps a nearer view of the principles on which they stand will diminish their value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from the time of Corneille, they have very generally received by discovering that they have given more trouble to the poet, than pleasure to the auditor.

The necessity of observing the unities of time and place arises from the supposed necessity of making the drama credible. The criticks hold it impossible, that an action of months or years can be possibly believed to pass in three hours; or that the spectator can suppose himself to sit in the theatre, while ambassadors go and return between distant kings, while armies are levied and towns besieged, while an exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they saw courting his mistress, shall lament the untimely fall of his son. The mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction loses its force when it departs from the resemblance of reality.

From the narrow limitation of time necessarily arises the contraction of place. The spectator, who knows that he saw the first act at Alexandria, cannot suppose that he sees the next at Rome, at a distance to which not the dragons of Medea could, in so short a time, have transported him; he knows with certainty that he has not changed his place; and he knows that place cannot change itself; that what was a house cannot become a plain; that what was Thebes can never be Persepolis.

Such is the triumphant language with which a critick exults over the misery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without resistance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakespeare, that he assumes, as an unquestionable principle, a position, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to be false. It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatick fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited.

The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes, that when the play opens the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. Surely he that imagines this, may imagine more. He that can take the stage at one time for the palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the promontory of Actium. Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation; if the spectator can be once persuaded, that his old acquaintance are Alexander and Caesar, that a room illuminated with candles is the plain of Pharsalia, or the bank of Granicus, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of reason, or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry, may despise the circumscriptions of terrestrial nature. There is no reason why a mind thus wandering in extasy should count the clock, or why an hour should not be a century in that calenture of the brains that can make the stage a field.

The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players. They come to hear a certain number of lines recited with just gesture and elegant modulation. The lines relate to some action, and an action must be in some place; but the different actions that compleat a story may be in places very remote from each other; and where is the absurdity of allowing that space to represent first Athens, and then Sicily, which was always known to be neither Sicily nor Athens, but a modern theatre?

By supposition, as place is introduced, time may be extended; the time required by the fable elapses for the most part between the acts; for, of so much of the action as is represented, the real and poetical duration is the same. If, in the first act, preparations for war against Mithridates are represented to be made in Rome, the event of the war may, without absurdity, be represented, in the catastrophe, as happening in Pontus; we know that there is neither war, nor preparation for war; we know that we are neither in Rome nor Pontus; that neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are before us. The drama exhibits successive imitations of successive actions, and why may not the second imitation represent an action that happened years after the first; if it be so connected with it, that nothing but time can be supposed to intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see their imitation.

It will be asked, how the drama moves, if it is not credited. It is credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited, whenever it moves, as a just picture of a real original; as representing to the auditor what he would himself feel, if he were to do or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that strikes the heart is not, that the evils before us are real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed. If there be any fallacy, it is not that we fancy the players, but that we fancy ourselves unhappy for a moment; but we rather lament the possibility than suppose the presence of misery, as a mother weeps over her babe, when she remembers that death may take it from her. The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more.

Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind. When the imagination is recreated by a painted landscape, the trees are not supposed capable to give us shade, or the fountains coolness; but we consider, how we should be pleased with such fountains playing beside us, and such woods waving over us. We are agitated in reading the history of “Henry the Fifth”, yet no man takes his book for the field of Agencourt. A dramatick exhibition is a book recited with concomitants that encrease or diminish its effect. Familiar comedy is often more powerful on the theatre, than in the page; imperial tragedy is always less. The humour of Petruchio may be heightened by grimace; but what voice or what gesture can hope to add dignity or force to the soliloquy of Cato.

A play read, affects the mind like a play acted. It is therefore evident, that the action is not supposed to be real, and it follows that between the acts a longer or shorter time may be allowed to pass, and that no more account of space or duration is to be taken by the auditor of a drama, than by the reader of a narrative, before whom may pass in an hour the life of a hero, or the revolutions of an empire.

Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to decide, and useless to inquire. We may reasonably suppose, that, when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions of scholars and criticks, and that he at last deliberately persisted in a practice, which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is essential to the fable, but unity of action, and as the unities of time and place arise evidently from false assumptions, and, by circumscribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot think it much to be lamented, that they were not known by him, or not observed: Nor, if such another poet could arise, should I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules merely positive, become the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare, and such censures are suitable to the minute and slender criticism of Voltaire:

Non usque adeo permiscuit imis Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli Serventur leges, malint a Caesare tolli.

Yet when I speak thus slightly of dramatick rules, I cannot but recollect how much wit and learning may be produced against me; before such authorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think the present question one of those that are to be decided by mere authority, but because it is to be suspected, that these precepts have not been so easily received but for better reasons than I have yet been able to find. The result of my enquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to boast of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place are not essential to a just drama, that though they may sometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be sacrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction; and that a play, written with nice observation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as the product of superfluous and ostentatious art, by which is shewn, rather what is possible, than what is necessary.

He that, without diminution of any other excellence, shall preserve all the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the architect, who shall display all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any deduction from its strength; but the principal beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play, are to copy nature and instruct life.

Perhaps, what I have here not dogmatically but deliberately written, may recal the principles of the drama to a new examination. I am almost frighted at my own temerity; and when I estimate the fame and the strength of those that maintain the contrary opinion, am ready to sink down in reverential silence; as Aeneas withdrew from the defence of Troy, when he saw Neptune shaking the wall, and Juno heading the besiegers.

Those whom my arguments cannot persuade to give their approbation to the judgment of Shakespeare, will easily, if they consider the condition of his life, make some allowance for his ignorance.

Every man’s performances, to be rightly estimated, must be compared with the state of the age in which he lived, and with his own particular opportunities; and though to the reader a book be not worse or better for the circumstances of the authour, yet as there is always a silent reference of human works to human abilities, and as the enquiry, how far man may extend his designs, or how high he may rate his native force, is of far greater dignity than in what rank we shall place any particular performance, curiosity is always busy to discover the instruments, as well as to survey the workmanship, to know how much is to be ascribed to original powers, and how much to casual and adventitious help. The palaces of Peru or Mexico were certainly mean and incommodious habitations, if compared to the houses of European monarchs; yet who could forbear to view them with astonishment, who remembered that they were built without the use of iron?

The English nation, in the time of Shakespeare, was yet struggling to emerge from barbarity. The philology of Italy had been transplanted hither in the reign of Henry the Eighth; and the learned languages had been successfully cultivated by Lilly and More; by Pole, Cheke, and Gardiner; and afterwards by Smith, Clerk, Haddon, and Ascham. Greek was now taught to boys in the principal schools; and those who united elegance with learning, read, with great diligence, the Italian and Spanish poets. But literature was yet confined to professed scholars, or to men and women of high rank. The publick was gross and dark; and to be able to read and write, was an accomplishment still valued for its rarity.

Nations, like individuals, have their infancy. A people newly awakened to literary curiosity, being yet unacquainted with the true state of things, knows not how to judge of that which is proposed as its resemblance. Whatever is remote from common appearances is always welcome to vulgar, as to childish credulity; and of a country unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar. The study of those who then aspired to plebeian learning was laid out upon adventures, giants, dragons, and enchantments. The Death of Arthur was the favourite volume.

The mind, which has feasted on the luxurious wonders of fiction, has no taste of the insipidity of truth. A play which imitated only the common occurrences of the world, would, upon the admirers of Palmerin and Guy of Warwick, have made little impression; he that wrote for such an audience was under the necessity of looking round for strange events and fabulous transactions, and that incredibility, by which maturer knowledge is offended, was the chief recommendation of writings, to unskilful curiosity.

Our authour’s plots are generally borrowed from novels, and it is reasonable to suppose, that he chose the most popular, such as were read by many, and related by more; for his audience could not have followed him through the intricacies of the drama, had they not held the thread of the story in their hands.

The stories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in his time accessible and familliar. The fable of “As You Like It”, which is supposed to be copied from Chaucer’s Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet of those times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of Hamlet in plain English prose, which the criticks have now to seek in Saxo Grammaticus.

His English histories he took from English chronicles and English ballads; and as the ancient writers were made known to his countrymen by versions, they supplied him with new subjects; he dilated some of Plutarch’s lives into plays, when they had been translated by North.

His plots, whether historical or fabulous, are always crouded with incidents, by which the attention of a rude people was more easily caught than by sentiment or argumentation; and such is the power of the marvellous even over those who despise it, that every man finds his mind more strongly seized by the tragedies of Shakespeare than of any other writer; others please us by particular speeches, but he always makes us anxious for the event, and has perhaps excelled all but Homer in securing the first purpose of a writer, by exciting restless and unquenchable curiosity, and compelling him that reads his work to read it through.

