Dr. Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare is one of the most famous critical
essays of the eighteenth century, and yet too many students have
forgotten that it is, precisely, a preface to the plays of Shakespeare,
edited by Dr. Johnson himself. That is to say, the edition itself has
been obscured or overshadowed by its preface, and the sustained effort
of that essay has virtually monopolized scholarly attention--much of
which should be directed to the commentary. Johnson's love for
Shakespeare's plays is well known; nowhere is this more manifest than in
his notes on them. And it is on the notes that his claim to remembrance
as a critic of Shakespeare must rest, for the famous Preface is, after
all, only rarely an original and personal statement.
The idea of editing Shakespeare's plays had attracted Johnson early, and
in 1745 he issued proposals for an edition. Forced to give up the
project because of copyright difficulties, he returned to it again in
1756 with another, much fuller set of proposals. Between 1745 and 1756
he had completed the great _Dictionary_ and could advance his
lexicographical labors as an invaluable aid in the explication of
Shakespeare. Although he had promised speedy publication, "on or before
Christmas 1757," Johnson's public had to wait until Oct. 10, 1765 for
the Shakespeare edition to appear. The first edition, largely subscribed
for, was soon exhausted, and a second edition was ready the very next
month. A third edition was published in 1768, but there were no
revisions in the notes in either of these editions. At some time after
February 1, 1766, the date of George Steevens' own proposals for an
edition of Shakespeare, and before March 21, 1770 when Johnson wrote to
Richard Farmer for some assistance in the edition (_Life_, II, 114),
Johnson decided to join forces with Steevens. The result was, of course,
the so-called 1773 Johnson-Steevens variorum from which the notes in
this reprint are taken. A second Johnson-Steevens variorum appeared in
1778, but Johnson's part in this was negligible, and I have been able to
find only fifty-one revisions (one, a definition, is a new note) which I
feel reasonably certain are his. The third variorum, edited by Isaac
Reed in 1785, contains one revision in Johnson's notes.
"Dr. Johnson has displayed, in this revisal, such ingenuity, and
accuracy of just conception, as render the present annotations a
valuable addition to his former remarks on the subject." The writer is a
reviewer for the _Critical Review_ (Dee., 1773, p. 416); the work in
question is the 1773 Johnson-Steevens edition of Shakespeare's plays.
The remark quoted is from the last paragraph of a long review beginning
in November and seems almost an afterthought, for the same reviewer had
said that the edition "deserves to be considered as almost entirely the
production of Mr. Steevens" (p. 346). In a sense this is true, but the
basis for the commentary in the 1773 edition was still the approximately
5600 notes, both his own and those of previous editors and critics, that
had appeared in Dr. Johnson's 1765 edition. The actual text of the plays
is another matter; a combination of collation and judicious borrowing,
it was provided by George Steevens. Steevens' contributions to the text
and annotation of Shakespeare's plays concern students of the dramatist;
That Johnson had to say about the plays concerns Johnsonians as veil as
Shakespeareans. And it is unfortunately true that too little attention
has been paid to what is after all Johnson's final and reconsidered
judgment on a number of passages in the plays.
