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Notes to Shakespeare
Vol. I
Comedies
Edited, with an Introduction, by Arthur Sherbo
RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan
RALPH COHEN, University of California, Los Angeles
VINTON A. DEARING, University of California, Los Angeles
LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL, Clark Memorial Library
ASSISTANT EDITOR
W. EARL BRITTON, University of Michigan
ADVISORY EDITORS
EMMETT L. AVERY, State College of Washington
BENJAMIN BOYCE, Duke University
LOUIS BREDVOLD, University of Michigan
JOHN BUTT, King's College, University of Durham
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles
LOUIS A. LANDA, Princeton University
SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota
ERNEST C. MOSSNER, University of Texas
JAMES SUTHERLAND, University College; London
H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., University of California, Los Angeles
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
EDNA C. DAVIS, Clark Memorial Library
Dr. Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare is one of the most famous criticalessays of the eighteenth century, and yet too many students haveforgotten that it is, precisely, a preface to the plays of Shakespeare,edited by Dr. Johnson himself. That is to say, the edition itself hasbeen obscured or overshadowed by its preface, and the sustained effortof that essay has virtually monopolized scholarly attention—much ofwhich should be directed to the commentary. Johnson's love forShakespeare's plays is well known; nowhere is this more manifest than inhis notes on them. And it is on the notes that his claim to remembranceas a critic of Shakespeare must rest, for the famous Preface is, afterall, only rarely an original and personal statement.
The idea of editing Shakespeare's plays had attracted Johnson early, andin 1745 he issued proposals for an edition. Forced to give up theproject because of copyright difficulties, he returned to it again in1756 with another, much fuller set of proposals. Between 1745 and 1756he had completed the great Dictionary and could advance hislexicographical labors as an invaluable aid in the explication ofShakespeare. Although he had promised speedy publication, "on or beforeChristmas 1757," Johnson's public had to wait until Oct. 10, 1765 forthe Shakespeare edition to appear. The first edition, largely subscribedfor, was soon exhausted, and a second edition was ready the very nextmonth. A third edition was published in 1768, but there were norevisions in the notes in either of these editions. At some time afterFebruary 1, 1766, the date of George Steevens' own proposals for anedition of Shakespeare, and before March 21, 1770 when Johnson wrote toRichard 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 inthis reprint are taken. A second Johnson-Steevens variorum appeared in1778, but Johnson's part in this was negligible, and I have been able tofind only fifty-one revisions (one, a definition, is a new note) which Ifeel reasonably certain are his. The third variorum, edited by IsaacReed in 1785, contains one revision