JOHNSON ON SHAKESPEARE
97
a kind of self-consciousness by proxy is the impression conveyed. There is no greater enemy to the freedom and delight of social intercourse than the man who is always going back on what has just been said, to praise its cleverness, to guess its motive, or to show how it illustrates the character of the speaker. Boswell was not, of course, guilty of this particular kind of ill-breeding; but the very necessities of his record produce something of a like effect. The reader who desires to have Johnson to himself for an hour, with no interpreter, cannot do better than turn to the notes on Shakespeare. They are written informally and fluently; they are packed full of observation and wisdom; and their only fault is that they are all too few.
