The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes by Samuel Johnson

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I would not, however, be thought to insult the editor, nor to censure
him with too much petulance, for having failed in little things, of whom
I have been told, that he excels in greater. But I may, without
indecency, observe, that no man should attempt to teach others what he
has never learned himself; and that those who, like Themistocles, have
studied the arts of policy, and "can teach a small state how to grow
great," should, like him, disdain to labour in trifles, and consider
petty accomplishments as below their ambition.[5]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft
and sorcery, is, at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of
God, in various passages both of the Old and New Testament: and the
thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath, in
its turn, borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well-attested,
or by prohibitory laws, which, at least, suppose the possibility of
commerce with evil spirits." Blackstone, Commentaries iv. 60. The
learned judge, however, concludes with calling it a "dubious crime,"
and approves the maxim of the philosophic Montesquieu, whom no one
would lightly accuse of superstition, that "il faut etre tres
circonspect dans la poursuite de la magie et de l'heresie." Esprit
des Lois, xii. 5. Selden attempted to justify the punishing of
witchcraft capitally. Works, iii. 2077. See Spectator, 117.
Barrington's Ancient Statutes, 407.

[2] In Nashe's Lenten Stuff, 1599, it is said, that no less than six
hundred witches were executed at one time. Reed.--Boswell's
Shakespeare, xi. 5. Dr. Grey, in his notes on Hudibras, mentions,
that Hopkins the noted witch-finder hanged sixty suspected witches
in one year. He also cites Hutchinson on Witchcraft for thirty
thousand having been burnt in 150 years. _See Barrington on Ancient
Statutes_.

[3] Johnson's apprehensions here are surely unfounded. The region of
Fancy, however, in his mind, was very circumscribed. Mrs. Montague's
chapter on Shakespeare's Preternatural Beings, in her excellent
Essay, will repay perusal. See too Schlegel on Dramatic Literature.

[4] Compare the Incantations of the Erichtho of Lucan, the Canidie of
Horace, the Cantata of Salvator Rosa, "all' incanto all' incante,"
and the Eumenides of AEschylus. The Gothic wildness of Shakespeare's
"weird sisters" will thence be better appreciated.--Ed.

[5] These excellent observations extorted praise from the supercilious
Warburton himself. In the Preface to his Shakespeare, published two
years after the appearance of Johnson's anonymous pamphlet, he thus
alludes to it: "As to all those things which have been published
under the titles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, &c. on
Shakespeare, (if you except some critical notes on Macbeth, given as
a specimen of a projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man
of parts and genius,) the rest are absolutely below a serious
notice." According to Boswell, Johnson ever retained a grateful
remembrance of this distinguished compliment; "He praised me," said
he, "at a time when praise was of value to me." Boswell, I. Johnson
affixed to this tract, proposals for a Shakespeare in 10 volumes,
18mo. price, to subscribers, 1_l_ 5_s_. in sheets, half-a-guinea of
which moderate sum was to be deposited at the time of subscription.
The following fuller proposals were published in 1756; but they were
not realized until the lapse of nine years from that period.
Boswell, I.--Ed.

PROPOSALS
FOR PRINTING THE
DRAMATICK WORKS
OF
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1756.

When the works of Shakespeare are, after so many editions, again offered
to the publick, it will, doubtless, be inquired, why Shakespeare stands
in more need of critical assistance than any other of the English
writers, and what are the deficiencies of the late attempts, which
another editor may hope to supply?

The business of him that republishes an ancient book is, to correct what
is corrupt, and to explain what is obscure. To have a text corrupt in
many places, and in many doubtful, is, among the authors that have
written since the use of types, almost peculiar to Shakespeare. Most
writers, by publishing their own works, prevent all various readings,
and preclude all conjectural criticism. Books, indeed, are sometimes
published after the death of him who produced them; but they are better
secured from corruption than these unfortunate compositions. They
subsist in a single copy, written or revised by the author; and the
faults of the printed volume can be only faults of one descent.

But of the works of Shakespeare the condition has been far different: he
sold them, not to be printed, but to be played. They were immediately
copied for the actors, and multiplied by transcript after transcript,
vitiated by the blunders of the penman, or changed by the affectation of
the player; perhaps enlarged to introduce a jest, or mutilated to
shorten the representation; and printed at last without the concurrence
of the author, without the consent of the proprietor, from compilations
made by chance or by stealth out of the separate parts written for the
theatre; and thus thrust into the world surreptitiously and hastily,
they suffered another depravation from the ignorance and negligence of
the printers, as every man who knows the state of the press, in that
age, will readily conceive.

It is not easy for invention to bring together so many causes concurring
to vitiate the text. No other author ever gave up his works to fortune
and time with so little care: no books could be left in hands so likely
to injure them, as plays frequently acted, yet continued in manuscript:
no other transcribers were likely to be so little qualified for their
task as those who copied for the stage, at a time when the lower ranks
of the people were universally illiterate: no other editions were made
from fragments so minutely broken, and so fortuitously reunited; and in
no other age was the art of printing in such unskilful hands[1].