The shows and bustle with which his plays abound have the same original. As knowledge advances, pleasure passes from the eye to the ear, but returns, as it declines, from the ear to the eye. Those to whom our authour’s labours were exhibited had more skill in pomps or processions than in poetical language, and perhaps wanted some visible and discriminated events, as comments on the dialogue. He knew how he should most please; and whether his practice is more agreeable to nature, or whether his example has prejudiced the nation, we still find that on our stage something must be done as well as said, and inactive declamation is very coldly heard, however musical or elegant, passionate or sublime.

Voltaire expresses his wonder, that our authour’s extravagancies are endured by a nation, which has seen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be answered, that Addison speaks the language of poets, and Shakespeare, of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties which enamour us of its authour, but we see nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments or human actions; we place it with the fairest and the noblest progeny which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning, but “Othello” is the vigorous and vivacious offspring of observation impregnated by genius. Cato affords a splendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction easy, elevated and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no vibration to the heart; the composition refers us only to the writer; we pronounce the name of Cato, but we think on Addison.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely finished, wrought into shape, and polished unto brightness. Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerals.

It has been much disputed, whether Shakespeare owed his excellence to his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of scholastick education, the precepts of critical science, and the examples of ancient authours.

There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shakespeare wanted learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead languages. Johnson, his friend, affirms, that “He had small Latin and no Greek.”; who, besides that he had no imaginable temptation to falsehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquisitions of Shakespeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought therefore to decide the controversy, unless some testimony of equal force could be opposed.

Some have imagined, that they have discovered deep learning in many imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged, were drawn from books translated in his time; or were such easy coincidencies of thought, as will happen to all who consider the same subjects; or such remarks on life or axioms of morality as float in conversation, and are transmitted through the world in proverbial sentences.

I have found it remarked, that, in this important sentence, “Go before, I’ll follow,” we read a translation of, I prae, sequar. I have been told, that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, “I cry’d to sleep again,” the authour imitates Anacreon, who had, like every other man, the same wish on the same occasion.

There are a few passages which may pass for imitations, but so few, that the exception only confirms the rule; he obtained them from accidental quotations, or by oral communication, and as he used what he had, would have used more if he had obtained it.

The “Comedy of Errors” is confessedly taken from the Menaechmi of Plautus; from the only play of Plautus which was then in English. What can be more probable, than that he who copied that, would have copied more; but that those which were not translated were inaccessible?

Whether he knew the modern languages is uncertain. That his plays have some French scenes proves but little; he might easily procure them to be written, and probably, even though he had known the language in the common degree, he could not have written it without assistance. In the story of “Romeo and Juliet” he is observed to have followed the English translation, where it deviates from the Italian; but this on the other part proves nothing against his knowledge of the original. He was to copy, not what he knew himself, but what was known to his audience.

It is most likely that he had learned Latin sufficiently to make him acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to an easy perusal of the Roman authours. Concerning his skill in modern languages, I can find no sufficient ground of determination; but as no imitations of French or Italian authours have been discovered, though the Italian poetry was then high in esteem, I am inclined to believe, that he read little more than English, and chose for his fables only such tales as he found translated.

That much knowledge is scattered over his works is very justly observed by Pope, but it is often such knowledge as books did not supply. He that will understand Shakespeare, must not be content to study him in the closet, he must look for his meaning sometimes among the sports of the field, and sometimes among the manufactures of the shop.

There is however proof enough that he was a very diligent reader, nor was our language then so indigent of books, but that he might very liberally indulge his curiosity without excursion into foreign literature. Many of the Roman authours were translated, and some of the Greek; the reformation had filled the kingdom with theological learning; most of the topicks of human disquisition had found English writers; and poetry had been cultivated, not only with diligence, but success. This was a stock of knowledge sufficient for a mind so capable of appropriating and improving it.

But the greater part of his excellence was the product of his own genius. He found the English stage in a state of the utmost rudeness; no essays either in tragedy or comedy had appeared, from which it could be discovered to what degree of delight either one or other might be carried. Neither character nor dialogue were yet understood. Shakespeare may be truly said to have introduced them both amongst us, and in some of his happier scenes to have carried them both to the utmost height.

By what gradations of improvement he proceeded, is not easily known; for the chronology of his works is yet unsettled. Rowe is of opinion, that “perhaps we are not to look for his beginning, like those of other writers, in his least perfect works; art had so little, and nature so large a share in what he did, that for ought I know,” says he, “the performances of his youth, as they were the most vigorous, were the best.” But the power of nature is only the power of using to any certain purpose the materials which diligence procures, or opportunity supplies. Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images are collected by study and experience, can only assist in combining or applying them. Shakespeare, however favoured by nature, could impart only what he had learned; and as he must increase his ideas, like other mortals, by gradual acquisition, he, like them, grew wiser as he grew older, could display life better, as he knew it more, and instruct with more efficacy, as he was himself more amply instructed.

There is a vigilance of observation and accuracy of distinction which books and precepts cannot confer; from this almost all original and native excellence proceeds. Shakespeare must have looked upon mankind with perspicacity, in the highest degree curious and attentive. Other writers borrow their characters from preceding writers, and diversify them only by the accidental appendages of present manners; the dress is a little varied, but the body is the same. Our authour had both matter and form to provide; for except the characters of Chaucer, to whom I think he is not much indebted, there were no writers in English, and perhaps not many in other modern languages, which shewed life in its native colours.

The contest about the original benevolence or malignity of man had not yet commenced. Speculation had not yet attempted to analyse the mind, to trace the passions to their sources, to unfold the seminal principles of vice and virtue, or sound the depths of the heart for the motives of action. All those enquiries, which from that time that human nature became the fashionable study, have been made sometimes with nice discernment, but often with idle subtilty, were yet unattempted. The tales, with which the infancy of learning was satisfied, exhibited only the superficial appearances of action, related the events but omitted the causes, and were formed for such as delighted in wonders rather than in truth. Mankind was not then to be studied in the closet; he that would know the world, was under the necessity of gleaning his own remarks, by mingling as he could in its business and amusements.

Boyle congratulated himself upon his high birth, because it favoured his curiosity, by facilitating his access. Shakespeare had no such advantage; he came to London a needy adventurer, and lived for a time by very mean employments. Many works of genius and learning have been performed in states of life, that appear very little favourable to thought or to enquiry; so many, that he who considers them is inclined to think that he sees enterprise and perseverance predominating over all external agency, and bidding help and hindrance vanish before them. The genius of Shakespeare was not to be depressed by the weight of poverty, nor limited by the narrow conversation to which men in want are inevitably condemned; the incumbrances of his fortune were shaken from his mind, “as dewdrops from a lion’s mane.”

Though he had so many difficulties to encounter, and so little assistance to surmount them, he has been able to obtain an exact knowledge of many modes of life, and many casts of native dispositions; to vary them with great multiplicity; to mark them by nice distinctions; and to shew them in full view by proper combinations. In this part of his performances He had none to imitate, but has himself been imitated by all succeeding writers; and it may be doubted, whether from all his successors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected, than he alone has given to his country.

Nor was his attention confined to the actions of men; he was an exact surveyor of the inanimate world; his descriptions have always some peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they really exist. It may be observed, that the oldest poets of many nations preserve their reputation, and that the following generations of wit, after a short celebrity, sink into oblivion. The first, whoever they be, must take their sentiments and descriptions immediately from knowledge; the resemblance is therefore just, their descriptions are verified by every eye, and their sentiments acknowledged by every breast. Those whom their fame invites to the same studies, copy partly them, and partly nature, till the books of one age gain such authority, as to stand in the place of nature to another, and imitation, always deviating a little, becomes at last capricious and casual. Shakespeare, whether life or nature be his subject, shews plainly, that he has seen with his own eyes; he gives the image which he receives, not weakened or distorted by the intervention of any other mind; the ignorant feel his representations to be just, and the learned see that they are compleat.

Perhaps it would not be easy to find any authour, except Homer, who invented so much as Shakespeare, who so much advanced the studies which he cultivated, or effused so much novelty upon his age or country. The form, the characters, the language, and the shows of the English drama are his. “He seems,” says Dennis, “to have been the very original of our English tragical harmony, that is, the harmony of blank verse, diversified often by dissyllable and trissyllable terminations. For the diversity distinguishes it from heroick harmony, and by bringing it nearer to common use makes it more proper to gain attention, and more fit for action and dialogue. Such verse we make when we are writing prose; we make such verse in common conversation.”

I know not whether this praise is rigorously just. The dissyllable termination, which the critick rightly appropriates to the drama, is to be found, though, I think, not in Gorboduc which is confessedly before our authour; yet in Hieronnymo, of which the date is not certain, but which there is reason to believe at least as old as his earliest plays. This however is certain, that he is the first who taught either tragedy or comedy to please, there being no theatrical piece of any older writer, of which the name is known, except to antiquaries and collectors of books, which are sought because they are scarce, and would not have been scarce, had they been much esteemed.

