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Samuel Johnson: Preface To Edition Of Shakespeare. 1765
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122. Shakespeare has likewise faults. Cf. Johnson’s letter of 16th October, 1765, to Charles Burney, quoted by Boswell: “We must confess the faults of our favourite to gain credit to our praise of his excellences. He that claims, either in himself or for another, the honours of perfection, will surely injure the reputation which he designs to assist.”
124. Pope. Preface, p. 56.
In tragedy, etc. Cf. Pope (Spence’s Anecdotes, 1820, p. 173): “Shakespeare generally used to stiffen his style with high words and metaphors for the speeches of his kings and great men: he mistook it for a mark of greatness.”
125. What he does best, he soon ceases to do. This sentence first appears in the edition of 1778.
126. the unities. Johnson’s discussion of the three unities is perhaps the most brilliant passage in the whole preface. Cf. the Rambler, No. 156; Farquhar, Discourse upon Comedy (1702); Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet (1736); Upton, Critical Observations (1746), 1. ix.; Fielding, Tom Jones, prefatory chapter of Book V.; Alexander Gerard, Essay on Taste (1758); Daniel Webb, Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry (1762); and Kames, Elements of Criticism (1762). “Attic” Hurd had defended Gothic “unity of design” in his Letters on Chivalry (1762).
127. Corneille published his Discours dramatiques, the second of which dealt with the three unities, in 1660; but he had observed the unities since the publication of the Sentiments de l’Academie sur le Cid (1638).
130. Venice … Cyprus. See Voltaire, Du Theatre anglais, vol. 61, p. 377 (ed. 1785), and cf. Rymer’s Short View.
131. Non usque, etc. Lucan, Pharsalia, iii. 138-140.
132. Every man’s performances, etc. Cf. Johnson, Life of Dryden : “To judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourselves to his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means of supplying them.”
Nations have their infancy, etc. Cf. Johnson’s Dedication to Mrs. Lennox’s Shakespear Illustrated, 1753, pp. viii, ix. See note, p. 175.
133. As you like it. Theobald, Upton, and Zachary Grey were satisfied that As you like it was founded on “the Coke’s Tale of Gamelyn in Chaucer.” But Johnson knows that the immediate source of the play is Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacie. The presence of the Tale of Gamelyn in several MSS. of the Canterbury Tales accounted for its erroneous ascription to Chaucer. It was still in MS. in Shakespeare’s days. Cf. Farmer’s Essay, p. 178.
old Mr. Cibber,–Colley Cibber (1671-1757), actor and poet-laureate.
English ballads. Johnson refers to the ballad of King Leire and his Three Daughters. But the ballad is of later date than the play. Cf. p. 178.
134. Voltaire, Du Theatre anglais, vol. 61, p. 366 (ed. 1785). Cf. Lettres philosophiques, Sur la Tragedie, ad fin., and Le Siecle de Louis XIV., ch. xxxiv.
Similar comparisons of Shakespeare and Addison occur in William Guthrie’s Essay upon English Tragedy (1747) and Edward Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition (1759). The former may have been inspired by Johnson’s conversation. Cf. also Warburton’s comparison incorporated in Theobald’s preface of 1733.