Johnson penetrates
through the thicket of obscurities raised by Shakespeare's involved
language and his {218} critics' fanciful explanations, and brings back
for us in plain words the undoubted meaning of many a difficult
passage. He is a master of that rare art, the prose paraphrase of
poetry. The perfect lucidity of his notes makes them always a pleasure
to read: and writers of notes are not usually masters of language.
Take such a note as that on the words of Laertes about Ophelia's
madness--

"Nature is fine in love: and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves."

Johnson interprets: "love is the passion by which nature is most
exalted and refined; and as substances, refined and subtilized, easily
obey any impulse, or follow any attraction, some part of nature, so
purified and refined, flies off after the attracting object, after the
thing it loves;--

"As into air the purer spirits flow,
And separate from their kindred dregs below,
So flew her soul."

Nor can a mistake or two in details detract from the value of the
splendid paraphrase of "To be or not to be," or the admirable note on
the character of Polonius. Shakespeare has had subtler and more
poetical critics than Johnson: but no one has equalled the insight,
{219} sobriety, lucidity and finality which Johnson shows in his own
field.

The _Lives of the Poets_ is Johnson's last, longest, and most popular
work. More than any other of his works it was written to please
himself: he did so much more than he was paid to do that he almost
refuted his own doctrine that no man but a blockhead ever wrote except
for money. Instead of being written, like most of his earlier books,
in poverty, if not in obscurity, the _Lives_ were written at his ease,
with his pension in his pocket, with the booksellers at his feet, with
the consciousness of an expectant and admiring public outside. The
obstructions to his work were no longer those of poverty but of
prosperity. He once had to write because if he did not he would
starve: now he might sleep or talk all day with the certainty of
sitting down to more meals than he wanted. In early life he had no
temptation to quit his home, for he could not afford travel or
amusement: now he could go to the Hebrides and talk of going further,
without taking much thought of the expense. He once worked to make his
name known: now his reputation was established and his nam