Hawkins's Life of Johnson.
��An interleaved copy of Bailey's dictionary J in folio he made the repository of the several articles, and these he collected by incessant reading the best authors in our language, in the practice whereof, his method was to score with a black-lead pencil the words by him selected, and give them over to his assistants to insert in their places 2 . The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he could borrow ; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning, and yet, some of his friends were glad to receive and entertain them as curiosities 3 . (Page 175.)
Further to appease Johnson Lord Chesterfield sent two persons, the one a specious but empty man, Sir Thomas Robinson, more distinguished by the tallness of his person than for any estimable qualities 4 ; the other an eminent painter now living. These
��1 Nathaniel Bailey published his English Dictionary in 1721.
- " What objection can you have to
the young gentleman ? " says Mrs. Western.
' " A very solid objection, in my opinion,' says Sophia " I hate him/'
'"Will you never learn a proper use of words ? " answered the aunt. " Indeed, child, you should consult Bailey's Dictionary." ' Tom Jones, Bk. vii. ch. 3.
Dr. Murray, in the New Eng. Diet. under Belace says that this word * is found only in Dictionaries. It ap peared first in Bailey's folio, 1730, was retained by Dr. Johnson (who used a copy of that as the basis of his work), and from him it has been perpetuated by later dictionaries.' Johnson omitted the word in his Abridgment.
2 Post in Percy's Anecdotes.
3 Life, i. 188.
Mr. Talbot Baines Reid showed me a small sheet of paper in Johnson's hand in which quotations had been written such as the following :
��' But some untaught o'erhear the
whisp'ring rill,
In spite of sacred leisure block heads still.'
YOUNG [Satire i., Works, ed. 1813, ii. 87].
' His well-breath'd beagles sweep along the plain.'
YOUNG \Ib. p. 88].
- A gipsy you commit
' And shake the clumsy bench with country wit.'
YOUNG [/.].
' Beauty is no bar to sense.'
YOUNG {Satire v., ii. 126].
These passages are not quoted in the Dictionary under the words underlined by Johnson.
4 ' This person, who is now at rest in Westminster-abbey, was, when living, distinguished by the name of long Sir Thomas Robinson. He was a man of the world or rather of the town, and a great pest to persons of high rank or in office. He was very troublesome to the earl of Burlington, and when in his visits to him he was told that his lordship was gone out,
were
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