Samuel Johnson, 1747 (1709-1784)
When Learning’s triumph o’er her barb’rous foes
First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;
Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil’d after him in vain:
His powerful strokes presiding truth impress’d,
And unresisted passion storm’d the breast.
Prologue spoken by Mr. Garrick at the opening of the Theatre in Drury Lane, 1747.
“Drinking tea one day at Garrick’s with Mr. Langton, he [Dr. Johnson] was questioned if he was not somewhat of a heretic as to Shakespeare; said Garrick, ‘I doubt he is a little of an infidel.’—‘Sir,’ said Johnson, ‘I will stand by the lines I have written on Shakespeare in my Prologue at the opening of your Theatre.’ Mr. Langton suggested, that in the line
“‘And panting Time toil’d after him in vain,’
Johnson might have had in his eye the passage in the Tempest, where Prospero says of Miranda:
“‘... She will outstrip all praise,
And make it halt behind her.’
Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe, ‘I do not think that the happiest line in the praise of Shakespeare.’ Johnson exclaimed (smiling), ‘Prosaical rogues! next time I write, I’ll make both time and space pant.’”—Notes by Langton in Boswell’s Life of Dr. Johnson.