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his 'Plan' to him in manuscript for his perusal: and that when it was lying upon his table, Mr. William Whitehead happened to pay him a visit, and being shown it, was highly pleased with such parts of it as he had time to read, and begged to take it home with him, which he was allowed to do; that from him it got into the hands of a noble Lord, who carried it to Lord Chesterfield. When Taylor observed this might be an advantage, Johnson replied, 'No, sir, it would have come out with more bloom if it had not been seen before by anybody.'

The opinion conceived of it by another noble author appears from the following extract of a letter from the Earl of Orrery to Dr. Birch :

'Caledon, Dec. 30, 1747.

'I have just now seen the specimen of Mr. Johnson's Dictionary addressed to Lord Chesterfield. I am much pleased with the plan, and I think the specimen is one of the best that I have ever read. Most specimens disgust, rather than prejudice us in favour of the work to follow: but the language of Mr. Johnson's is good, and the arguments are properly and modestly expressed. However, some expressions may be cavilled at, but they are trifles. I'll mention one, the barren laurel. The laurel is not barren, in any sense whatever: it bears fruits and flowers. Sed hæ sunt nuga, and I have great expectations from the performance.' 1

That he was fully aware of the arduous nature of the undertaking, he acknowledges; and shows himself perfectly sensible of it in the conclusion of his Plan'; but he had a noble consciousness of his own abilities, which enabled him to go on with undaunted spirit.

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Dr. Adams found him one day busy at his Dictionary, when the following dialogue ensued. Adams: This 1 Birch мss., Brit. Mus. 4303.

is a great work, sir. How are you to get all the etymologies? Johnson: Why, sir, here is a shelf with Junius and Skinner and others; and there is a Welsh gentleman who has published a collection of Welsh proverbs who will help me with the Welsh. Adams: But, 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.' With so much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he had undertaken to

execute.

The public has had, from another pen,' a long detail of what had been done in this country by prior lexicographers; and no doubt Johnson was wise to avail himself of them, so far as they went; but the learned yet judicious research of etymology, the various yet accurate display of definition, and the rich collection of authorities, were reserved for the superior mind of our great philologist. 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. There were two Messieurs Macbean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote the Lives of the Poets to which the name of Cibber is affixed; Mr.

1 See Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson. 2 See vol. iii. under April 10, 1776.

Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edinburgh; and a Mr. Maitland. The sixth of these humble assistants was Mr. Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, and published some elementary tracts.

To all these painful labourers Johnson showed a never-ceasing kindness, so far as they stood in need of it. The elder Mr. Macbean had afterwards the honour of being librarian to Archibald, Duke of Argyll, for many years, but was left without a shilling. Johnson wrote for him a preface to A System of Ancient Geography; and, by the favour of Lord Thurlow, got him admitted a poor brother of the Charterhouse. For Shiels, who died of a consumption, he had much tenderness; and it has been thought that some choice sentences in the Lives of the Poets were supplied by him. Peyton, when reduced to penury, had frequent aid from the bounty of Johnson, who at last was at the expense of burying him and his wife.

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. It is remarkable that he was so

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