ce an account of the work of earlier
editors, and it is the first attempt of the kind which is impartial. He
shows that Rowe has been blamed for not performing what he did not
undertake; he is severe on Pope for the allusion to the "dull duty of an
editor," as well as for the performance of it, though he also finds much
to praise; he does more justice to Sir Thomas Hammer than has commonly
been done since; and he is not silent on the weaknesses of Warburton. The
only thing in this unprejudiced account which is liable to criticism is
his treatment of Theobald. But the censure is as just as the praise which
it is now the fashion to heap on him. Though Theobald was the first to pay
due respect to the original editions, we cannot, in estimating his
capacity, ignore the evidence of his correspondence with Warburton. In the
more detailed account of his work given below, it is shown that there was
a large measure of justice in the common verdict of the eighteenth
century, but it was only prejudiced critics like Pope or Warburton who
would say that his Shakespearian labours were futile. Johnson is careful
to state that "what little he did was commonly right."

It would appear that Macaulay's estimate of Johnson's own edition has been
generally accepted, even by those who in other matters remark on the
historian's habit of exaggeration. "The Preface," we read, "though it
contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The most valuable
notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showing how attentively
he had, during many years, observed human life and human nature. The best
specimen is the note on the character of Polonius. Nothing so good is to
be found even in Wilhelm Meister's admirable examination of _Hamlet_. But
here praise must end. It would be difficult to name a more slovenly, a
more worthless edition of any great classic. The reader may turn over play
after play without finding one happy conjectural emendation, or one
ingenious and satisfactory explanation of a passage which had baffled
preceding commentators."(24) And we still find it repeated that his
edition was a failure. Johnson distrusted conjecture; but that there is
not one happy conjectural emendation is only less glaringly untrue than
the other assertion that there is not one new ingenious and satisfactory
explanation. Even though we make allowance for Macaulay's mannerism, it is
difficult to believe that he had honestly consulted the edition. Th