[2] See pages 33, 95.
[3] The Spaniards had abused the right of searching merchant vessels
granted to them by the treaty of Commerce. In the following year, 1739,
after the affair of "Jenkins's ear," Walpole was compelled to yield to
the popular demand for war.
_The Great Lexicographer_
The title of this chapter sounds dull enough. A dictionary is not
generally thought to be lively reading and perhaps we may feel that a
man who deliberately set out to write one must have been a dry-as-dust
old fellow who went out of his way to explain short and simple words
by means of long and complicated phrases more difficult than the words
themselves.
Well, there is no doubt that Johnson did use long words. He had been
brought up on classical authors and, like other writers of the period,
often used words of many syllables derived from the Greek or Latin,
when simpler words would have done as well.
Boswell is the same. He does not say "many times in his later life"
but "upon innumerable occasions in his subsequent life." Or look back
at page 24, where he finds it "melancholy to reflect that Johnson and
Savage were in such extreme indigence." Why couldn't he have found it
"sad to think that they were so poor"?
Long words were the fashion of the time and to do Johnson justice, we
must try to put ourselves back in his century.
Nowadays, we have no trouble in finding dictionaries, whether we want
an exhaustive work of reference or a handy volume for the pocket.
But in Johnson's day it was different.
Such dictionaries as had previously appeared were vocabularies of "hard
words" only, not of words in general. The only attempt to produce a
dictionary containing _all_ English words was that compiled in 1721 by
one Nathaniel Bailey, but it contained very little illustration of the
use of words. There was, in fact, no dictionary which attempted either
to _fix_ the language or to illustrate the different meanings of a word
by quotations from English writers. Johnson began to consider whether
he might not produce one himself.
"The year 1747" says Boswell "is distinguished as the epoch, when
Johnson's arduous and important work, his DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE, was announced to the world, by the publication of its Plan
or _Prospectus_. How long this immense undertaking had been the object
of his contemplation, I do not know. I once asked him by what means he
had attained to that astonishing knowledge of our language, by which
he was enabled to realise a design of such extent, and accumulated
difficulty. He told me, that 'it was not the effect of particular
study; but that it had grown up in his mind insensibly.'"
Even Johnson had had some doubts at the beginning:
"I have been informed by Mr James Dodsley, that several years before
this period, when Johnson was one day sitting in his brother Robert's
shop, he heard his brother suggest to him, that a Dictionary of the
English Language would be a work that would be well received by the
publick; that Johnson seemed at first to catch at the proposition, but,
after a pause, said, in his abrupt decisive manner, 'I believe I shall
not undertake it.'"
But he changed his mind. Half-a-dozen booksellers agreed between them
to pay the author fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds for the work,
and the "Plan" was addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield, "then one of
his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State; a nobleman who was very
ambitious of literary distinction."
England has always prided herself on the individual enterprise of her
citizens and Johnson "the true-born Englishman" had now undertaken,
"single and unaided ... a work which in other countries had not been
effected but by the co-operating exertions of many," but "he had a
noble consciousness of his own abilities, which enabled him to go on
with undaunted spirit."
Boswell gives us a few glimpses of his hero engaged on this great task:
"Dr Adams found him one day busy at his _Dictionary_, when the
following dialogue ensued: ADAMS. This is a great work, Sir.... How can
you do this in three years? JOHNSON. Sir, I have no doubt that I can
do it in three years. ADAMS. But the French Academy, which consists of
forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON.
Sir, thus it is: this is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty
is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion
of an Englishman to a Frenchman."
"For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses;
and let it be remembered by the natives of North-Britain, to whom
he is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of
that country.... To all these painful labourers, Johnson shewed a
never-ceasing kindness."
"While the _Dictionary_ was going forward, Johnson lived part of the
time in Holborn, part in Gough-square, Fleet-street; and he had an
upper room fitted up like a counting-house for the purpose, in which
he gave to the copyists their several tasks. The words, partly taken
from other dictionaries, and partly supplied by himself, having been
first written down with spaces left between them, he delivered in
writing their etymologies, definitions, and various significations.
The authorities were copied from the books themselves, in which he had
marked the passages, with a black-lead pencil, the traces of which
could easily be effaced. I have seen several of them, in which that
trouble had not been taken, so that they were just as when used by the
copyists."
[Illustration: JOHNSON'S HOUSE IN GOUGH SQUARE
No. 17 Gough Square, the house in which Johnson lived from 1748 to
1759, was bought in 1911 by Mr Cecil Harmsworth, who undertook such
restoration as was necessary. The visitor will find it most easily
by turning into Bolt Court, on the north side of Fleet Street, and
will note with satisfaction that "almost every original feature of
importance has survived."