To him we must ascribe the praise, unless Spenser may divide it with him, of having first discovered to how much smoothness and harmony the English language could be softened. He has speeches, perhaps sometimes scenes, which have all the delicacy of Rowe, without his effeminacy. He endeavours indeed commonly to strike by the force and vigour of his dialogue, but he never executes his purpose better, than when he tries to sooth by softness.

Yet it must be at last confessed, that as we owe every thing to him, he owes something to us; that, if much of his praise is paid by perception and judgement, much is likewise given by custom and veneration. We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure in him what we should in another loath or despise. If we endured without praising, respect for the father of our drama might excuse us; but I have seen, in the book of some modern critick, a collection of anomalies which shew that he has corrupted language by every mode of depravation, but which his admirer has accumulated as a monument of honour.

He has scenes of undoubted and perpetual excellence, but perhaps not one play, which, if it were now exhibited as the work of a contemporary writer, would be heard to the conclusion. I am indeed far from thinking, that his works were wrought to his own ideas of perfection; when they were such as would satisfy the audience, they satisfied the writer. It is seldom that authours, though more studious of fame than Shakespeare, rise much above the standard of their own age; to add a little of what is best will always be sufficient for present praise, and those who find themselves exalted into fame, are willing to credit their encomiasts, and to spare the labour of contending with themselves.

It does not appear, that Shakespeare thought his works worthy of posterity, that he levied any ideal tribute upon future times, or had any further prospect, than of present popularity and present profit. When his plays had been acted, his hope was at an end; he solicited no addition of honour from the reader. He therefore made no scruple to repeat the same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the same knot of perplexity, which may be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect, that of Congreve’s four comedies, two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, he did not invent.

So careless was this great poet of future fame, that, though he retired to ease and plenty, while he was yet little “declined into the vale of years,” before he could be disgusted with fatigue, or disabled by infirmity, he made no collection of his works, nor desired to rescue those that had been already published from the depravations that obscured them, or secure to the rest a better destiny, by giving them to the world in their genuine state.

Of the plays which bear the name of Shakespeare in the late editions, the greater part were not published till about seven years after his death, and the few which appeared in his life are apparently thrust into the world without the care of the authour, and therefore probably without his knowledge.

Of all the publishers, clandestine or professed, their negligence and unskilfulness has by the late revisers been sufficiently shown. The faults of all are indeed numerous and gross, and have not only corrupted many passages perhaps beyond recovery, but have brought others into suspicion, which are only obscured by obsolete phraseology, or by the writer’s unskilfulness and affectation. To alter is more easy than to explain, and temerity is a more common quality than diligence. Those who saw that they must employ conjecture to a certain degree, were willing to indulge it a little further. Had the authour published his own works, we should have sat quietly down to disentangle his intricacies, and clear his obscurities; but now we tear what we cannot loose, and eject what we happen not to understand.

The faults are more than could have happened without the concurrence of many causes. The stile of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed and obscure; his works were transcribed for the players by those who may be supposed to have seldom understood them; they were transmitted by copiers equally unskilful, who still multiplied errours; they were perhaps sometimes mutilated by the actors, for the sake of shortening the speeches; and were at last printed without correction of the press.

In this state they remained, not as Dr. Warburton supposes, because they were unregarded, but because the editor’s art was not yet applied to modern languages, and our ancestors were accustomed to so much negligence of English printers, that they could very patiently endure it. At last an edition was undertaken by Rowe; not because a poet was to be published by a poet, for Rowe seems to have thought very little on correction or explanation, but that our authour’s works might appear like those of his fraternity, with the appendages of a life and recommendatory preface. Rowe has been clamorously blamed for not performing what he did not undertake, and it is time that justice be done him, by confessing, that though he seems to have had no thought of corruption beyond the printer’s errours, yet he has made many emendations, if they were not made before, which his successors have received without acknowledgment, and which, if they had produced them, would have filled pages and pages with censures of the stupidity by which the faults were committed, with displays of the absurdities which they involved, with ostentatious exposition of the new reading, and self congratulations on the happiness of discovering it.

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; it relates however what is now to be known, and therefore deserves to pass through all succeeding publications.

The nation had been for many years content enough with Mr. Rowe’s performance, when Mr. Pope made them acquainted with the true state of Shakespeare’s text, shewed that it was extremely corrupt, and gave reason to hope that there were means of reforming it. He collated the old copies, which none had thought to examine before, and restored many lines to their integrity; but, by a very compendious criticism, he rejected whatever he disliked, and thought more of amputation than of cure.

I know not why he is commended by Dr. Warburton for distinguishing the genuine from the spurious plays. In this choice he exerted no judgement of his own; the plays which he received, were given by Hemings and Condel, the first editors; and those which he rejected, though, according to the licentiousness of the press in those times, they were printed during Shakespeare’s life, with his name, had been omitted by his friends, and were never added to his works before the edition of 1664, from which they were copied by the later printers.

This was a work which Pope seems to have thought unworthy of his abilities, being not able to suppress his contempt of “the dull duty of an editor”. He understood but half his undertaking. The duty of a collator is indeed dull, yet, like other tedious tasks, is very necessary; but an emendatory critick would ill discharge his duty, without qualities very different from dulness. In perusing a corrupted piece, he must have before him all possibilities of meaning, with all possibilities of expression. Such must be his comprehension of thought, and such his copiousness of language. Out of many readings possible, he must be able to select that which best suits with the state, opinions, and modes of language prevailing in every age, and with his authour’s particular cast of thought, and turn of expression. Such must be his knowledge, and such his taste. Conjectural criticism demands more than humanity possesses, and he that exercises it with most praise has very frequent need of indulgence. Let us now be told no more of the dull duty of an editor.

Confidence is the common consequence of success. They whose excellence of any kind has been loudly celebrated, are ready to conclude, that their powers are universal. Pope’s edition fell below his own expectations, and he was so much offended, when he was found to have left any thing for others to do, that he past the latter part of his life in a state of hostility with verbal criticism.

I have retained all his notes, that no fragment of so great a writer may be lost; his preface, valuable alike for elegance of composition and justness of remark, and containing a general criticism on his authour, so extensive that little can be added, and so exact, that little can be disputed, every editor has an interest to suppress, but that every reader would demand its insertion.

Pope was succeeded by Theobald, a man of narrow comprehension and small acquisitions, with no native and intrinsick splendour of genius, with little of the artificial light of learning, but zealous for minute accuracy, and not negligent in pursuing it. He collated the ancient copies, and rectified many errors. A man so anxiously scrupulous might have been expected to do more, but what little he did was commonly right.

In his report of copies and editions he is not to be trusted, without examination. He speaks sometimes indefinitely of copies, when he has only one. In his enumeration of editions, he mentions the two first folios as of high, and the third folio as of middle authority; but the truth is, that the first is equivalent to all others, and that the rest only deviate from it by the printer’s negligence. Whoever has any of the folios has all, excepting those diversities which mere reiteration of editions will produce. I collated them all at the beginning, but afterwards used only the first.

Of his notes I have generally retained those which he retained himself in his second edition, except when they were confuted by subsequent annotators, or were too minute to merit preservation. I have sometimes adopted his restoration of a comma, without inserting the panegyrick in which he celebrated himself for his achievement. The exuberant excrescence of diction I have often lopped, his triumphant exultations over Pope and Rowe I have sometimes suppressed, and his contemptible ostentation I have frequently concealed; but I have in some places shewn him, as he would have shewn himself, for the reader’s diversion, that the inflated emptiness of some notes may justify or excuse the contraction of the rest.

Theobald, thus weak and ignorant, thus mean and faithless, thus petulant and ostentatious, by the good luck of having Pope for his enemy, has escaped, and escaped alone, with reputation, from this undertaking. So willingly does the world support those who solicite favour, against those who command reverence; and so easily is he praised, whom no man can envy.

Our authour fell then into the hands of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the Oxford editor, a man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for such studies. He had, what is the first requisite to emendatory criticism, that intuition by which the poet’s intention is immediately discovered, and that dexterity of intellect which dispatches its work by the easiest means. He had undoubtedly read much; his acquaintance with customs, opinions, and traditions, seems to have been large; and he is often learned without shew. He seldom passes what he does not understand, without an attempt to find or to make a meaning, and sometimes hastily makes what a little more attention would have found. He is solicitous to reduce to grammar, what he could not be sure that his authour intended to be grammatical. Shakespeare regarded more the series of ideas, than of words; and his language, not being designed for the reader’s desk, was all that he desired it to be, if it conveyed his meaning to the audience.

