assistance. One illustration will have to do duty for several: in a note
Johnson observes of the verb "to roam" that it is "supposed to be
derived from the cant of vagabonds, who often pretended a pilgrimage to
Rome;" this etymology is absent from the 1755 _Dictionary_; in the
revised _Dictionary_ the verb "is imagined to come from the pretenses of
vagrants, who always said they were going to Rome." A number of the new
notes and comments in the 1773 Shakespeare are clearly derived, directly
or indirectly, from the _Dictionary_.

I have already mentioned the _Lives of the Poets_ as the only critical
work by Johnson which takes precedence over the commentary (and Preface,
also) to the plays of Shakespeare. And yet this statement needs
modification. In one important respect the notes to Shakespeare are of
greater significance than the much more famous _Lives_ for an
investigation of Johnson the critic at work. Why, for example, is the
_Life of Cowley_ one of the most valuable of the _Lives_? For two
reasons: Johnson is discussing a school of poetry which has provoked
much comment, _and_ that particular _ Life_ abounds in quotations upon
which Johnson exercises his critical abilities. But there are not many
of the _Lives_ which reveal Johnson at work on particular passages,
where the passage in question is quoted and critical comment is made on
a particular line or a particular image, rhyme, word, etc. In short, as
so often in Johnson, we are confronted with the large general statement
in so much of the criticism in the _Lives_. The "diction" of _Lycidas_
is "harsh." "Some philosophical notions [in _Paradise_ _Lost_],
especially when the philosophy is false, might have been better
omitted." The plays of Nicholas Rowe are marked by "elegance of
diction." Dryden is not often "pathetick." Some of Swift's poetry is
"gross" and some is "trifling." The diction of Shenstone's _Elegies_ is
"often harsh, improper, and affected."