The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?  The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.  I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation,

My Lord, Your Lordship’s most humble,

Most obedient servant, SAM.  JOHNSON.

[Footnote A:  For a sketch of Johnson’s life, see the Introduction to “Life of Addison” in the volume of English Essays.  The interest of his preface to the great Dictionary need hardly be pointed out, since the work itself is a landmark in the history of our language.  The letter to Chesterfield, short though it is is a document of great importance in the freeing of literature from patronage, and is in itself a notable piece of literature.  The preface to Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare’s plays not only explains the editor’s conception of his task, but contains what is perhaps the best appreciation of the dramatist written in the eighteenth century.]

PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE

BY SAMUEL JOHNSON. (1765)

That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.

Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind, has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but from prejudice.  Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever has been long preserved, without considering that time has sometimes co-operated with chance; all perhaps are more willing to honour past than present excellence; and the mind contemplates genius through the shades of age, as the eye surveys the sun through artificial opacity.  The great contention of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the ancients.  While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead, we rate them by his best.