With the causes of corruption that make the revisal of Shakespeare's
dramatick pieces necessary, may be enumerated the causes of obscurity,
which may be partly imputed to his age, and partly to himself.

When a writer outlives his contemporaries, and remains almost the only
unforgotten name of a distant time, he is necessarily obscure. Every age
has its modes of speech, and its cast of thought; which, though easily
explained when there are many books to be compared with each other,
become sometimes unintelligible and always difficult, when there are no
parallel passages that may conduce to their illustration. Shakespeare is
the first considerable author of sublime or familiar dialogue in our
language. Of the books which he read, and from which he formed his
style, some, perhaps, have perished, and the rest are neglected. His
imitations are, therefore, unnoted, his allusions are undiscovered, and
many beauties, both of pleasantry and greatness, are lost with the
objects to which they were united, as the figures vanish when the
canvass has decayed.

It is the great excellence of Shakespeare, that he drew his scenes from
nature, and from life. He copied the manners of the world, then passing
before him, and has more allusions than other poets to the traditions
and superstition of the vulgar; which must, therefore, be traced, before
he can be understood.

He wrote at a time when our poetical language was yet unformed, when the
meaning of our phrases was yet in fluctuation, when words were adopted
at pleasure from the neighbouring languages, and while the Saxon was
still visibly mingled in our diction. The reader is, therefore,
embarrassed at once with dead and with foreign languages, with
obsoleteness and innovation. In that age, as in all others, fashion
produced phraseology, which succeeding fashion swept away before its
meaning was generally known, or sufficiently authorised: and in that
age, above all others, experiments were made upon our language, which
distorted its combinations, and disturbed its uniformity.

If Shakespeare has difficulties above other writers, it is to be imputed
to the nature of his work, which required the use of the common
colloquial language, and consequently admitted many phrases allusive,
elliptical, and proverbial, such as we speak and hear every hour without
observing them; and of which, being now familiar, we do not suspect that
they can ever grow uncouth, or that, being now obvious, they can ever
seem remote.

These are the principal causes of the obscurity of Shakespeare; to which
might be added the fulness of idea, which might sometimes load his words
with more sentiment than they could conveniently convey, and that
rapidity of imagination which might hurry him to a second thought before
he had fully explained the first. But my opinion is, that very few of
his lines were difficult to his audience, and that he used such
expressions as were then common, though the paucity of contemporary
writers makes them now seem peculiar.

Authors are often praised for improvement, or blamed for innovation,
with very little justice, by those who read few other books of the same
age. Addison, himself, has been so unsuccessful in enumerating the words
with which Milton has enriched our language, as, perhaps, not to have
named one of which Milton was the author; and Bentley has yet more
unhappily praised him as the introducer of those elisions into English
poetry, which had been used from the first essays of versification among
us, and which Milton was, indeed, the last that practised.

Another impediment, not the least vexatious to the commentator, is the
exactness with which Shakespeare followed his authors. Instead of
dilating his thoughts into generalities, and expressing incidents with
poetical latitude, he often combines circumstances unnecessary to his
main design, only because he happened to find them together. Such
passages can be illustrated only by him who has read the same story, in
the very book which Shakespeare consulted.

He that undertakes an edition of Shakespeare, has all these difficulties
to encounter, and all these obstructions to remove.

The corruptions of the text will be corrected by a careful collation of
the oldest copies, by which it is hoped that many restorations may yet
be made: at least it will be necessary to collect and note the variation
as materials for future criticks; for it very often happens that a wrong
reading has affinity to the right.

In this part all the present editions are apparently and intentionally
defective. The criticks did not so much as wish to facilitate the labour
of those that followed them. The same books are still to be compared;
the work that has been done, is to be done again; and no single edition
will supply the reader with a text, on which he can rely, as the best
copy of the works of Shakespeare.

The edition now proposed will, at least, have this advantage over
others. It will exhibit all the observable varieties of all the copies
that can be found; that, if the reader is not satisfied with the
editor's determination, he may have the means of choosing better for
himself.

Where all the books are evidently vitiated, and collation can give no
assistance, then begins the task of critical sagacity: and some changes
may well be admitted in a text never settled by the author, and so long
exposed to caprice and ignorance. But nothing shall be imposed, as in
the Oxford edition, without notice of the alteration; nor shall
conjecture be wantonly or unnecessarily indulged.

It has been long found, that very specious emendations do not equally
strike all minds with conviction, nor even the same mind, at different
times; and, therefore, though, perhaps, many alterations may be proposed
as eligible, very few will be obtruded as certain. In a language so
ungrammatical as the English, and so licentious as that of Shakespeare,
emendatory criticism is always hazardous, nor can it be allowed to any
man who is not particularly versed in the writings of that age, and
particularly studious of his author's diction. There is danger lest
peculiarities should be mistaken for corruptions, and passages rejected
as unintelligible, which a narrow mind happens not to understand.

