Note 57 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
Reading edition
Johnson, it is clear, discusses here Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakespeare. She compared Shakespeare first with Corneille, and then with Aeschylus. In contrasting the ghost in Hamlet with the shade of Darius in The Persians, she says:—'The phantom, who was to appear ignorant of what was past, that the Athenian ear might be soothed and flattered with the detail of their victory at Salamis, is allowed, for the same reason, such prescience as to foretell their future triumph at Plataea.' p. 161.