ABSTRACT
The shift in Samuel Johnson's creative viewpoint to the position creatively defined through Johnson's Rasselas, and in sympathy with the spirit of Montaigne, inevitably affects how we understand the central critical term of the W. Shakespeare criticism—'general nature'. Johnson is affirming the importance of Shakespeare's characters according to the temporal principle of 'general nature'. It does not matter if kings or Romans are dramatically represented by Shakespeare with the imperfections common in the rest of the human race. Shakespeare 'seems' to write without any moral purpose because he is being more careful to please than to instruct. That is a fault, and it is the first and most serious that Johnson lists in his 'faults and defects' section of the Preface. That the judgment of Shakespeare is for such reasons at the centre of Johnson's achievement and development as a critic will surprise no one used to finding affinities between the Preface and the Lives of the Poets?.
