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Samuel Johnson: Preface To Edition Of Shakespeare. 1765
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NOTES:
113. the poems of Homer. Cf. Johnson’s remark recorded in the Diary of the Right Hon. William Windham, August, 1784 (ed. 1866, p. 17): “The source of everything in or out of nature that can serve the purpose of poetry to be found in Homer.”
114. his century. Cf. Horace, Epistles, ii. 1. 39, and Pope, Epistle to Augustus, 55, 56.
Nothing can please many, etc. This had been the theme of the 59th number of the Idler.
115. Hierocles. See the Asteia attributed to Hierocles, No. 9 ( Hieroclis Commentarius in Aurea Carmina, ed. Needham, 1709, p. 462).
116. Pope. Preface, p. 48.
117. Dennis. See pp. 26, etc. In replying to Voltaire, Johnson has in view, throughout the whole preface, the essay Du Theatre anglais, par Jerome Carre, 1761 ( Oeuvres, 1785, vol. 61). He apparently ignores the earlier Discours sur la tragedie a Milord Bolingbroke, 1730, and Lettres Philosophiques (dix-huitieme lettre, “Sur la tragedie”), 1734. Voltaire replied thus to Johnson in the passage “Du Theatre anglais” in the Dictionnaire philosophique : “J’ai jete les yeux sur une edition de Shakespeare, donnee par le sieur Samuel Johnson. J’y ai vu qu’on y traite de petits esprits les etrangers qui sont etonnes que, dans les pieces de ce grand Shakespeare, ‘un senateur romain fasse le bouffon, et qu’un roi paraisse sur le theatre en ivrogne.’ Je ne veux point soupconner le sieur Johnson d’etre un mauvais plaisant, et d’aimer trop le vin; mais je trouve un peu extraordinaire qu’il compte la bouffonnerie et l’ivrognerie parmi les beautes du theatre tragique; la raison qu’il en donne n’est pas moins singuliere. ‘Le poete, dit il, dedaigne ces distinctions accidentelles de conditions et de pays, comme un peintre qui, content d’avoir peint la figure, neglige la draperie.’ La comparaison serait plus juste s’il parlait d’un peintre qui, dans un sujet noble, introduirait des grotesques ridicules, peindrait dans la bataille d’Arbelles Alexandre-le-Grand monte sur un ane, et la femme de Darius buvant avec des goujats dans un cabaret,” etc. (1785, vol. 48, p. 205). On the question of Voltaire’s attitude to Shakespeare, see Monsieur Jusserand’s Shakespeare en France, 1898, and Mr. Lounsbury’s Shakespeare and Voltaire, 1902.
118. comic and tragic scenes. The ensuing passage gives stronger expression to what Johnson had said in the Rambler, No. 156.
I do not recollect, etc. Johnson forgets the Cyclops of Euripides. Steevens compares the passage in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, where Dryden says that “Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Seneca never meddled with comedy.”
119. instruct by pleasing. Cf. Horace, Ars poetica, 343-4.
alternations (line 15). The original reads alterations.
120. tragedies to-day and comedies to-morrow. As the Aglaura of Suckling and the Vestal Virgin of Sir Robert Howard, which have a double fifth act. Downes records that about 1662 Romeo and Juliet “was made into a tragi-comedy by Mr. James Howard, he preserving Romeo and Juliet alive; so that when the tragedy was reviv’d again, ’twas play’d alternately, tragically one day and tragi-comical another” ( Roscius Anglicanus, ed. 1789, p. 31: cf. Genest, English Stage, i., p. 42).
120-1. Rhymer and Voltaire. See Du Theatre anglais, passim, and Short View, pp. 96, etc. The passage is aimed more directly at Voltaire than at Rymer. Like Rowe, Johnson misspells Rymer’s name.