Hanmer’s care of the metre has been too violently censured. He found the measures reformed in so many passages, by the silent labours of some editors, with the silent acquiescence of the rest, that he thought himself allowed to extend a little further the license, which had already been carried so far without reprehension; and of his corrections in general, it must be confessed, that they are often just, and made commonly with the least possible violation of the text.

But, by inserting his emendations, whether invented or borrowed, into the page, without any notice of varying copies, he has appropriated the labour of his predecessors, and made his own edition of little authority. His confidence indeed, both in himself and others, was too great; he supposes all to be right that was done by Pope and Theobald; he seems not to suspect a critick of fallibility, and it was but reasonable that he should claim what he so liberally granted.

As he never writes without careful enquiry and diligent consideration, I have received all his notes, and believe that every reader will wish for more.

Of the last editor it is more difficult to speak. Respect is due to high place, tenderness to living reputation, and veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at that liberty of which he has himself so frequently given an example, nor very solicitous what is thought of notes, which he ought never to have considered as part of his serious employments, and which, I suppose, since the ardour of composition is remitted, he no longer numbers among his happy effusions.

The original and predominant errour of his commentary, is acquiescence in his first thoughts; that precipitation which is produced by consciousness of quick discernment; and that confidence which presumes to do, by surveying the surface, what labour only can perform, by penetrating the bottom. His notes exhibit sometimes perverse interpretations, and sometimes improbable conjectures; he at one time gives the authour more profundity of meaning than the sentence admits, and at another discovers absurdities, where the sense is plain to every other reader. But his emendations are likewise often happy and just; and his interpretation of obscure passages learned and sagacious.

Of his notes, I have commonly rejected those, against which the general voice of the publick has exclaimed, or which their own incongruity immediately condemns, and which, I suppose, the authour himself would desire to be forgotten. Of the rest, to part I have given the highest approbation, by inserting the offered reading in the text; part I have left to the judgment of the reader, as doubtful, though specious; and part I have censured without reserve, but I am sure without bitterness of malice, and, I hope, without wantonness of insult.

It is no pleasure to me, in revising my volumes, to observe how much paper is wasted in confutation. Whoever considers the revolutions of learning, and the various questions of greater or less importance, upon which wit and reason have exercised their powers, must lament the unsuccessfulness of enquiry, and the slow advances of truth, when he reflects, that great part of the labour of every writer is only the destruction of those that went before him. The first care of the builder of a new system, is to demolish the fabricks which are standing. The chief desire of him that comments an authour, is to shew how much other commentators have corrupted and obscured him. The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above the reach of controversy, are confuted and rejected in another, and rise again to reception in remoter times. Thus the human mind is kept in motion without progress. Thus sometimes truth and errour, and sometimes contrarieties of errour, take each other’s place by reciprocal invasion. The tide of seeming knowledge which is poured over one generation, retires and leaves another naked and barren; the sudden meteors of intelligence which for a while appear to shoot their beams into the regions of obscurity, on a sudden withdraw their lustre, and leave mortals again to grope their way.

These elevations and depressions of renown, and the contradictions to which all improvers of knowledge must for ever be exposed, since they are not escaped by the highest and brightest of mankind, may surely be endured with patience by criticks and annotators, who can rank themselves but as the satellites of their authours. How canst thou beg for life, says Achilles to his captive, when thou knowest that thou art now to suffer only what must another day be suffered by Achilles?

Dr. Warburton had a name sufficient to confer celebrity on those who could exalt themselves into antagonists, and his notes have raised a clamour too loud to be distinct. His chief assailants are the authours of the Canons of Criticism and of the Review of Shakespeare’s Text; of whom one ridicules his errours with airy petulance, suitable enough to the levity of the controversy; the other attacks them with gloomy malignity, as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter, and returns for more; the other bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him. When I think on one, with his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, who was afraid that “girls with spits, and boys with stones, should slay him in puny battle;” when the other crosses my imagination, I remember the prodigy in “Macbeth”,

An eagle tow’ring in his pride of place, was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.

Let me however do them justice. One is a wit, and one a scholar. They have both shewn acuteness sufficient in the discovery of faults, and have both advanced some probable interpretations of obscure passages; but when they aspire to conjecture and emendation, it appears how falsely we all estimate our own abilities, and the little which they have been able to perform might have taught them more candour to the endeavours of others.

Before Dr. Warburton’s edition, “Critical Observations on Shakespeare” had been published by Mr. Upton, a man skilled in languages, and acquainted with books, but who seems to have had no great vigour of genius or nicety of taste. Many of his explanations are curious and useful, but he likewise, though he professed to oppose the licentious confidence of editors, and adhere to the old copies, is unable to restrain the rage of emendation, though his ardour is ill seconded by his skill. Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist, and the laborious collator some unlucky moment frolicks in conjecture.

“Critical, historical and explanatory notes” have been likewise published upon Shakespeare by Dr. Grey, whose diligent perusal of the old English writers has enabled him to make some useful observations. What he undertook he has well enough performed, but as he neither attempts judicial nor emendatory criticism, he employs rather his memory than his sagacity. It were to be wished that all would endeavour to imitate his modesty who have not been able to surpass his knowledge.

I can say with great sincerity of all my predecessors, what I hope will hereafter be said of me, that not one has left Shakespeare without improvement, nor is there one to whom I have not been indebted for assistance and information. Whatever I have taken from them it was my intention to refer to its original authour, and it is certain, that what I have not given to another, I believed when I wrote it to be my own. In some perhaps I have been anticipated; but if I am ever found to encroach upon the remarks of any other commentator, I am willing that the honour, be it more or less, should be transferred to the first claimant, for his right, and his alone, stands above dispute; the second can prove his pretensions only to himself, nor can himself always distinguish invention, with sufficient certainty, from recollection.

They have all been treated by me with candour, which they have not been careful of observing to one another. It is not easy to discover from what cause the acrimony of a scholiast can naturally proceed. The subjects to be discussed by him are of very small importance; they involve neither property nor liberty; nor favour the interest of sect or party. The various readings of copies, and different interpretations of a passage, seem to be questions that might exercise the wit, without engaging the passions. But, whether it be, that “small things make mean men proud,” and vanity catches small occasions; or that all contrariety of opinion, even in those that can defend it no longer, makes proud men angry; there is often found in commentaries a spontaneous strain of invective and contempt, more eager and venomous than is vented by the most furious controvertist in politicks against those whom he is hired to defame.

Perhaps the lightness of the matter may conduce to the vehemence of the agency; when the truth to be investigated is so near to inexistence, as to escape attention, its bulk is to be enlarged by rage and exclamation: That to which all would be indifferent in its original state, may attract notice when the fate of a name is appended to it. A commentator has indeed great temptations to supply by turbulence what he wants of dignity, to beat his little gold to a spacious surface, to work that to foam which no art or diligence can exalt to spirit.

The notes which I have borrowed or written are either illustrative, by which difficulties are explained; or judicial, by which faults and beauties are remarked; or emendatory, by which depravations are corrected.

The explanations transcribed from others, if I do not subjoin any other interpretation, I suppose commonly to be right, at least I intend by acquiescence to confess, that I have nothing better to propose.

After the labours of all the editors, I found many passages which appeared to me likely to obstruct the greater number of readers, and thought it my duty to facilitate their passage. It is impossible for an expositor not to write too little for some, and too much for others. He can only judge what is necessary by his own experience; and how long soever he may deliberate, will at last explain many lines which the learned will think impossible to be mistaken, and omit many for which the ignorant will want his help. These are censures merely relative and must be quietly endured. I have endeavoured to be neither superfluously copious, nor scrupulously reserved, and hope that I have made my authour’s meaning accessible to many who before were frighted from perusing him, and contributed something to the publick, by diffusing innocent and rational pleasure.

The compleat explanation of an authour not systematick and consequential, but desultory and vagrant, abounding in casual allusions and light hints, is not to be expected from any single scholiast. All personal reflections, when names are suppressed, must be in a few years irrecoverably obliterated; and customs, too minute to attract the notice of law, such as mode of dress, formalities of conversation, rules of visits, disposition of furniture, and practices of ceremony, which naturally find places in familiar dialogue, are so fugitive and unsubstantial that they are not easily retained or recovered. What can be known, will be collected by chance, from the recesses of obscure and obsolete papers, perused commonly with some other view. Of this knowledge every man has some, and none has much; but when an authour has engaged the publick attention, those who can add any thing to his illustration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence.

To time I have been obliged to resign many passages, which, though I did not understand them, will perhaps hereafter be explained, having, I hope, illustrated some, which others have neglected or mistaken, sometimes by short remarks or marginal directions, such as every editor has added at his will, and often by comments more laborious than the matter will seem to deserve; but that which is most difficult is not always most important, and to an editor nothing is a trifle by which his authour is obscured.