A descriptive booklet, with a good coloured portrait, may be bought
at the house, and a well-illustrated account is given in _The
Architectural Review_ for December, 1918. Carlyle's description of his
visit (_Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. IV_) is well known and the reader
may also be referred to Mr Austin Dobson's _A Garret in Gough Square
(Eighteenth Century Vignettes, 1st Series_) and Miss Sophie Cole's
novel, _A London Posy_.]
Though these pencil-marks do not remain for us to see, the house in
Gough Square still stands. The literary adventurer of to-day may behold
it with something of that reverence which St John's Gate inspired in
Johnson when he first came to London.
The Dictionary employed Johnson for eight years.
"Mr Andrew Millar, bookseller in the Strand, took the principal charge
of conducting the publication.... When the messenger who carried the
last sheet to Millar returned, Johnson asked him 'Well, what did he
say?'--'Sir (answered the messenger) he said, Thank GOD I have done
with him.' 'I am glad (replied Johnson, with a smile) that he thanks
GOD for anything.'"
Lord Chesterfield, to whom the "Plan" had been addressed, had taken no
notice of Johnson during his years of toil. Johnson had waited in his
"outward rooms" and been "repulsed from his door"--an incident which a
famous picture has made familiar to many who otherwise, perhaps, would
hardly have heard either of the rich nobleman or of the "uncourtly
scholar."
On the eve of publication, however, Lord Chesterfield attempted to make
amends by two complimentary notices in a paper called _The World_. This
provoked Johnson to write one of the best known letters in English
literature. Here is a part of it:
"Seven years, my Lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward
rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been
pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to
complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication,
without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile
of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron
before....
Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man
struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground,
encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to
take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been
delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary,
and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is
no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit
has been received, or to be unwilling that the Publick should consider
me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for
myself."
This fine piece of snubbing, written, as Johnson said, in _defensive_
pride, became "the talk of the town." But Johnson did not wish it to be
public property. When Lord Hardwicke expressed a wish to read it, he
"declined to comply with the request, saying, with a smile 'No, Sir; I
have hurt the dog too much already.'"
"The _Dictionary_" says Boswell "with a _Grammar and History of the
English Language_ being now at length published, in two volumes folio,
the world contemplated with wonder so stupendous a work achieved by one
man."
We, too, may do the same, though we may be frightened, rather than
attracted, by the sentence which Boswell selects from the _Preface_ as
a model of clearness and choice of words:
"When the radical idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how
can a consecutive series be formed of senses in their own nature
collateral?"
We shall do better to choose one or two of the passages which should
move us even now, when we picture to ourselves the years of industry
and poverty in the gloomy Gough Square house: "The chief glory of every
people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own
writings to the reputation of English literature must be left to time."
"I deliver my book to the world with the spirit of a man that has
endeavoured well.... In this work, when it shall be found that much is
omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and
though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the
world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that
which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the
_English Dictionary_ was written with little assistance of the learned,
and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities
of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst
inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow."
The Dictionary itself is not, of course, to be compared in fulness or
accuracy with the latest monument of lexicography which we find on
library shelves to-day--any more than Marlborough's artillery can be
compared with a modern howitzer.
"The definitions" says Boswell "have always appeared to me such
astonishing proofs of acuteness of intellect and precision of language,
as indicate a genius of the highest rank. This it is which marks the
superiour excellence of Johnson's _Dictionary_ over others."
But even Boswell has to admit, as Johnson did, that there are errors
and obscurities, "inconsiderable specks" though they be.
"Thus _Windward_ and _Leeward_, though directly of opposite meaning,
are defined identically the same way."
"A lady once asked him how he came to define _Pastern_ the _knee_ of a
horse; instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at
once answered, 'Ignorance, Madam,--pure ignorance.'"
"His definition of _Network_ has been often quoted with sportive
malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself very plain."
Boswell tantalises us by omitting this definition. But, to set
curiosity at rest, here it is: "Anything reticulated or decussated, at
equal distances, with interstices between the intersections."
A man of strong prejudices like Johnson could not refrain from letting
his own views appear here and there throughout the work and it is these
human touches which have most attraction for us to-day. We can imagine
the grim smile which came over his scarred and rugged face when he
defined:
_Oats_ as "A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but
in Scotland supports the people[4]."
_Whig_ as "The name of a faction."
_Grub-street_ as "the name of a street in London, much inhabited by
writers of small histories, _dictionaries_, and temporary poems."
_Lexicographer_ as "a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge."
"Dictionaries," as Johnson himself wrote thirty years later, "are like
watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected
to go true."
But what we chiefly have to remember is that Johnson was a pioneer.
There was no good English dictionary in 1747. Johnson set to work
single-handed, and produced a book which made its author supreme
amongst the literary men of the time and itself remained a standard
work for generations.