The decision to reprint the commentary in the 1773 edition may be
questioned. Should not the 1765 text of the notes be reprinted, since
it, after all, is nearest to the author's manuscript? Will not errors
from the second and third editions have been perpetuated and new ones
committed in 1773, an inevitable result of reprinting any large body of
material? Ideally, the 1765 edition should be the copy-text. But
Johnson made about 500 revisions in his commentary, adding eighty-four
new notes and omitting thirty-four of his original notes in the first
edition. Obviously, Johnson cannot, or should not, be condemned for a
note in the 1765 edition which he omitted in 1773. Yet in selections
from Johnson's notes to Shakespeare that appear in anthologies some of
these offending notes have been reprinted without any indication that
the editors knew of their later retraction. In seventy-three notes
Johnson adds comments to his original note; in eighty-eight, to the
notes of other editors and critics. He revises seventy-five of his
original notes and he omits ten comments on the notes of others. And
there are many other changes. Some of the revisions come from the
Appendix to the 1765 edition. I have collated the notes in the 1765 and
1773 editions for evidence of revision; changes in punctuation were
passed over, and I must admit that I do not think them important. In
the light of my collation and because of the greater clumsiness of an
apparatus to indicate revisions in the 1765 notes I have elected to use
the 1773 text of Johnson's commentary, trusting that I have not
overlooked any significant changes. The reader has, then, for the first
time, outside the covers of the ten volumes of the 1773 edition, an
almost complete text of Johnson's notes on Shakespeare. The only
omission in this reprint is of those notes which merely list variant
readings, either from one of the folios or quartos or from a previous
editor. Johnson's reputation as an editor of Shakespeare rests, after
all, on his commentary, not on his textual labors. Up to now Johnson's
notes have been available only in such books as Walter Raleigh's
_Johnson on Shakespeare_ and Mona Wilson's _Johnson; Prose and Poetry_,
and here one gets merely a selection. For example: Miss Wilson reprints
only two notes from _The Tempest_, one from _Julius Caesar_, three from
_Antony and Cleopatra_, and one from _Titus Andronicus_. One rarely gets
the chance to read the more than 2000 notes in the edition given over to
definitions or paraphrases and explanations. Yet it must be remembered
that Johnson has been most often praised for these notes by scholars
whose primary interest was Shakespeare's meaning, not Johnson's
personality. And, what bears constant repetition, the anthologies draw
their notes from the 1765 edition, neglecting altogether Johnson's
revisions. It is only very recently that these revisions have been
studied at all--and then but partially.
The present division of the commentary into three parts--the notes on
the comedies, those on the tragedies, and those on the history plays--is
arbitrary and mostly a matter of convenience. Some division was
necessary, and it seemed advantageous to present introductions which
could use Johnson's reaction to comedy, tragedy, and history plays--and
Shakespeare's comedies, tragedies, and histories--as a point of
departure. Were the notes reprinted in the order of appearance of the
plays one would find _Macbeth_, coming after _The Winter's Tale_ (the
last of the comedies), introducing the history plays. Since Johnson had
written _Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth_ in 1745
and had included the play among the tragedies in the 1765 edition it
seems reasonable to assume that he regarded it as a tragedy and possibly
bowed to Steevens' wishes in allowing it to appear where it does in
1773. Hence, the notes on _Macbeth_ occur with those on the other
tragedies in this reprint.
One of the reasons for a full reprinting of Johnson's commentary has
already been discussed: a complete and accurate knowledge of his
thoughts on each of the plays of the then accepted canon is thus gained.
(I might add here that some notes by other editors, inadvertently
unattributed in the 1765 edition--some of them still unattributed in
1773--have been erroneously reprinted as Johnson's by both Walter
Raleigh and Mona Wilson.) Another reason is, of course, the relative
difficulty of getting at the volumes of the 1773 edition. Although not a
particularly scarce item, the edition can usually be consulted only in
Rare Book rooms (there are exceptions), where the working scholar is
hampered by the inaccessibility of many other books, not "rare," which
he needs at his elbow. Then again, the present reprint gives only
Johnson's notes, except for necessary explanations of, or quotations
from, the notes of previous editors and critics. But far transcending
these reasons, although deriving from them, is the enormous value to the
student of Johnson the man and the critic of a now easily accessible
body of literary criticism and personal comment that is second in
importance only to the _Lives of the Poets_.
Johnson's notes to the plays of Shakespeare are an invaluable source of
information of many kinds. I can only suggest here, and give a few
examples of, the wealth of material that awaits further, detailed
examination by other scholars. One demonstration, however, of the use to
which the notes can be put is provided by Professor E. L. McAdam's _Dr.
Johnson and the English Law_ (1951) in which are recorded notes showing
Johnson's familiarity with various legal terms. Further insight into
Johnson's knowledge of books of _esoterica_, histories, ballads, etc.,
can be gleaned from the comments on Shakespeare. A subject in which I
must confess an interest possibly out of proportion to its worth is that
of Johnson's reading. Some day we will have a list, probably never
complete, of the books we can be sure Johnson knew. Not only will the
notes to Shakespeare supply the names of works that Johnson knew, quoted
from, or alluded to only in these notes, but they will also help to
establish more firmly certain fields or subjects that fascinated him.