The poetical beauties or defects I have not been very diligent to observe. Some plays have more, and some fewer judicial observations, not in proportion to their difference of merit, but because I gave this part of my design to chance and to caprice. The reader, I believe, is seldom pleased to find his opinion anticipated; it is natural to delight more in what we find or make, than in what we receive. Judgement, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by submission to dictatorial decisions, as the memory grows torpid by the use of a table book. Some initiation is however necessary; of all skill, part is infused by precept, and part is obtained by habit; I have therefore shewn so much as may enable the candidate of criticism to discover the rest.

To the end of most plays, I have added short strictures, containing a general censure of faults, or praise of excellence; in which I know not how much I have concurred with the current opinion; but I have not, by any affectation of singularity, deviated from it. Nothing is minutely and particularly examined, and therefore it is to be supposed, that in the plays which are condemned there is much to be praised, and in these which are praised much to be condemned.

The part of criticism in which the whole succession of editors has laboured with the greatest diligence, which has occasioned the most arrogant ostentation, and excited the keenest acrimony, is the emendation of corrupted passages, to which the publick attention having been first drawn by the violence of contention between Pope and Theobald, has been continued by the persecution, which, with a kind of conspiracy, has been since raised against all the publishers of Shakespeare.

That many passages have passed in a state of depravation through all the editions is indubitably certain; of these the restoration is only to be attempted by collation of copies or sagacity of conjecture. The collator’s province is safe and easy, the conjecturer’s perilous and difficult. Yet as the greater part of the plays are extant only in one copy, the peril must not be avoided, nor the difficulty refused.

Of the readings which this emulation of amendment has hitherto produced, some from the labours of every publisher have advanced into the text; those are to be considered as in my opinion sufficiently supported; some I have rejected without mention, as evidently erroneous; some I have left in the notes without censure or approbation, as resting in equipoise between objection and defence; and some, which seemed specious but not right, I have inserted with a subsequent animadversion.

Having classed the observations of others, I was at last to try what I could substitute for their mistakes, and how I could supply their omissions. I collated such copies as I could procure, and wished for more, but have not found the collectors of these rarities very communicative. Of the editions which chance or kindness put into my hands I have given an enumeration, that I may not be blamed for neglecting what I had not the power to do.

By examining the old copies, I soon found that the late publishers, with all their boasts of diligence, suffered many passages; to stand unauthorised, and contented themselves with Rowe’s regulation of the text, even where they knew it to be arbitrary, and with a little consideration might have found it to be wrong. Some of these alterations are only the ejection of a word for one that appeared to him more elegant or more intelligible. These corruptions I have often silently rectified; for the history of our language, and the true force of our words, can only be preserved, by keeping the text of authours free from adulteration. Others, and those very frequent, smoothed the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have not exercised the same rigour; if only a word was transposed, or a particle inserted or omitted, I have sometimes suffered the line to stand; for the inconstancy of the copies is such, as that some liberties may be easily permitted. But this practice I have not suffered to proceed far, having restored the primitive diction wherever it could for any reason be preferred.

The emendations, which comparison of copies supplied, I have inserted in the text; sometimes where the improvement was slight, without notice, and sometimes with an account of the reasons of the change.

Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my settled principle, that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not to be disturbed for the sake of elegance, perspicuity, or mere improvement of the sense. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgement of the first publishers, yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we who only read it by imagination. But it is evident that they have often made strange mistakes by ignorance or negligence, and that therefore something may be properly attempted by criticism, keeping the middle way between presumption and timidity.

Such criticism I have attempted to practise, and where any passage appeared inextricably perplexed, have endeavoured to discover how it may be recalled to sense, with least violence. But my first labour is, always to turn the old text on every side, and try if there be any interstice, through which light can find its way; nor would Huetius himself condemn me, as refusing the trouble of research, for the ambition of alteration. In this modest industry I have not been unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the violations of temerity, and secured many scenes from the inroads of correction. I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honourable to save a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have been more careful to protect than to attack.

I have preserved the common distribution of the plays into acts, though I believe it to be in almost all the plays void of authority. Some of those which are divided in the later editions have no division in the first folio, and some that are divided in the folio have no division in the preceding copies. The settled mode of the theatre requires four intervals in the play, but few, if any, of our authour’s compositions can be properly distributed in that manner. An act is so much of the drama as passes without intervention of time or change of place. A pause makes a new act. In every real, and therefore in every imitative action, the intervals may be more or fewer, the restriction of five acts being accidental and arbitrary. This Shakespeare knew, and this he practised; his plays were written, and at first printed in one unbroken continuity, and ought now to be exhibited with short pauses, interposed as often as the scene is changed, or any considerable time is required to pass. This method would at once quell a thousand absurdities.

In restoring the authour’s works to their integrity, I have considered the punctuation as wholly in my power; for what could be their care of colons and commas, who corrupted words and sentences. Whatever could be done by adjusting points is therefore silently performed, in some plays with much diligence, in others with less; it is hard to keep a busy eye steadily fixed upon evanescent atoms, or a discursive mind upon evanescent truth.

The same liberty has been taken with a few particles, or other words of slight effect. I have sometimes inserted or omitted them without notice. I have done that sometimes, which the other editors have done always, and which indeed the state of the text may sufficiently justify.

The greater part of readers, instead of blaming us for passing trifles, will wonder that on mere trifles so much labour is expended, with such importance of debate, and such solemnity of diction. To these I answer with confidence, that they are judging of an art which they do not understand; yet cannot much reproach them with their ignorance, nor promise that they would become in general, by learning criticism, more useful, happier or wiser.

As I practised conjecture more, I learned to trust it less; and after I had printed a few plays, resolved to insert none of my own readings in the text. Upon this caution I now congratulate myself, for every day encreases my doubt of my emendations.

Since I have confined my imagination to the margin, it must not be considered as very reprehensible, if I have suffered it to play some freaks in its own dominion. There is no danger in conjecture, if it be proposed as conjecture; and while the text remains uninjured, those changes may be safely offered, which are not considered even by him that offers them as necessary or safe.

If my readings are of little value, they have not been ostentatiously displayed or importunately obtruded. I could have written longer notes, for the art of writing notes is not of difficult attainment. The work is performed, first by railing at the stupidity, negligence, ignorance, and asinine tastelessness of the former editors, and shewing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the inelegance and absurdity of the old reading; then by proposing something, which to superficial readers would seem specious, but which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the true reading, with a long paraphrase, and concluding with loud acclamations on the discovery, and a sober wish for the advancement and prosperity of genuine criticism.

All this may be done, and perhaps done sometimes without impropriety. But I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right. The justness of a happy restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be well applied to criticism, quod dubitas ne feceris.

To dread the shore which he sees spread with wrecks, is natural to the sailor. I had before my eye, so many critical adventures ended in miscarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered in every page Wit struggling with its own sophistry, and Learning confused by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to censure those whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I was dispossessing their emenations, how soon the same fate might happen to my own, and how many of the readings which I have corrected may be some other editor defended and established.

Criticks, I saw, that other’s names efface, And fix their own, with labour, in the place; Their own, like others, soon their place resign’d, Or disappear’d, and left the first behind.—Pope.

That a conjectural critick should often be mistaken, cannot be wonderful, either to others or himself, if it be considered that in his art there is no system, no principal and axiomatical truth that regulates subordinate positions. His chance of errour is renewed at every attempt; an oblique view of the passage a slight misapprehension of a phrase, a casual inattention to the parts connected, is sufficient to make him not only fail but fail ridiculously; and when he succeeds best, he produces perhaps but one reading of many probable, and he that suggests another will always be able to dispute his claims.

It is an unhappy state, in which danger is hid under pleasure. The allurements of emendation are scarcely resistible. Conjecture has all the joy and all the pride of invention, and he that has once started a happy change, is too much delighted to consider what objections may rise against it.

Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised so many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the Bishop of Aleria to English Bentley. The criticks on ancient authours have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances, which the editor of Shakespeare is condemned to want. They are employed upon grammatical and settled languages, whose construction contributes so much to perspicuity, that Homer has fewer passages unintelligible than Chaucer. The words have not only a known regimen, but invariable quantities, which direct and confine the choice. There are commonly more manuscripts than one; and they do not often conspire in the same mistakes. Yet Scaliger could confess to Salmasius how little satisfaction his emendations gave him. Illudunt nobis conjecturae nostrae, quarum nos pudet, posteaquam in meliores cofices incidimus. And Lipsius could complain, that criticks were making faults, by trying to remove them, Ut olim vitiis, ita nunc remediis laboratur. And indeed, where mere conjecture is to be used, the emendations of Scaliger and Lipsius, notwithstanding their wonderful sagacity and erudition, are often vague and disputable, like mine or Theobald’s.

