Mr. Editor,--Although your cleverly conceived publication may be
considered as more applicable to men of letters than to men of figures,
yet I doubt not you will entertain the subject I am about to propound:
because, in the first place, "whole generations of men of letters" are
implicated in the criticism; and, in the next place, because however
great, as a man of figures, the critic may be, the man of letters
criticised was assuredly greater.
Professor de Morgan has discovered a flaw in the great Johnson! and, in
obedience to your epigraph, "_when found make a note of it_," he _has_
made a note of it at the foot of page 7, of _The Companion to the
Almanac for 1850_,--eccola:--
"The following will show that a palpable absurdity will pass before
the eyes of _generations of men of letters_ without notice. In
Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ (chapter viii. of the edition with
chapters), there is given a conversation between Dr. Adams and
Johnson, in which the latter asserts that he could finish his
Dictionary 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, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a
Frenchman.'
No one of the numerous editors of Boswell has _made a note upon
this_, although many things as slight have been commented upon: it
was certainly not Johnson's mistake, for he was a clear-headed
arithmetician. How many of our readers will stare and wonder what
we are talking about, and what the mistake is!"
Certes, I for one, plead guilty to staring, and wondering what the
Professor is talking about.
I cannot for a moment imagine it possible, that he could base such a
criticism, so announced, upon no better foundation than that mere verbal
transposition of the words Englishman and Frenchman.
The inversion deceives no person, and it is almost more appropriate to
the colloquial jocularity of the great Lexicographer's bombast than if
the enunciation had been more strictly according to rule. Besides, the
correctness of the expression, even as it stand, is capable of defence.
Let the third and fourth terms be understood as referring to _time_
instead of to _power_, and the proportion becomes "as three to sixteen
hundred, so is" (the time required by) "an Englishman to" (that required
for the same work by) "a Frenchman."
Or, if natives be referred to in the plural,--then, as three to sixteen
hundred, so are
Englishmen to Frenchmen;
that is, such is the number of each required for the same amount of
work.
But I repeat that I cannot conceive a criticism so trifling and
questionable can have been the true aim of professor de Morgan's note,
and as I am unable to discover any other flaw in the Doctor's
proportion, according to the premises, _my query_, Mr. Editor, has for
its object to learn
_"What the mistake is?"_