ly gone himself with some of his
friends, at one in the morning, to St John's Church, Clerkenwell, in
the hope of receiving a communication from the perturbed spirit. But the
spirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately silent;
and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing
herself by making fools of so many philosophers. Churchill, who,
confidant in his powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with party
spirit, was looking for some man of established fame and Tory politics
to insult, celebrated the Cock Lane Ghost in three cantos, nicknamed
Johnson Pomposo, asked where the book was which had been so long
promised and so liberally paid for, and directly accused the great
moralist of cheating. This terrible word proved effectual; and in
October 1765 appeared, after a delay of nine years, the new edition of
Shakspeare.

This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, but added
nothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. The preface, 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. Johnson had, in his
prospectus, told the world that he was peculiarly fitted for the task
which he had undertaken, because he had, as a lexicographer, been under
the necessity of taking a wider view of the English language than any of
his predecessors. That his knowledge of our literature was extensive is
indisputable. But, unfortunately, he had altogether neglected that very
part of our literature with which it is especially desirable that an
editor of Shakspeare should be conversant. It is dangerous to assert a
negative. Yet little will be risked by the assertion, that in the two
folio volumes of the English Dictionary there is not a single passage
quoted from any dramatist of the Elizabethan age, except Shakspeare and
Ben. Even from Ben the quotations are few. Joh