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The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes by Samuel Johnson

S >> Samuel Johnson >> The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes




[2] "And albeit the reader shall not at any one day (do what he can)
reach to the meaning of our author, or of our commentaries, yet let
him not discourage himself, but proceed; for, on some other day, in
some other place, that doubt will be cleared." This is the advice of
Lord Coke to the student bewildered in the mazes of legal
investigation. Preface to the first Institute.




PREFACE TO ROLT'S DICTIONARY[1].


No expectation is more fallacious than that which authors form of the
reception which their labours will find among mankind. Scarcely any man
publishes a book, whatever it be, without believing that he has caught
the moment when the publick attention is vacant to his call, and the
world is disposed, in a particular manner, to learn the art which he
undertakes to teach.

The writers of this volume are not so far exempt from epidemical
prejudices, but that they, likewise, please themselves with imagining
that they have reserved their labours to a propitious conjuncture, and
that this is the proper time for the publication of a dictionary of
commerce.

The predictions of an author are very far from infallibility; but, in
justification of some degree of confidence, it may be properly observed,
that there was never, from the earliest ages, a time in which trade so
much engaged the attention of mankind, or commercial gain was sought
with such general emulation. Nations which have hitherto cultivated no
art but that of war, nor conceived any means of increasing riches but by
plunder, are awakened to more inoffensive industry. Those whom the
possession of subterraneous treasures have long disposed to accommodate
themselves by foreign industry, are at last convinced that idleness
never will be rich. The merchant is now invited to every port;
manufactures are established in all cities; and princes, who just can
view the sea from some single corner of their dominions, are enlarging
harbours, erecting mercantile companies, and preparing to traffick in
the remotest countries.

Nor is the form of this work less popular than the subject. It has
lately been the practice of the learned to range knowledge by the
alphabet, and publish dictionaries of every kind of literature. This
practice has, perhaps, been carried too far by the force of fashion.
Sciences, in themselves systematical and coherent, are not very properly
broken into such fortuitous distributions. A dictionary of arithmetick
or geometry can serve only to confound; but commerce, considered in its
whole extent, seems to refuse any other method of arrangement, as it
comprises innumerable particulars unconnected with each other, among
which there is no reason why any should be first or last, better than is
furnished by the letters that compose their names.

We cannot, indeed, boast ourselves the inventors of a scheme so
commodious and comprehensive. The French, among innumerable projects for
the promotion of traffick, have taken care to supply their merchants
with a Dictionnaire de Commerce, collected with great industry and
exactness, but too large for common use, and adapted to their own trade.
This book, as well as others, has been carefully consulted, that our
merchants may not be ignorant of any thing known by their enemies or
rivals.

Such, indeed, is the extent of our undertaking, that it was necessary to
solicit every information, to consult the living and the dead. The great
qualification of him that attempts a work thus general is diligence of
inquiry. No man has opportunity or ability to acquaint himself with all
the subjects of a commercial dictionary, so as to describe from his own
knowledge, or assert on his own experience. He must, therefore, often
depend upon the veracity of others, as every man depends in common life,
and have no other skill to boast than that of selecting judiciously, and
arranging properly.

But to him who considers the extent of our subject, limited only by the
bounds of nature and of art, the task of selection and method will
appear sufficient to overburden industry and distract attention. Many
branches of commerce are subdivided into smaller and smaller parts,
till, at last, they become so minute, as not easily to be noted by
observation. Many interests are so woven among each other, as not to be
disentangled without long inquiry; many arts are industriously kept
secret, and many practices, necessary to be known, are carried on in
parts too remote for intelligence.

But the knowledge of trade is of so much importance to a maritime
nation, that no labour can be thought great by which information may be
obtained; and, therefore, we hope the reader will not have reason to
complain, that, of what he might justly expect to find, any thing is
omitted.

To give a detail or analysis of our work is very difficult; a volume
intended to contain whatever is requisite to be known by every trader,
necessarily becomes so miscellaneous and unconnected, as not to be
easily reducible to heads; yet, since we pretend in some measure to
treat of traffick as a science, and to make that regular and
systematical which has hitherto been, to a great degree, fortuitous and
conjectural, and has often succeeded by chance rather than by conduct,
it will be proper to show that a distribution of parts has been
attempted, which, though rude and inadequate, will, at least, preserve
some order, and enable the mind to take a methodical and successive view
of this design.

In the dictionary which we here offer to the publick, we propose to
exhibit the materials, the places, and the means of traffick.

The materials or subjects of traffick are whatever is bought and sold,
and include, therefore, every manufacture of art, and almost every
production of nature.

In giving an account of the commodities of nature, whether those which
are to be used in their original state, as drugs and spices, or those
which become useful when they receive a new form from human art, as
flax, cotton, and metals, we shall show the places of their production,
the manner in which they grow, the art of cultivating or collecting
them, their discriminations and varieties, by which the best sorts are
known from the worse, and genuine from fictitious, the arts by which
they are counterfeited, the casualties by which they are impaired, and
the practices by which the damage is palliated or concealed. We shall,
likewise, show their virtues and uses, and trace them through all the
changes which they undergo.

The history of manufactures is, likewise, delivered. Of every artificial
commodity the manner in which it is made is, in some measure, described,
though it must be remembered, that manual operations are scarce to be
conveyed by any words to him that has not seen them. Some general
notions may, however, be afforded: it is easy to comprehend, that plates
of iron are formed by the pressure of rollers, and bars by the strokes
of a hammer; that a cannon is cast, and that an anvil is forged. But, as
it is to most traders of more use to know when their goods are well
wrought, than by what means, care has been taken to name the places
where every manufacture has been carried furthest, and the marks by
which its excellency may be ascertained.

