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 Théâtre anglais_, vol. 61, p. 366 (ed. 1785). Cf.
_Lettres philosophiques, Sur la Tragédie, ad fin._, and _Le Siècle 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.
135. _A correct and regular writer_, etc. Cf. the comparison of Dryden and
Pope in Johnson’s life of the latter: “Dryden’s page is a natural field,
rising into inequalities and diversified by the varied exuberance of
abundant vegetation; Pope’s is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and
levelled by the roller.” The “garden-and-forest” comparison had already
appeared, in a versified form, in the _Connoisseur_, No. 125 (17th June,
1756). Cf. also Mrs. Piozzi’s _Anecdotes of Johnson_, p. 59, “Corneille is
to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.”
135. _small Latin and less Greek._ Ben Jonson’s poem _To the Memory of Mr.
William Shakespeare_, l. 31. The first edition of the Preface read by
mistake _no Greek_. Cf. Kenrick’s _Review_, 1765, p. 106, the _London
Magazine_, October, 1765, p. 536, and Farmer’s _Essay_, p. 166, note.
136. _Go before, I’ll follow._ This remark was made by Zachary Grey in his
_Notes on Shakespeare_, vol. ii., p. 53. He says that “Go you before and I
will follow you,” _Richard III._, i. 1. 144, is “in imitation of
_Terence_, ‘I prae, sequar.’ _Terentii Andr._, i., l. 144.”
_The Menaechmi of Plautus._ See note on p. 9, and cf. Farmer, p. 200.