"pathetic," "proper," "vicious," and others used in criticism of
specific lines and passages help one to pin down Johnson's meaning when
he uses the same words in general contexts elsewhere.

Johnson stands clearly revealed as a critic in his notes to Shakespeare;
if there is any doubt of this, it can only center about the comparative
importance we may wish to attach to the commentary in relation to the
rest of Johnson's criticism. But there is another aspect of Johnson of
which one gets but half-glimpses in the notes; and here I may be accused
or romanticizing or of reading too much significance into remarks whose
purpose was to illuminate Shakespeare's art and not, decidedly, to
reveal the editor's character. To put it baldly, I believe that in some
notes Johnson has given us clues to his own feelings under circumstances
similar to those in which Shakespeare's characters find themselves. Let
me illustrate. In the concluding line of Act II of _2 Henry VI_,
Eleanor, wife to the Duke of Gloucester, is on her way to prison. She
says, "Go, lead the way. I long to see my prison." Johnson comments:
"This impatience of a high spirit is very natural. It is not so dreadful
to be imprisoned, as it is desirable in a state of disgrace to be
sheltered from the scorn of gazers." This note may be innocuous enough,
but it is worth recalling that Johnson was arrested for debt in
February, 1758, when he was engaged in the edition of Shakespeare. And
two years earlier, in March of 1756, he had also been arrested for debt.
Friends came to his rescue both times. Curiously, there is no mention of
the arrests in Boswell's _Life_. Did Boswell know and deliberately omit
these facts, or did Johnson prefer to keep silent about them? Anecdote
after anecdote shows Johnson to have been an extremely proud man, one
who would feel keenly a public disgrace. Was he exposed to "the scorn of
gazers" on one or both of these occasions? It is tempting, and
admittedly dangerous, to read autobiographical significance in the note