THE "PREFACE TO SHAKSPEARE,” AND THE REVIEW OF THE BY. SAMUEL JOHNSON, LLD. WITH A SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, BY SIR WALTER SCOTT. LONDON: ALBERT J. CROCKER AND BROTHERS, 1871. PRELIMINARY NOTICE. HE "Lives of the most eminent English Poets" has long been recognised as the greatest written work of Samuel Johnson; and the silent verdict of the crowd has been more than confirmed by the published opinions of the qualified few. Lord Byron described it as the "finest critical work extant," and declared that he never read it without instruction and delight: Sir Walter Scott affirmed that it displayed qualifications which have seldom been concentrated to the same degree in any literary undertaking; and Lord Macaulay pronounces the narrative to be as "entertaining as any fairy tale," while the "remarks on human nature are eminently shrewd and profound." This great work, like many other great works, owed its origin to the spur of competition. By long prescription, unsupported apparently by any legal right, the "Trade" of London had been permitted to assume an exclusive and perpetual property in every literary production of importance, and had come to regard any one as an unprincipled intruder who presumed to interfere with their monopolies. When, therefore, to meet a crying want, a collection of the works of the English Poets was printed by an enterprising individual in Edinburgh, the London booksellers were scandalized at what one of their body called this "invasion of their property;" but, finding they had no legal redress, they very sensibly determined to protect themselves by printing a more elegant and extensive collection on their own account. To give this edition still further advantages over its rival, they resolved to apply to Johnson to furnish a slight biographical and critical notice of each individual whose works were included in their list; and three of their number, Tom Davies and Strahan and Cadell, were deputed to Bolt Court, to solicit his consent to the arrangement. The day chosen was Saturday, the 29th of March, 1777, which, being Easter Eve, must have been regarded by Johnson as singularly unfitted for business conversation, and he has himself recorded the circumstance half apologetically. "I treated with booksellers on a bargain, but the time was not long." We will not accuse these booksellers of selecting a day on which Davies at least must have known that Johnson was sure to place a low value on his talents, but in all probability it weighed with him in fixing the humble price of two hundred pounds for what he was to perform. It is true that, as he himself described it in a letter to Boswell, his engagement was only "to write little lives and little |