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 academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied critics of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude, what could 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.'

21 30. Teutonic language. The Teutonic languages are those spoken by the Teutonic or German races, i.e., German, Dutch, English, Danish, Swedish, etc., as distinguished from the Romance or Latin languages, i.e., Italian, Spanish, French, etc. Much light is thrown on the origin and meaning of English words by a knowledge of kindred words in the other languages of the Teutonic group.

21 32. Was scarcely a Teutonic language. An exaggerated reference to Johnson's fondness for words of Latin origin. In the Preface to the Dictionary, seventy-two per cent. of the words are of old English, i.e., Teutonic origin, and only twenty-eight per cent. of Latin or Greek origin.

21 33. Junius and Skinner. Francis Junius (1589-1678) and Stephen Skinner (1623–1667), were scholars who devoted themselves to the study of the Teutonic languages. How lightly Johnson took his etymological labors may be gathered from the following anecdote :

"Dr. Adams found him [Johnson] one day busy at his 'Dictionary,' when the following dialogue ensued:

"ADAMS. This 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 Welch gentleman who has published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch.

"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."-Boswell's Life, 1747.

22 5. Spunging-houses were victualling houses or taverns, frequently belonging to bailiffs, where persons arrested for debt were kept by a bailiff for twenty-four hours before being lodged in prison, in order that their friends might have an opportunity of settling the debt. The following is the half-jocose definition of Johnson's Dictionary: Spunging-house, a house to which debtors are taken before commitment to prison, where the bailiffs sponge upon them, or riot at their cost."

66

22 19. Jenyns. Soame Jenyns (1704-1787). Johnson justly condemned his Inquiry as a slight and shallow attempt to solve one of the most difficult of moral problems.

23 4. Rasselas. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. Published in 1759. Frequently reprinted in English, and translated into many foreign languages. See Bibliography.

23 6. Miss Lydia Languish. A character in Sheridan's famous comedy, The Rivals. Her peculiarities may be inferred from her

name.

24 4. Bruce's Travels. James Bruce (1730-1804) was the most celebrated of the early African explorers.

24 8. Burke. Edmund Burke (1729-1797), orator and statesman, distinguished above all the men of his times for eloquence and political foresight, and without doubt one of the most cultivated men of the eighteenth century. See Professor Cook's edition of Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America, in the present series.

24 9. Mrs. Lennox. A literary woman of Johnson's time. She was a great favorite with Johnson, who cited her in his Dictionary, and gave a supper in her honor to celebrate the pub

lication of her first book. Much interesting information about her is given in Boswell's Johnson. Mrs. Sheridan. The mother

of the dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan. See note on 23 6. She was something of an author, and "a most agreeable companion to an intellectual man.” Johnson spent many pleasant

hours at her home.

24 22. The poet who made Hector quote Aristotle, etc. Shakespeare. See Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. ii., and Winter's Tale, Act II., Sc. i., and Act V., Sc. ii. Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, lived in the fourth century B.C., eight hundred years after the Trojan War. Hector, the great hero of Troy. 24 23. Julio Romano was an Italian painter (1492-1546), the most gifted of Raphael's pupils.

25 3. The Lord Privy Seal. The Privy Seal is appended to British documents of minor importance which do not require the Great Seal. The officer who has the custody of the seal is now called the Lord Privy Seal. He is the fifth great officer of state, and has generally a seat in the Cabinet. The Lord Privy Seal referred to in the text was Lord Gower. Johnson once said to Boswell: "You know, Sir, 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."-Boswell's Johnson, 1755.

25 13. Oxford was becoming loyal. See 115, 6. George III., of course, belonged, not to the House of Stuart, but to the House of Hanover.

25 14, 15. To be explained by lines 10-12.

25 16. Lord Bute. For a full account of Bute, see Macaulay's Essay on the Earl of Chatham.

25 29. The printer's devil. The youngest apprentice in a printing office, who runs on errands and does dirty work, such as washing ink from rollers and type, sweeping, etc. By "fearing" him, Macaulay means dreading the call for more copy which the "devil" would bring him.

