[120]. tragedies to-day and comedies to-morrow. As the Aglaura of Suckling and the Vestal Virgin of Sir Robert Howard, which have a double fifth act. Downes records that about 1662 Romeo and Juliet “was made into a tragi-comedy by Mr. James Howard, he preserving Romeo and Juliet alive; so that when the tragedy was reviv'd again, 'twas play'd alternately, tragically one day and tragi-comical another” (Roscius Anglicanus, ed. 1789, p. 31: cf. Genest, English Stage, i., p. 42).
[120-1]. Rhymer and Voltaire. See Du Théâtre anglais, passim, and Short View, pp. 96, etc. The passage is aimed more directly at Voltaire than at Rymer. Like Rowe, Johnson misspells Rymer's name.
[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 [pg 323] dealt with the three unities, in 1660; but he had observed the unities since the publication of the Sentiments de l'Académie sur le Cid (1638).
[130]. Venice ... Cyprus. See Voltaire, Du Théâtre anglais, vol. 61, p. 377 (ed. 1785), and cf. Rymer's Short View.
[131]. Non usque, etc. Lucan, Pharsalia, iii. 138-140.