had much tenderness; and it has been thought that some choice sentences in the Lives of the Poets were supplied by him[1]. Peyton, when reduced to penury, had frequent aid from the bounty of Johnson, who at last was at the expense of burying both him and his wife[2].
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[3] 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
- ↑ Boswell is speaking of the book published under the name of Cibber mentioned above, but 'entirely compiled,' according to Johnson, by Shiels. See. post, April 10, 1776.
- ↑ See Piozzi Letters, i. 312, and Post, May 21, 1775, note.
- ↑ 'We ourselves, not without labour and risk, lately discovered Gough Square . . . and on the second day of search the very House there, wherein the English Dictionary was composed. It is the first or corner house on the right hand, as you enter through the arched way from the North-west . . . It is a stout, old-fashioned, oak-balustraded house: "I have spent many a pound and penny on it since then," said the worthy Landlord; "here, you see, this bedroom was the Doctor's study; that was the garden" (a plot of delved ground somewhat larger than a bed-quilt) "where he walked for exercise; these three garret bedrooms" (where his three [six] copyists sat and wrote) "were the place he kept his—pupils in"! Tempus edax rerum! Yet ferax also: for our friend now added, with a wistful look, which strove to seem merely historical: "I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or the month; it's all one to me."—"To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as we went pensively our ways.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, edit, of 1872, iv. 112.
and for his learning I respect him, and I wish to serve him. He knows many languages, and knows them well; but he knows nothing of life. I advised him to write a geographical dictionary; but I have lost all hopes of his ever doing anything properly, since I found he gave as much labour to Capua as to Rome.' Mme. D'Arblays Diary, i. 114. See Post, beginning of 1773. and Oct. 24, 1780.