Perhaps I may not be more censured for doing wrong, than for doing little; for raising in the publick expectations, which at last I have not answered. The expectation of ignorance is indefinite, and that of knowledge is often tyrannical. It is hard to satisfy those who know not what to demand, or those who demand by design what they think impossible to be done. I have indeed disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. Not a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt, which I have not attempted to restore; or obscure, which I have not endeavoured to illustrate. In many I have failed like others; and from many, after all my efforts, I have retreated, and confessed the repulse. I have not passed over, with affected superiority, what is equally difficult to the reader and to myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my ignorance. I might easily have accumulated a mass of seeming learning upon easy scenes; but it ought not to be imputed to negligence, that, where nothing was necessary, nothing has been done, or that, where others have said enough, I have said no more.

Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged, let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased, let him attempt exactness; and read the commentators.

Particular passages are cleared by notes, but the general effect of the work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any great work in its full design and its true proportions; a close approach shews the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is discerned no longer.

It is not very grateful to consider how little the succession of editors has added to this authour’s power of pleasing. He was read, admired, studied, and imitated, while he was yet deformed with all the improprieties which ignorance and neglect could accumulate upon him; while the reading was yet not rectified, nor his allusions understood; yet then did Dryden pronounce “that Shakespeare was the man, who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: When he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned: he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid; his comick wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him: No man can say, he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

“Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.”

It is to be lamented, that such a writer should want a commentary; that his language should become obsolete, or his sentiments obscure. But it is vain to carry wishes beyond the condition of human things; that which must happen to all, has happened to Shakespeare, by accident and time; and more than has been suffered by any other writer since the use of types, has been suffered by him through his own negligence of fame, or perhaps by that superiority of mind, which despised its own performances, when it compared them with its powers, and judged those works unworthy to be preserved, which the criticks of following ages were to contend for the fame of restoring and explaining.

Among these candidates of inferiour fame, I am now to stand the judgment of the publick; and wish that I could confidently produce my commentary as equal to the encouragement which I have had the honour of receiving. Every work of this kind is by its nature deficient, and I should feel little solicitude about the sentence, were it to be pronounced only by the skilful and the learned.

Table of Contents

SELECTED NOTES FROM SOME OF THE PLAYS

Measure for measure.

There is perhaps not one of Shakespeare’s plays more darkened than this by the peculiarities of its Authour, and the unskilfulness of its Editors, by distortions of phrase, or negligence of transcription.

ACT I. SCENE i. (I. i. 7-9.)

Then no more remains: But that to your sufficiency, as your worth is able, And let them work.

This is a passage which has exercised the sagacity of the Editors, and is now to employ mine.

Sir Tho. Hanmer having caught from Mr. Theobald a hint that a line was lost, endeavours to supply it thus.

—Then no more remains, But that to your sufficiency you join A will to serve us, as your worth is able.

He has by this bold conjecture undoubtedly obtained a meaning, but, perhaps not, even in his own opinion, the meaning of Shakespeare.

That the passage is more or less corrupt, I believe every reader will agree with the Editors. I am not convinced that a line is lost, as Mr. Theobald conjectures, nor that the change of “but” to “put”, which Dr. Warburton has admitted after some other Editor, will amend the fault. There was probably some original obscurity in the expression, which gave occasion to mistake in repetition or transcription. I therefore suspect that the Authour wrote thus,

—Then no more remains, But that to your sufficiencies your worth is abled, And let them work.

THEN NOTHING REMAINS MORE THAN TO TELL YOU THAT YOUR VIRTUE IS NOW INVESTED WITH POWER EQUAL TO YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM. LET THEREFORE YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND YOUR VIRTUE NOW WORK TOGETHER. It may easily be conceived how “sufficiencies” was, by an inarticulate speaker, or inattentive hearer, confounded with “sufficiency as”, and how “abled”, a word very unusual, was changed into “able”. For “abled”, however, an authority is not wanting. Lear uses it in the same sense, or nearly the same, with the Duke. As for “sufficiencies”, D. Hamilton, in his dying speech, prays that “Charles II. may exceed both the VIRTUES and SUFFICIENCIES of his father.”

ACT I. SCENE ii. (I. i. 51.)

We have with a leaven’d and prepared choice.

“Leaven’d” has no sense in this place: we should read “Level’d choice”. The allusion is to archery, when a man has fixed upon his object, after taking good aim.—Warburton.

No emendation is necessary. “leaven’d choice” is one of Shakespeare’s harsh metaphors. His train of ideas seems to be this. “I have proceeded to you with choice mature, concocted, fermented, leaven’d.” When Bread is “leaven’d”, it is left to ferment: a “leavn’d” choice is therefore a choice not hasty, but considerate, not declared as soon as it fell into the imagination, but suffered to work long in the mind. Thus explained, it suits better with “prepared” than “levelled”.

ACT II. SCENE ix. (II. iii. 11-12.)

Who falling in the flaws of her own youth, Hath blister’d her report.

Who doth not see that the integrity of the metaphor requires we should read “flames of her own youth.”—Warburton.

Who does not see that upon such principles there is no end of correction.

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 13-15.)

Thou art not noble: For all th’ accommodations, that thou bear’st Are nurs’d by baseness.

Dr. Warburton is undoubtedly mistaken in supposing that by “baseness” is meant “self-love” here assigned as the motive of all human actions. Shakespeare meant only to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by “baseness”, by offices of which the mind shrinks from the contemplation. All the delicacies of the table may be traced back to the shambles and the dunghill, all magnificence of building was hewn from the quarry, and all the pomp of ornaments, dug from among the damps and darkness of the mine.

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 16-17.)

The soft and tender fork of a poor worm.

“Worm” is put for any creeping thing or “serpent”. Shakespeare supposes falsely, but according to the vulgar notion, that a serpent wounds with his tongue, and that his tongue is “forked”. He confounds reality and fiction, a serpent’s tongue is “soft” but not “forked” nor hurtful. If it could hurt, it could not be soft. In Midsummer-night’s Dream he has the same notion.

—With doubler tongue Then thine, O serpent, never adder stung.

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 32-4.)

Thou hast nor youth, nor age: But as it were an after dinner’s sleep, Dreaming on both.

This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old we amuse the languour of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening.

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 36-8.)

When thou’rt old and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty To make thy riches pleasant.

But how does beauty make “riches pleasant”? We should read “bounty”, which compleats the sense, and is this; Thou hast neither the pleasure of enjoying riches thy self, for thou wantest vigour: nor of seeing it enjoyed by others, for thou wantest “bounty”. Where the making the want of “bounty” as inseparable from old age as the want of “health”, is extremely satyrical tho’ not altogether just. —Warburton.

I am inclined to believe that neither man nor woman will have much difficulty to tell how “beauty makes riches pleasant”. Surely this emendation, though it is elegant and ingenious, is not such as that an opportunity of inserting it should be purchased by declaring ignorance of what every one knows, by confessing insensibility of what every one feels.

ACT III. SCENE ii. (III. i. 137-8.)

Is’t not a kind of incest, to take life From thine own sister’s shame?

In Isabella’s declamation there is something harsh, and something forced and far-fetched. But her indignation cannot be thought violent when we consider her not only as a virgin but as a nun.

ACT IV. SCENE viii. (iv. iii. 4-5.)

First here’s young Mr. Rash, &c.

This enumeration of the inhabitants of the prison affords a very striking view of the practices predominant in Shakespeare’s age. Besides those whose follies are common to all times, we have four fighting men and a traveller. It is not unlikely that the originals of these pictures were then known.

ACT IV. SCENE xiii. (IV. V. 1.)

Duke. These letters at fit time deliver me.

Peter never delivers the letters, but tells his story without any credentials. The poet forgot the plot which he had formed.

ACT V. SCENE vii. (V. i. 448.)

‘Till he did look on me.

The Duke has justly observed that Isabel is importuned against all sense to solicit for Angelo, yet here against all sense she solicits for him. Her argument is extraordinary.

A due sincerity govern’d his deeds, ‘Till he did look on me; since it is so, Let him not die. That Angelo had committed

all the crimes charged against him, as far as he could commit them, is evident. The only INTENT which his act did not overtake, was the defilement of Isabel. Of this Angelo was only intentionally guilty. Angelo’s crimes were such, as must sufficiently justify punishment, whether its end be to secure the innocent from wrong, or to deter guilt by example; and I believe every reader feels some indignation when he finds him spared. From what extenuation of his crime can Isabel, who yet supposes her brother dead, form any plea in his favour. Since he was good ’till he looked in me, let him not die. I am afraid our Varlet Poet intended to inculcate, that women think ill of nothing that raises the credit of their beauty, and are ready, however virtuous, to pardon any act which they think incited by their own charms.

ACT V. SCENE viii. (v. i. 479 foll.)