Thus, one note is evidence for Johnson's knowledge of Guevara's _Dial of
Princes_; another for his familiarity with Ficino's _De Vita Libri
Tres_; and nowhere else in Johnson's works, letters, or conversation are
these works so much as alluded, to. Other notes show us that Johnson
remembered now a poem, now an essay, from the _Gentleman's Magazine_. In
still other notes one encounters or is able to identify the names of
John Caius, John Trevisa, Dr. William Alabaster, Paul Scarron, Abraham
Ortelius, Meric Casaubon, and many others. Plays, sermons, travel books,
ballads, romances, proverbs, poems, histories, biographies, essays,
letters, documents--all have their place in the notes to Shakespeare.
No discussion of Johnson's knowledge of books can ignore the importance
of his reading for the _Dictionary_. Nor can this same preparatory
reading be overlooked in a consideration of the Shakespeare edition.
Between one-fifth and one-fourth of the notes to Shakespeare can be
traced back to the _Dictionary_. What is more, the revision of the 1765
_Shakespeare_ was undertaken at the same time that Johnson was revising
his _Dictionary_; both revisions appeared in the same year. And so one
is not surprised to find that these two labors are of reciprocal
assistance. One illustration will have to do duty for several: in a note
Johnson observes of the verb "to roam" that it is "supposed to be
derived from the cant of vagabonds, who often pretended a pilgrimage to
Rome;" this etymology is absent from the 1755 _Dictionary_; in the
revised _Dictionary_ the verb "is imagined to come from the pretenses of
vagrants, who always said they were going to Rome." A number of the new
notes and comments in the 1773 Shakespeare are clearly derived, directly
or indirectly, from the _Dictionary_.
I have already mentioned the _Lives of the Poets_ as the only critical
work by Johnson which takes precedence over the commentary (and Preface,
also) to the plays of Shakespeare. And yet this statement needs
modification. In one important respect the notes to Shakespeare are of
greater significance than the much more famous _Lives_ for an
investigation of Johnson the critic at work. Why, for example, is the
_Life of Cowley_ one of the most valuable of the _Lives_? For two
reasons: Johnson is discussing a school of poetry which has provoked
much comment, _and_ that particular _ Life_ abounds in quotations upon
which Johnson exercises his critical abilities. But there are not many
of the _Lives_ which reveal Johnson at work on particular passages,
where the passage in question is quoted and critical comment is made on
a particular line or a particular image, rhyme, word, etc. In short, as
so often in Johnson, we are confronted with the large general statement
in so much of the criticism in the _Lives_. The "diction" of _Lycidas_
is "harsh." "Some philosophical notions [in _Paradise_ _Lost_],
especially when the philosophy is false, might have been better
omitted." The plays of Nicholas Rowe are marked by "elegance of
diction." Dryden is not often "pathetick." Some of Swift's poetry is
"gross" and some is "trifling." The diction of Shenstone's _Elegies_ is
"often harsh, improper, and affected."
Johnson has not made his meaning entirely clear in these statements
because he has not illustrated his remarks with quotations from the
works or authors under examination. The famous--or notorious--
condemnation of _Lycidas_ as "harsh" in diction continues to give
scholars pause. Most often Johnson has been accused of a poor--or no--
ear for poetry, since the only definition of "harsh" in his _Dictionary_
which is applicable here is "rough to the ear." As no specific lines
from the poem are labelled "harsh," one is forced to conclude that the
whole poem is unmusical to Johnson's ears--if "harsh" means only "rough
to the ear." But the notes to Shakespeare make it perfectly clear that
"harsh" often means something other than that. Sometimes a line is
stigmatised as "harsh" because it contains what Johnson in _Rambler_ No.
88 called the "collision of consonants." An image offends his sense of
propriety and is therefore "harsh." Some words are "harsh" because they
are "appropriated to particular arts" (the phrase comes from his _Life
of Dryden_). Thus, in _Measure for Measure_, a "leaven'd choice" is
"one of Shakespeare's harsh metaphors" because it conjures up images of
a baker at his trade. Johnson also uses "harsh" to describe a word used
in a sense not familiar to him. And "harsh" is sometimes used
synonymously with "forced and far-fetched." "Is't not a kind of incest,
to take life From thine own sister's shame?" asks Isabella of her
brother in _Measure for Measure_, provoking from Johnson the remark that
in her "declamation there is something harsh, and something forced and
far-fetched." Only now, with the varying uses of "harsh" as exemplified
in the notes to Shakespeare as guides, can one hope better to understand
the bare statement that the diction of _Lycidas_ is "harsh." Similar
investigation of other important words in Johnson's critical vocabulary
is possible through a close study of his commentary on Shakespeare's
plays. Words such as "elegant," "inartificial," "just," "low,"
"pathetic," "proper," "vicious," and others used in criticism of
specific lines and passages help one to pin down Johnson's meaning when
he uses the same words in general contexts elsewhere.