26 20. A ghost which haunted a house in Cock Lane. For a full account of "Scratching Fanny, the Cock Lane Ghost," and the investigation of the matter by Johnson, see Hill's edition of

Boswell's Johnson, 1763; Hare's Walks in London, vol. i., pp. 204 ff.; Mr. Lang's book, The Cock Lane Ghost, or the interesting article in Harper's Magazine (August, 1893). Macaulay's account of the affair is unjust to Johnson.

26 28. Churchill.

An English poet and satirist (1731–1764), now remembered as much for his profligacy as for his poetry. Some of his lines on the Cock Lane Ghost are reprinted in Hare's Walks in London.

27 10. Polonius. See Shakespeare's Hamlet.

27 11. Wilhelm Meister. The hero of a famous novel of the same name, by Goethe. The remarks on the character of Hamlet, which Macaulay refers to, are quoted in the Introduction to Mr. Rolfe's edition of Hamlet (Harper).

27 30. Ben. Ben Jonson (1574-1637), next to his friend Shakespeare, the greatest dramatist of the Elizabethan age.

28 2, 3. Eschylus, Euripides, Sophocles. The three great tragic poets of Greece. Of their two hundred and fifty-eight dramas, only thirty-two have come down to us. The chief works of Eschylus (525-456 B.C.) are Prometheus Bound and Agamennon; of Sophocles (495-405 B.c.), Edipus Tyrannus, Edipus Coloneus, and Antigone; of Euripides (485–406 B.C.), Alcestis, Electra, Iphigenia in Tauris, Orestes, Baccha, and Iphigenia in Aulis.

28 5, 6. Massinger, Ford, Decker, Webster, Marlow, Beaumont, or Fletcher. Dramatists of the Elizabethan Age, contemporary with Shakespeare.

28 16. The Royal Academy. The oldest and most influential institution in London connected with the Fine Arts, founded in 1768. Johnson was appointed "Professor in Ancient Literature " the year after it was founded, and about the same time Goldsmith was elected "Professor in Ancient History." Of this appointment, Goldsmith, writing to his brother in January, 1770, said: "The King has lately been pleased to make me Professor of Ancient History in a Royal Academy of Painting which he has just established, but there is no salary annexed, and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honors to one in my situation are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt."

29 31. Goldsmith. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774), the author of the finest poem (The Deserted Village), the most exquisite novel

(The Vicar of Wakefield), and the most delightful comedy (She Stoops to Conquer) of the period to which he belongs. For an excellent short account of him, see the Introduction to Miss Jordan's edition of The Vicar of Wakefield in this series, or Macaulay's Life in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

29 32. Reynolds. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), the first president of the Royal Academy, and generally acknowledged as the head of the English school of painting in the eighteenth century. He wrote much on art, and contributed, at Johnson's request, three papers to the Idler.

29 34. Gibbon. Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, probably the greatest historical work ever written in English. Jones. Sir William Jones (1746-1794), a great Oriental scholar, the founder and first president of the Royal Asiatic Society "for investigating the history, antiquities, arts, sciences, and literature of Asia."

31 2. Wilkes. John Wilkes (1727-1797), a man of bad character, prominent in the politics of his day, and notorious chiefly for prosecutions brought against him that involved the liberty of the press. A full account of him will be found in Macaulay's Essay on the Earl of Chatham, or in Gardiner's Student's History of England.

31 4. Whitfield. George Whitfield (1714-1770), one of the founders of Methodism, celebrated for the power of his preaching, which was usually done in the open air. He paid seven missionary journeys to America. Some interesting information about him is given in Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography.

32 27. Southwark. On the south side of the Thames. Streatham Common, near the present British Museum.

33 11. Buck. Dandy. Maccaroni. "The word is derived from the Macaroni club, instituted by a set of flashy men who had travelled in Italy, and introduced Italian macaroni at Almack's subscription table."-Brewer's Handbook of Phrase and Fable. Cf. the familiar phrase in "Yankee Doodle."

34 10. The Mitre Tavern. A tavern in Mitre Court, off Fleet Street, famous for its literary associations.

35 25. Lord Mansfield (1704–1793), was Chief-Justice of the King's Bench.

36 4. Macpherson. James Macpherson, or McPherson (1738