Page:Six Essays on Johnson.djvu/93

Rh ‘These fellows,’ he said, ‘know not how to blame, nor how to commend.’

In these and such-like passages we hear Johnson talking in language suitable enough for a literary club. There is nothing sectarian about his praise; he speaks as an independent man of letters, and will not consent to be sealed of the tribe of Shakespeare. Modern criticism is seldom so free and intimate; it has more the tone of public exposition and laudation; it seeks to win souls to Shakespeare’s poetry, and, for fear of misunderstanding, avoids the mention of his faults. It is always willing to suppose that Shakespeare had good and sufficient reason for what he wrote, and seldom permits itself the temerity of Johnson, who points out, for instance, what decency and probability require in the closing act of All’s Well that Ends Well, and adds: ‘Of all this Shakespeare could not be ignorant, but Shakespeare wanted to conclude his play.’

It would not be difficult to show that much new light has been thrown on parts of Shakespeare’s work by the more reverential treatment. Yet perhaps it has obscured as much as it has elucidated. So fixed a habit of appreciation is the death of individuality and taste. Discipleship is a necessary stage in the study of any great poet; it is not a necessary qualification of the mature critic. The acclamation of his following is not so honourable a tribute to a prize-fighter as the respect of his antagonist. In a certain sense Johnson was antagonistic to Shakespeare. His own taste in tragedy may be learned from his note on the scene between Queen Katherine and her attendants at the