Johnson stands clearly revealed as a critic in his notes to Shakespeare;
if there is any doubt of this, it can only center about the comparative
importance we may wish to attach to the commentary in relation to the
rest of Johnson's criticism. But there is another aspect of Johnson of
which one gets but half-glimpses in the notes; and here I may be accused
or romanticizing or of reading too much significance into remarks whose
purpose was to illuminate Shakespeare's art and not, decidedly, to
reveal the editor's character. To put it baldly, I believe that in some
notes Johnson has given us clues to his own feelings under circumstances
similar to those in which Shakespeare's characters find themselves. Let
me illustrate. In the concluding line of Act II of _2 Henry VI_,
Eleanor, wife to the Duke of Gloucester, is on her way to prison. She
says, "Go, lead the way. I long to see my prison." Johnson comments:
"This impatience of a high spirit is very natural. It is not so dreadful
to be imprisoned, as it is desirable in a state of disgrace to be
sheltered from the scorn of gazers." This note may be innocuous enough,
but it is worth recalling that Johnson was arrested for debt in
February, 1758, when he was engaged in the edition of Shakespeare. And
two years earlier, in March of 1756, he had also been arrested for debt.
Friends came to his rescue both times. Curiously, there is no mention of
the arrests in Boswell's _Life_. Did Boswell know and deliberately omit
these facts, or did Johnson prefer to keep silent about them? Anecdote
after anecdote shows Johnson to have been an extremely proud man, one
who would feel keenly a public disgrace. Was he exposed to "the scorn of
gazers" on one or both of these occasions? It is tempting, and
admittedly dangerous, to read autobiographical significance in the note
on Eleanor's words. But another question intrudes itself in this
connection: Is there a link between the two arrests and _Idler_ No. 22,
"Imprisonment of Debtors," which Johnson substituted for the original
essay when the periodical was republished in 1761? I am not prepared to
answer these questions; I can only raise them.
I cannot forbear another excursion into the region of Johnsonian
autobiography (or pseudo-autobiography) even at the increased risk of
committing a scholarly sin against which I have myself protested. In my
own defense I can say that I know the highly conjectural nature of what
I am doing. Johnson's pride may have suffered when he was arrested for
debt in the presence of unsympathetic onlookers. This is sheer
hypothesizing. But when, in _Henry IV_, Worcester speaks the following
words:
For, bear ourselves as even as we can, The King will always think him in
our debt; And think, we deem ourselves unsatisfy'd, Till he hath found a
time to pay us home. (I.iii.285-8) and Johnson comments: "This is a
natural description of the state of mind between those who have
conferred, and those that have received, obligations too great to be
satisfied," we may protest that such a reaction is by no means
universal. The suspicion that Johnson is speaking for himself is
strengthened by an observation made by Sir Joshua Reynolds and recorded
by his biographer, Junes Northcote. Reynolds remarks "that if any drew
[Johnson] into a state of obligation without his own consent, that man
was the first he would affront, by way of clearing off the account"
(see Boswell's _Life_, III, 345, n.l). Johnson's note may nov be looked
upon as a possible personal confession. Other conjectures are justified,
I believe, by still other notes, but it may be preferable to list,
without comment, some of the topics upon which Johnson has his say in
the notes to Shakespeare. He comments on melancholy, falsehood, the
lightness with which vows are made, cruelty to animals, "the pain of
deformity," the horrors of solitude, kindness to dependents, friendship,
slavery, guilt, the "unsocial mind," the "mean" and the "great"--and a
host of others. It is not difficult, therefore, to understand why the
editor of _The Beauties of Johnson_ quoted so often from the notes to
Shakespeare.
