DICTIONARY PUBLISHED. 71 seem to be as idle. I hope, however, you are busy; and should be glad to know what you are doing. "I am, dearest Sir, "Your humble Servant, "[London,] Feb. 4, 1755." The degree obtained, hopes high, brain in fine working order, the appearance of the magnum opus was at length announced. It will be remembered that Johnson had expected to be able to accomplish the work in three years; but eight had been required -and no wonder. The publishers had, however, been getting impatient, the more so as our Author had long ago received the whole price of the book. When the messenger who carried the last sheet to Millar (the active publisher) returned, Johnson asked him, "Well, what did he say?" "Sir," answered the messenger, "he said, 'Thank God, I have done with him.'" JOHNSON [with a smile]: "I am glad that he thanks God for anything." 66 TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., AT LANGTON, NEAR SPILSBY, "SIR, LINCOLNSHIRE. 66 May 6, 1755. "It has been long observed that men do not suspect faults which they do not commit; your own elegance of manners, and punctuality of complaisance, did not suffer you to impute to me that negligence of which I was guilty, and [for] which I have not since atoned. I received both your letters, and received them with pleasure proportioned to the esteem which so short an acquaintance strongly impressed, and which I hope to confirm by nearer knowledge, though I am afraid that gratification will be for a time withheld. "I have, indeed, published my book [his Dictionary], of which I beg to know your father's judgment, and yours; and I have now stayed long enough to watch its progress in the world. It has, you see, no patrons, and, I think, has yet had no opponents, except the critics of the coffee-house, whose outcries are soon dispersed into the air, and are thought on no more; from this, there 72 DICTIONARY PUBLISHED. fore, I am at liberty, and think of taking the opportunity of this interval to make an excursion, and why not then into Lincolnshire? or, to mention a stronger attraction, why not to dear Mr. Langton? I will give the true reason, which I know you will approve :--I have a mother more than eighty years old, who has counted the days to the publication of my book, in hopes of seeing me; and to her, if I can disengage myself here, I am resolved to go. "As I know, dear Sir, that to delay my visit for a reason like this, will not deprive me of your esteem, I beg it may not lessen your kindness. I have very seldom received an offer of friendship which I so earnestly desire to cultivate and mature. I shall rejoice to hear from you, till I can see you, and will see you as soon as I can; for when the duty that calls me to Lichfield is discharged, my inclination will carry me to Langton. I shall delight to hear the ocean roar, or see the stars twinkle, in the company of men to whom Nature does not spread her volumes or utter her voice in vain. "Do not, dear Sir, make the slowness of this letter a precedent for delay, or imagine that I approve the incivility that I have committed; for I have known you enough to love you, and sincerely to wish a further knowledge; and I assure you once more, that to live in a house that contains such a father, and such a son, will be accounted a very uncommon degree of pleasure, by, dear Sir, "Your most obliged, "And most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." What we have to say of the Dictionary itself, now that the fierce light of the critical world has begun to beat upon it, must form the beginning of another chapter, and not the end of this one. Meanwhile, it is interesting to remark that, although joyous activity was the prevailing characteristic of Johnson's mental state about this period, a sharp note of melancholy rings out of the closing sentences of the Preface to the Dictionary. "I," says he, "may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, DICTIONARY PUBLISHED. 133 73 which if I could obtain in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave; and success and miscarriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.” The spirit of his dead wife must have been haunting him once again as he wrote these words. There is in them, also, a touch of that soul-sadness which takes possession of an author almost always when bidding adieu to a work which has engaged his thought and feeling long and passionately. A great slice of his life has been cut away, and the future may have nothing in store to heal the breach. "In every parting," be it only parting with a book, "there is an image of death." 74 MORE ABOUT THE DICTIONARY. CHAPTER IX. MORE ABOUT THE DICTIONARY-LETTERS-" THE IDLER." (1755-1758.) THOSE who are familiar with Johnson's Dictionary only in one or other of the many forms in which it has been put into the hands of schoolboys will probably be surprised to find it pronounced a great work; yet, in its original and complete shape, it is not simply a great work, it is a real thing of genius. Patient labour, solid learning, massive understanding, subtle analysis, bright-eyed intelligence, all these, and much else, have combined to rear a structure which must always remain as an enduring monument of British industry, intellect, and "pluck." The author himself once told a company that the Academy della Crusca could scarcely believe that it had been done by one man. Criticism of the book is not required here; it is not necessary to point out its faults and deficiencies, nor to inquire how far it has been legitimately superseded by subsequent works which have either sprung out of it or been based upon it. To us, now-adays, perhaps the most important fact in connection with the work is the decided impress which every page of it has taken of the author's own marked personalty. The Dictionary is Dr. Johnson all over and all through. The whole conception of it was gigantic, like himself; and the execution was, all things considered, not unworthy of the Plan. The definitions especially, in point of clearness, sharpness of outline, weight, and logical precision, have never been equalled; and all the later dictionaries which have discarded Johnson seem, in this department, thin and meagre to an extreme degree. The Doctor himself was quite conscious of the defects of his work, but this consciousness did not overwhelm him with shame. A lady once asked him how he MORE ABOUT THE DICTIONARY. 75 came to define Pastern the knee of a horse; he immediately answered, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance." The lady must have been silenced on the spot. It fared still worse with another lady who once said to him: "I am glad, Doctor, that you have kept out all the nasty words."-JOHNSON: "O, then, Madam, you have been looking for them?" Some of the definitions are the outcome of a sense of dry humour, and good-humour too, which it is delicious to perceive. Thus: "Grub-street, the name of a street in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grub-street." Or thus: "Lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge." "Oats" he defines as, "A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." Our Scotch blood got up at this heinous insult; many replies were made, but the good-natured retort of Lord Elibank won the palm. "Yes," said he; "and where will you find such horses and such men?" Ill-nature also found vent in some of the definitions. "Excise" is thus defined: "A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged, not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom Excise is paid." Johnson was a staunch Tory, and hated, of course, Walpole and the Whig Excise-Act. There was some thought of bringing an action against him for this definition; but it was deemed more prudent to let the matter drop, and Johnson never made the slightest alteration on the obnoxious passage. "Pension" is defined, "An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England, it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state-hireling for treason to his country." But if the next had got in it would have beat all the rest hollow. "You know, sir," (he said to Boswell twenty years after this) "Lord Gower forsook the old Jacobite interest. When I came to the word renegado, after telling that it meant 'one who deserts to the enemy, a revolter,' I added, Sometimes we say a GOWER. Thus it went to the press; but the printer had more wit than I, and struck it out." The work altogether was a triumph, and was ultimately acknowledged to be so by almost all competent judges. Here is |