Dr Samuel Johnson first issued proposals for a new edition of Shakespeare in 1745, but met with no encouragement. He resumed the scheme in 1756, and issued a new set of Proposals (reprinted in Malone’s preface), ‘in which,’ says Boswell, ‘he shewed that he perfectly well knew what a variety of research such an undertaking required, but his indolence prevented him from pursuing it with that diligence, which alone can collect those scattered facts that genius, however acute, penetrating, and luminous, cannot discover by its own force.’ Johnson deceived himself so far, as to the work to be done and his own energy in doing it, that he promised the publication of the whole before the end of the following year. Yet, though some volumes were printed as early as 1758 (Boswell, Vol. II. p. 84), it was not published till 1765, and might never have been published at all, but for Churchill’s stinging satire:
‘He for subscribers baits his hook,
And takes your cash, but where’s the book?
No matter where; wise fear, you know,
Forbids the robbing of a foe,
But what, to serve our private ends,
Forbids the cheating of our friends?’
Not only Johnson’s constitutional indolence and desultory habits, but also the deficiency of his eye-sight, incapacitated him for the task of minute collation. Nevertheless, he did consult the older copies, and has the merit of restoring some readings which had escaped Theobald. He had not systematically studied the literature and language of the 16th and 17th centuries; he did not always appreciate the naturalness, simplicity, and humour of his author, but his preface and notes are distinguished by clearness of thought and diction and by masterly common sense. He used Warburton’s text, to print his own from. The readings and suggestions attributed to ‘Johnson,’ in our notes, are derived either from the edition of 1765, or from those which he furnished to the subsequent editions in which Steevens was his co-editor. Some few also found by the latter in Johnson’s hand on the margin of his copy of ‘Warburton,’ purchased by Steevens at Johnson’s sale, were incorporated in later editions. Johnson’s edition was attacked with great acrimony by Dr Kenrick, 1765 (Boswell, Vol. II. p. 300). It disappointed the public expectation, but reached, nevertheless, a second edition in 1768. Tyrwhitt’s Observations and Conjectures were published anonymously in 1766.
Capell’s edition (10 volumes, small 8vo) was not published till 1768, though part of it had gone to press, as the editor himself tells us, in September, 1760. It contained the Plays in the order of the first and second Folios, with a preface, of which Dr Johnson said, referring to Tempest, I. 2. 356, ‘The fellow should have come to me, and I would have endowed his purpose with words. As it is he doth gabble monstrously.’
Defects of style apart, this preface was by far the most valuable contribution to Shakespearian criticism that had yet appeared, and the text was based upon a most searching collation of all the Folios and of all the Quartos known to exist at that time. Capell’s own conjectures, not always very happy, which he has introduced into his text, are distinguished by being printed in black letter.