It is somewhat strange, that Isabel is not made to express either gratitude, wonder or joy at the sight of her brother.

After the pardon of two murderers Lucio might be treated by the good Duke with less harshness; but perhaps the Poet intended to show, what is too often seen, that men easily forgive wrongs which are not committed against themselves.

The novel of Cynthio Giraldi, from which Shakespeare is supposed to have borrowed this fable, may be read in Shakespeare illustrated, elegantly translated, with remarks which will assist the enquirer to discover how much absurdity Shakespeare has admitted or avoided.

I cannot but suspect that some other had new modelled the novel of Cynthio, or written a story which in some particulars resembled it, and that Cinthio was not the authour whom Shakespeare immediately followed. The Emperour in Cinthio is named Maximine, the Duke, in Shakespeare’s enumeration of the persons of the drama, is called Vincentio. This appears a very slight remark; but since the Duke has no name in the play, nor is ever mentioned but by his title, why should he be called Vincentio among the “Persons”, but because the name was copied from the story, and placed superfluously at the head of the list by the mere habit of transcription? It is therefore likely that there was then a story of Vincentio Duke of Vienna, different from that of Maximine Emperour of the Romans.

Of this play the light or comick part is very natural and pleasing, but the grave scenes, if a few passages be excepted, have more labour than elegance. The plot is rather intricate than artful. The time of the action is indefinite; some time, we know not how much, must have elapsed between the recess of the Duke and the imprisonment of Claudio; for he must have learned the story of Mariana in his disguise, or he delegated his power to a man already known to be corrupted. The unities of action and place are sufficiently preserved.

None of Shakespeare’s plays are more read than the first and second parts of Henry the fourth. Perhaps no authour has ever in two plays afforded so much delight. The great events are interesting, for the fate of kingdoms depends upon them; the slighter occurrences are diverting, and, except one or two, sufficiently probable; the incidents are multiplied with wonderful fertility of invention, and the characters diversified with the utmost nicety of discernment, and the profoundest skill in the nature of man.

The prince, who is the hero both of the comick and tragick part, is a young man of great abilities and violent passions, whose sentiments are right, though his actions are wrong; whose virtues are obscured by negligence, and whose understanding is dissipated by levity. In his idle hours he is rather loose than wicked, and when the occasion forces out his latent qualities, he is great without effort, and brave without tumult. The trifler is roused into a hero, and the hero again reposes in the trifler. This character is great, original, and just. Piercy is a rugged soldier, cholerick, and quarrelsome, and has only the soldier’s virtues, generosity and courage.

But Falstaff unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe thee? Thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may be admired but not esteemed, of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested. Falstaff is a character loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so proud as not only to be supercilious and haughty with common men, but to think his interest of importance to the duke of Lancaster. Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary to the prince that despises him, by the most pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety, by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy escapes and sallies of levity, which make sport but raise no envy. It must be observed that he is stained with no enormous or sanguinary crimes, so that his licentiousness is not so offensive but that it may be borne for his mirth.

The moral to be drawn from this representation is, that no man is more dangerous than he that with a will to corrupt, hath the power to please; and that neither wit nor honesty ought to think themselves safe with such a companion when they see Henry seduced by Falstaff.

ACT. II. SCENE iv. (II. iii. 27-8.)

Cold as any stone. Such is the end of Falstaff,

from whom Shakespeare had promised us in his epilogue to Henry IV. that we should receive more entertainment. It happened to Shakespeare as to other writers, to have his imagination crowded with a tumultuary confusion of images, which, while they were yet unsorted and unexamined, seemed sufficient to furnish a long train of incidents, and a new variety of merriment, but which, when he was to produce them to view, shrunk suddenly from him, or could not be accommodated to his general design. That he once designed to have brought Falstaff on the scene again, we know from himself; but whether he could contrive no train of adventures suitable to his character, or could match him with no companions likely to quicken his humour, or could open no new vein of pleasantry, and was afraid to continue the same strain lest it should not find the same reception, he has here for ever discarded him, and made haste to dispatch him, perhaps for the same reason for which Addison killed Sir Roger, that no other hand might attempt to exhibit him.

Let meaner authours learn from this example, that it is dangerous to sell the bear which is yet not hunted, to promise to the publick what they have not written.

The Tragedy of Lear is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakespeare. There is perhaps no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions and interests our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct interests, the striking opposition of contrary characters, the sudden changes of fortune, and the quick succession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no scene which does not contribute to the aggravation of the distress or conduct of the action, and scarce a line which does not conduce to the progress of the scene. So powerful is the current of the poet’s imagination, that the mind, which once ventures within it, is hurried irresistibly along.

On the seeming improbability of Lear’s conduct it may be observed, that he is represented according to histories at that time vulgarly received as true. And perhaps if we turn our thoughts upon the barbarity and ignorance of the age to which this story is referred, it will appear not so unlikely as while we estimate Lear’s manners by our own. Such preference of one daughter to another, or resignation of dominion on such conditions, would be yet credible, if told of a petty prince of Guinea or Madagascar. Shakespeare, indeed, by the mention of his Earls and Dukes, has given us the idea of times more civilised, and of life regulated by softer manners; and the truth that though he so nicely discriminates, and so minutely describes the characters of men, he commonly neglects and confounds the characters of ages, by mingling customs ancient and modern, English and foreign.

My learned friend Mr. Warton, who has in the Adventurer very minutely criticised this play, remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too savage and shocking, and that the intervention of Edmund destroys the simplicity of the story. These objections may, I think, be answered, by repeating, that the cruelty of the daughters is an historical fact, to which the poet has added little, having only drawn it into a series by dialogue and action. But I am not able to apologise with equal plausibility for the extrusion of Gloucester’s eyes, which seems an act too horrid to be endured in dramatick exhibition, and such as must always compel the mind to relieve its distress by incredulity. Yet let it be remembered that our authour well knew what would please the audience for which he wrote.

The injury done by Edmund to the simplicity of the action is abundantly recompensed by the addition of variety, by the art with which he is made to co-operate with the chief design and the opportunity which he gives the poet of combining perfidy with perfidy, and connecting the wicked son with the wicked daughters, to impress this important moral, that villany is never at a stop, that crimes lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin.

But though this moral be incidentally enforced, Shakespeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles. Yet this conduct is justified by the Spectator, who blames Tate for giving Cordelia success and happiness in his alteration, and declares, that, in his opinion, the tragedy has lost half its beauty. Dennis has remarked, whether justly or not, that, to secure the favourable reception of Cato, “the town was poisoned with much false and abominable criticism,” and that endeavours had been used to discredit and decry poetical justice. A play in which the wicked prosper, and the virtuous miscarry, may doubtless be good, because it is a just representation of the common events of human life: but since all reasonable beings naturally love justice, I cannot easily be persuaded, that the observation of justice makes a play worse; or, that if other excellencies are equal, the audience will not always rise better pleased from the final triumph of persecuted virtue.

In the present case the publick has decided. Cordelia, from the time of Tate, has always retired with victory and felicity. And, if my sensations could add any thing to the general suffrage, I might relate, that I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia’s death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor.

ROMEO AND JULIET

Act i. scene ii. (i. i. 181 foll.).

Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! &c.

Of these lines neither the sense nor occasion is very evident. He is not yet in love with an enemy, and to love one and hate another is no such uncommon state, as can deserve all this toil of antithesis.

ACT I. SCENE iii. (I. ii. 25.)

Earth-treading stars that make dark HEAVEN’s light.

This nonsense should be reformed thus,

Earth-treading stars that make dark EVEN light. —Warburton.

But why nonsense? Is anything more commonly said, than that beauties eclipse the sun? Has not Pope the thought and the word?

Sol through white curtains shot a tim’rous ray, And ope’d those eyes that must eclipse the day.

Both the old and the new reading are philosophical nonsense, but they are both, and both equally poetical sense.

ACT I. SCENE iii. (I. ii. 26-8.)

Such comfort as do lusty young men feel, When well-apparel’d April on the heel Of limping winter treads.

To say, and to say in pompous words, that a “young man shall feel” as much in an assembly of beauties, “as young men feel in the month of April,” is surely to waste sound upon a very poor sentiment. I read, Such comfort as do lusty YEOMEN feel. You shall feel from the sight and conversation of these ladies such hopes of happiness and such pleasure, as the farmer receives from the spring, when the plenty of the year begins, and the prospect of the harvest fills him with delight.

ACT I. SCENE iv. (l. iii. 92.)

That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.

The “golden story” is perhaps the “golden legend”, a book in the darker ages of popery much read, and doubtless often exquisitely embellished, but of which Canus, one of the popish doctors, proclaims the author to have been homo ferrei oris, plumbei cordis.

ACT I. SCENE vi. (1. v. 34.)