All the former criticks have been so much employed on the corrections of
the text, that they have not sufficiently attended to the elucidation of
passages obscured by accident or time. The editor will endeavour to read
the books which the author read, to trace his knowledge to its source,
and compare his copies with their originals. If, in this part of his
design, he hopes to attain any degree of superiority to his
predecessors, it must be considered, that he has the advantage of their
labours; that, part of the work being already done, more care is
naturally bestowed on the other part; and that, to declare the truth,
Mr. Rowe and Mr. Pope were very ignorant of the ancient English
literature; Dr. Warburton was detained by more important studies; and
Mr. Theobald, if fame be just to his memory, considered learning only as
an instrument of gain, and made no further inquiry after his author's
meaning, when once he had notes sufficient to embellish his page with
the expected decorations.

With regard to obsolete or peculiar diction, the editor may, perhaps,
claim some degree of confidence, having had more motives to consider the
whole extent of our language than any other man from its first
formation. He hopes that, by comparing the works of Shakespeare with
those of writers who lived at the same time, immediately preceded, or
immediately followed him, he shall be able to ascertain his ambiguities,
disentangle his intricacies, and recover the meaning of words now lost
in the darkness of antiquity.

When, therefore, any obscurity arises from an allusion to some other
book, the passage will be quoted. When the diction is entangled, it will
be cleared by a paraphrase or interpretation. When the sense is broken
by the suppression of part, of the sentiment in pleasantry or passion,
the connexion will be supplied. When any forgotten custom is hinted,
care will be taken to retrieve and explain it. The meaning assigned to
doubtful words will be supported by the authorities of other writers, or
by parallel passages of Shakespeare himself.

The observation of faults and beauties is one of the duties of an
annotator, which some of Shakespeare's editors have attempted, and some
have neglected.--For this part of his task, and for this only, was Mr.
Pope eminently and indisputably qualified; nor has Dr. Warburton[2]
followed him with less diligence or less success. But I have never
observed that mankind was much delighted or improved by their asterisks,
commas, or double commas; of which the only effect is, that they
preclude the pleasure of judging for ourselves; teach the young and
ignorant to decide without principles; defeat curiosity and discernment,
by leaving them less to discover; and at last show the opinion of the
critick, without the reasons on which it was founded, and without
affording any light by which it may be examined.

The editor, though he may less delight his own vanity, will, probably,
please his reader more, by supposing him equally able with himself to
judge of beauties and faults, which require no previous acquisition of
remote knowledge. A description of the obvious scenes of nature, a
representation of general life, a sentiment of reflection or experience,
a deduction of conclusive arguments, a forcible eruption of effervescent
passion, are to be considered as proportionate to common apprehension,
unassisted by critical officiousness; since, to conceive them, nothing
more is requisite than acquaintance with the general state of the world,
and those faculties which he must almost bring with him who would read
Shakespeare.

But when the beauty arises from some adaptation of the sentiment to
customs worn out of use, to opinions not universally prevalent, or to
any accidental or minute particularity, which cannot be supplied by
common understanding, or common observation, it is the duty of a
commentator to lend his assistance.

The notice of beauties and faults, thus limited, will make no distinct
part of the design, being reducible to the explanation of some obscure
passages.

The editor does not, however, intend to preclude himself from the
comparison of Shakespeare's sentiments or expression with those of
ancient or modern authors, or from the display of any beauties not
obvious to the students of poetry; for, as he hopes to leave his author
better understood, he wishes, likewise, to procure him more rational
approbation.

The former editors have affected to slight their predecessors: but in
this edition all that is valuable will be adopted from every
commentator, that posterity may consider it as including all the rest,
and exhibiting whatever is hitherto known of the great, father of the
English drama.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is not true, that the plays of this author were more incorrectly
printed than those of any of his contemporaries: for in the plays of
Massinger, Marlowe, Marston, Fletcher, and others, as many errors
may be found. It is not true, that the art of printing was in no
other age in such unskilful hands. Nor is it true, in the latitude
in which it is stated, that "these plays were printed from
compilations made by chance or by stealth, out of the separate parts
written for the theatre:" two only of all his dramas, The Merry
Wives of Windsor, and King Henry V. appear to have been thus thrust
into the world; and of the former it is yet a doubt, whether it is a
first sketch, or an imperfect copy. See Malone's Preface throughout.
--Ed.

[2] See how this respectful reference to his labours was rewarded by
this "meek and modest ecclesiastic" in his Letters, 410, 272, 273.
Also Edinburgh Review for January, 1809.

PREFACE
TO
SHAKESPEARE.

PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1768[1].

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 author 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 styled
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 superiour 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[2].
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 passed 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 awhile, 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
mirror 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 economical 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 excels in
accommodating his sentiments to real life, but by comparing him with
other authors. 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 author
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.

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