Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/82

78 of hastening the long-deferred edition. ‘His friends,’ says Hawkins, ‘more concerned for his reputation than himself seemed to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other pecuniary engagement, to perform his task within a certain time.’ In 1764 and 1765, according to Boswell’s account, he was so busily engaged with the edition as to have little leisure for any other literary exertion. That is to say, he worked at it intermittently, and satisfied his conscience, after the manner of authors, by working at nothing else. In October, 1765, at last appeared ''The Plays of William Shakespeare, in Eight Volumes, with the Corrections and Illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added Notes by Sam. Johnson''. He had spent nine years on the work, but a longer delay would have been amply justified by the Preface alone, which Adam Smith styled ‘the most manly piece of criticism that was ever published in any country.’

There is nothing singular or strange in this chapter of literary history. The promises of authors are like the vows of lovers; made in moments of careless rapture, and subject, during the long process of fulfilment, to all kinds of unforeseen dangers and difficulties. Of these difficulties Johnson has left his own account in the Life of Pope. ‘Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure,’ he says, ‘all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker’s mind. He that runs against time has an antagonist not subject to casualties.’ Something steadier and more habitual than