Good cousin Capulet.

This cousin Capulet is “unkle” in the paper of invitation, but as Capulet is described as old, “cousin” is probably the right word in both places. I know not how Capulet and his lady might agree, their ages were very disproportionate; he has been past masking for thirty years, and her age, as she tells Juliet is but eight and twenty.

ACT I. CHORUS. (II. PROLOGUE.)

The use of this chorus is not easily discovered, it conduces nothing to the progress of the play, but relates what is already known or what the next scenes will shew; and relates it without adding the improvement of any moral sentiment.

ACT II. SCENE vi. (ii. vi. 15.)

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

He that travels too fast is as long before he comes to the end of his journey, as he that travels slow.

Precipitation produces mishap.

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 2.)

The day is hot.

It is observed that in Italy almost all assassinations are committed during the heat of summer.

ACT III. SCENE iii. (III. i. 183.)

Affection makes him false.

The charge of falshood on Bentivolio, though produced at hazard, is very just. The authour, who seems to intend the character of Bentiolio as good, meant perhaps to shew, how the best minds, in a state of faction and discord, are detorted to criminal partiality.

ACT III. SCENE viii. (III. v. 84.)

And, yet, no Man like he doth grieve my heart.

Juliet’s equivocations are rather too artful for a mind disturbed by the loss of a new lover.

ACT IV. SCENE iii. (IV. iii. 2-3.)

Leave me to myself to-night; For I have need of many orisons.

Juliet plays most of her pranks under the appearance of religion: perhaps Shakespeare meant to punish her hypocrisy.

ACT V. SCENE i. (V. i. 3.)

My bosom’s Lord sits lightly on this throne, &c.

These three lines are very gay and pleasing. But why does Shakespeare give Romeo this involuntary cheerfulness just before the extremity of unhappiness? Perhaps to shew the vanity of trusting to those uncertain and casual exaltations or depressions, which many consider as certain foretokens of good and evil.

ACT V. SCENE v. (v. iii. 229.)

FRIAR. I will be brief.

It is much to be lamented that the Poet did not conclude the dialogue with the action, and avoid a narrative of events which the audience already knew. This play is one of the most pleasing of our Author’s performances. The scenes are busy and various, the incidents numerous and important, the catastrophe irresistably affecting and the process of the action carried on with such probability at least with such congruity to popular opinions, as tragedy requires.

Here is one of the few attempts of Shakespeare to exhibit the conversation of gentlemen, to represent the airy sprightliness of juvenile elegance. Mr. Dryden mentions a tradition which might easily reach his time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that he was obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, lest he should have been killed by him. Yet he thinks him no such formidable person, but that he might have lived through the play, and died in his bed, without danger to a poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in quest of truth, that, in a pointed sentence, more regard is commonly had to the word than the thought, and that it is very seldom to be rigorously understood. Mercutio’s wit, gaiety and courage, will always procure him friends that wish him a longer life; but his death is not precipitated, he has lived out the time allotted him in the construction of the play; nor do I doubt the ability of Shakespeare to have continued his existence, though some of his sallies are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden; whose genius was not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but acute, argumentative, comprehensive, and sublime.

The Nurse is one of the characters in which the Authour delighted: he has, with great subtility of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest.

His comick scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetick strains are always polluted with some unexpected depravations. His persons, however distressed, HAVE A CONCEIT LEFT THEM IN THEIR MISERY, A MISERABLE CONCEIT.

ACT II. SCENE ii. (II. i. 114-17.)

It is as proper to our age To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions, As it is common for the younger sort

To lack discretion. This is not the remark of a weak man. The vice of age is too much suspicion. Men long accustomed to the wiles of life “cast” commonly “beyond themselves”, let their cunning go further than reason can attend it. This is always the fault of a little mind, made artful by long commerce with the world.

ACT II. SCENE iv. (II. ii.)

Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with observation, confident of his knowledge, proud of his eloquence, and declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is truly represented as designed to ridicule the practice of those times, of prefaces that made no introduction, and of method that embarrassed rather than explained. This part of his character is accidental, the rest is natural. Such a man is positive and confident, because he knows that his mind was once strong, and knows not that it is become weak. Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in the particular application. He is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant in foresight. While he depends upon his memory, and can draw from his repositories of knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and gives useful counsel; but as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot be kept long busy and intent, the old man is subject to sudden dereliction of his faculties, he loses the order of his ideas, and entangles himself in his own thoughts, till he recovers the leading principle, and falls again into his former train. This idea of dotage encroaching upon wisdom, will solve all the phenomena of the character of Polonius.

If the dramas of Shakespeare were to be characterised, each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of HAMLET the praise of variety. The incidents are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnity; with merriment that includes judicious and instructive observations, and solemnity, not strained by poetical violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of HAMLET causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of OPHELIA fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last that exposes affectation to just contempt.

The conduct is perhaps not wholly secure against objections. The action is indeed for the most part in continual progression, but there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.

Hamlet is, through the whole play, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the King, he makes no attempt to punish him, and his death is at last effected by an incident which Hamlet has no part in producing.

The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme might easily have been formed, to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.

The poet is accused of having shewn little regard to poetical justice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the revenge which he demands is not obtained but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification which would arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious.

ACT V. SCENE vi. (v. ii. 63-5.)

Oh perjur’d woman! Thou dost stone my heart, And mak’st me call, what I intent to do, A murder, which I thought a sacrifice.

This line is difficult. Thou hast harden’d my heart, and makest me kill thee with the rage of a MURDERER, when I thought to have sacraficed thee to justice with the calmness of a priest striking a victim.

It must not be omitted, that one of the elder quarto’s reads, “Thou dost stone THY heart:” which I suspect to be genuine. The meaning then will be, thou forcest me to dismiss thee from the world in the state of the murdered without preparation for death, when I intended that thy punishment should have been “a sacrifice” atoning for thy crime.

I am glad that I have ended my revisal of this dreadful scene. It is not to be endured.

The beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection, inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; the cool malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance; the soft simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit, and conscious of innocence, her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she can be suspected, are such proofs of Shakespeare’s skill in human nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor’s conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him, are so artfully natural, that, though it will perhaps not be said of him as he says of himself, that he is “a man not esily jealous,” yet we cannot but pity him when at last we find him “perplexed in the extreme.”

There is always danger lest wickedness conjoined with abilities should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation but the character if Iago is so conducted, that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised.

Event he inferiour characters of this play would be very conspicuous in any other piece, not only for their justness but their strength. Cassio is brave, benevolent, and honest, ruined only by his want of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation of Rodegigo’s suspicious credulity, and impatient submission of the cheats which he sees practised upon him, and which by persuasion he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires, to a false friend and the virtue of AEmilia is such as we often find, worn loosely but not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickend and alarmed at atrocious villanies.

The Scenes from the beginning to the end are busy, varied but happy interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story; and the narrative in the end, though it tells but what is known already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.

Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been occasionally related, there had been little wanting of a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity.

More from Samuel Johnson :

Preface to Shakespeare
On the Death of Dr. Robert Levet
Rasselas Prince of Abyssinia
Life of Cowley

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Summary of Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare

Summary of Johnson’s Preface to Shakespeare

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Preface to Shakespeare by Samuel Johnson

SELECTED NOTES FROM SOME OF THE PLAYS

ACT I. SCENE i. (I. i. 7-9.)

ACT I. SCENE ii. (I. i. 51.)

ACT II. SCENE ix. (II. iii. 11-12.)

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 13-15.)

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 16-17.)

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 32-4.)

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 36-8.)

ACT III. SCENE ii. (III. i. 137-8.)

ACT IV. SCENE viii. (iv. iii. 4-5.)

ACT IV. SCENE xiii. (IV. V. 1.)

ACT V. SCENE vii. (V. i. 448.)

ACT V. SCENE viii. (v. i. 479 foll.)

ACT. II. SCENE iv. (II. iii. 27-8.)

ROMEO AND JULIET

ACT I. SCENE iii. (I. ii. 25.)

ACT I. SCENE iii. (I. ii. 26-8.)

ACT I. SCENE iv. (l. iii. 92.)

ACT I. SCENE vi. (1. v. 34.)

ACT I. CHORUS. (II. PROLOGUE.)

ACT II. SCENE vi. (ii. vi. 15.)

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 2.)

ACT III. SCENE iii. (III. i. 183.)

ACT III. SCENE viii. (III. v. 84.)

ACT IV. SCENE iii. (IV. iii. 2-3.)

ACT V. SCENE i. (V. i. 3.)

ACT V. SCENE v. (v. iii. 229.)

ACT II. SCENE ii. (II. i. 114-17.)

ACT II. SCENE iv. (II. ii.)

ACT V. SCENE vi. (v. ii. 63-5.)

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