The University of Illinois copy of the 1773 Shakespeare has been used.
It is unique, I believe, in that the last volume contains a list of
"Cancels In Shakespeare. This List not to be bound up with the Book,
being only to direct the Binder," one of the earliest of these forgotten
directions to the binder to be recorded. There is another point of
bibliographical interest in the edition. L. F. Powell states that there
are three Appendices in the last volume of the edition (_Life_. II,
490), as does T. J. Monaghan (_RES_, 1953, p. 238). Yet the Illinois
copy has only two appendices, and a check of copies in some six large
American libraries reveals the same number. The copy with the three
Appendices would seem quite rare.
One or two symbols and abbreviations have been used for the sake of
economy. A new note or comment by Johnson, one added in 1773, is
indicated by (1773) at the end of the note. "W" is Warburton; "T" is
Theobald. The notation "W: winter" points to an easily recognizable
emendation by Warburton in a line quoted before the note in question.
Easily identifiable references to revisions of notes in the 1765
edition, or to revisions later made in the 1778 edition, are placed in
parentheses at the end of the notes. Scholars interested in these
revisions must check them for themselves. Act, scene, and line
references to Shakespeare are from Kittredge's edition of the works
(Boston, 1936). The numbers in parentheses after the reference in
Kittredge are to page and note number (the volume being given only once)
in the 1773 edition. The page reference is to the page upon which the
note, Johnson's or another editor's, starts; sometimes the notes extend
to three or more pages. The text of Shakespeare quoted is that of the
1773 edition; this is the text that Johnson's contemporaries saw, and it
would be a distortion to reprint Johnson's notes after a modern text.
The following list is of notes Johnson omitted in 1773; the references
are, of course, to the 1765 edition: I, 64, 0; 94,0 106 ; 113, 0; 133,0;
151,0 ; 153,0 ; 233, 8; 469, 1; II, 217, 2; 295, 8; 326, 8; 396, 8;
464, 6; III, 193, 3; IV, 149, 2; 201, 5; 347, 4; 372, 5; 398, 7; 404, 3;
V, 61, 5; 107, 9; VI, 17, 3; 80, 5; [166]; 415, 9; 440, 9; VII, 316, 3;
VIII, 121, 9; 198, 2; 272, 6; 281, 9; 362, 7. Fourteen notes in the 1765
edition, there inadvertently unattributed, are taken verbatim from other
editors and critics; five of these are correctly attributed in 1773 (see
1765, V, 182, 1; VI, 24, 3 and 177, 3; and Appendix, notes on V, 253 and
VII, 444). Four notes are entirely omitted: 1773, II, 50, 4; 138, 5; V,
297, 6; and VII, 317, 6. In four others (1773, I, 249, 5; II, 466, 7;
VI, 72, 4; and X, 417, 8) the part of the note that is not Johnson's is
set off by brackets and properly attributed. Finally, the note on II,
452 in the 1765 Appendix, taken partly from "Mr. Smith," appears in 1773
(I, 195, 5) as part of Steevens' comment. _Introduction on Comedies_.
If I were to select the one passage in Dr. Johnson's Preface to
Shakespeare which occasioned the greatest immediate protest and which
has continued to be held up to critical scorn, I should have to pitch
upon this: "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." As a theatre-goer, Johnson
could also say in the Preface that "familiar comedy is often more
powerful on the theatre, than in the page; imperial tragedy is always
less." One might logically assume, then, that Johnson's greater
enjoyment of Shakespeare's comedies would be easily remarked in his
commentary--and even, possibly, that they would be singled out for more
annotation and comment than the tragedies or the histories. The most
heavily annotated plays are, however, the tragedies, and it is curious
to observe that the sombre "problem comedy," _Measure for Measure_,
commands more notes than any other comedy. Further, Johnson's moral and
religious sensibilities were offended by profanity and obscenity in the
drama, and Shakespeare's comedies, far more than his tragedies and
histories, transgress in this direction. One recollects, finally, that
the dramatic genre favored most by Johnson was the "she-tragedy." Was
Johnson lauding Shakespeare's comedies because the tragedies had been
excessively praised? I do not know.
I an most grateful to the Research Board of the University of Illinois
for a grant which greatly expedited my work.