By the places of trade, are understood all ports, cities, or towns,
where staples are established, manufactures are wrought, or any
commodities are bought and sold advantageously. This part of our work
includes an enumeration of almost all the remarkable places in the
world, with such an account of their situation, customs, and products,
as the merchant would require, who, being to begin a new trade in any
foreign country, was yet ignorant of the commodities of the place, and
the manners of the inhabitants.

But the chief attention of the merchant, and, consequently, of the
author who writes for merchants, ought to be employed upon the means of
trade, which include all the knowledge and practice necessary to the
skilful and successful conduct of commerce.

The first of the means of trade is proper education, which may confer a
competent skill in numbers; to be afterwards completed in the
counting-house, by observation of the manner of stating accounts, and
regulating books, which is one of the few arts which, having been studied
in proportion to its importance, is carried as far as use can require. The
counting-house of an accomplished merchant is a school of method, where
the great science may be learned of ranging particulars under generals,
of bringing the different parts of a transaction together, and of
showing, at one view, a long series of dealing and exchange. Let no man
venture into large business while he is ignorant of the method of
regulating books; never let him imagine that any degree of natural
abilities will enable him to supply this deficiency, or preserve
multiplicity of affairs from inextricable confusion.

This is the study, without which all other studies will be of little
avail; but this alone is not sufficient. It will be necessary to learn
many other things, which, however, may be easily included in the
preparatory institutions, such as an exact knowledge of the weights and
measures of different countries, and some skill in geography and
navigation, with which this book may, perhaps, sufficiently supply him.

In navigation, considered as part of the skill of a merchant, is
included not so much the art of steering a ship, as the knowledge of the
seacoast, and of the different parts to which his cargoes are sent; the
customs to be paid; the passes, permissions, or certificates to be
procured; the hazards of every voyage, and the true rate of insurance.
To this must be added, an acquaintance with the policies and arts of
other nations, as well those to whom the commodities are sold, as of
those who carry goods of the same kind to the same market; and who are,
therefore, to be watched as rivals endeavouring to take advantage of
every errour, miscarriage, or debate.

The chief of the means of trade is money, of which our late refinements
in traffick have made the knowledge extremely difficult. The merchant
must not only inform himself of the various denominations and value of
foreign coins, together with their method of counting and reducing; such
as the milleries of Portugal, and the livres of France; but he must
learn what is of more difficult attainment; the discount of exchanges,
the nature of current paper, the principles upon which the several banks
of Europe are established, the real value of funds, the true credit of
trading companies, with all the sources of profit, and possibilities of
loss.

All this he must learn, merely as a private dealer, attentive only to
his own advantage; but, as every man ought to consider himself as part
of the community to which he belongs, and while he prosecutes his own
interest to promote, likewise, that of his country, it is necessary for
the trader to look abroad upon mankind, and study many questions which
are, perhaps, more properly political than mercantile.

He ought, therefore, to consider very accurately the balance of trade,
or the proportion between things exported and imported; to examine what
kinds of commerce are unlawful, either as being expressly prohibited,
because detrimental to the manufactures or other interest of his
country, as the exportation of silver to the East-Indies, and the
introduction of French commodities; or unlawful in itself, as the
traffick for negroes. He ought to be able to state with accuracy the
benefits and mischiefs of monopolies, and exclusive companies; to
inquire into the arts which have been practised by them to make
themselves necessary, or by their opponents to make them odious. He
should inform himself what trades are declining, and what are
improvable; when the advantage is on our side, and when on that of our
rivals.

The state of our colonies is always to be diligently surveyed, that no
advantage may be lost which they can afford, and that every opportunity
may be improved of increasing their wealth and power, or of making them
useful to their mother country.

There is no knowledge of more frequent use than that, of duties and
impost, whether customs paid at the ports, or excises levied upon the
manufacturer. Much of the prosperity of a trading nation depends upon
duties properly apportioned; so that what is necessary may continue
cheap, and what is of use only to luxury may, in some measure, atone to
the publick for the mischief done to individuals. Duties may often be so
regulated as to become useful even to those that pay them; and they may
be, likewise, so unequally imposed as to discourage honesty, and depress
industry, and give temptation to fraud and unlawful practices.

To teach all this is the design of the Commercial Dictionary; which,
though immediately and primarily written for the merchants, will be of
use to every man of business or curiosity. There is no man who is not,
in some degree, a merchant, who has not something to buy and something
to sell, and who does not, therefore, want such instructions as may
teach him the true value of possessions or commodities.

The descriptions of the productions of the earth and water, which this
volume will contain, may be equally pleasing and useful to the
speculatist with any other natural history; and the accounts of various
manufactures will constitute no contemptible body of experimental
philosophy. The descriptions of ports and cities may instruct the
geographer, as well as if they were found in books appropriated only to
his own science; and the doctrines of funds, insurances, currency,
monopolies, exchanges, and duties, is so necessary to the politician,
that without it he can be of no use either in the council or the senate,
nor can speak or think justly either on war or trade.

We, therefore, hope that we shall not repent the labour of compiling
this work; nor flatter ourselves unreasonably, in predicting a
favourable reception to a book which no condition of life can render
useless, which may contribute to the advantage of all that make or
receive laws, of all that buy or sell, of all that wish to keep or
improve their possessions, of all that desire to be rich, and all that
desire to be wise[2].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A new Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, compiled from the
information of the most eminent merchants, and from the works of the
best writers on commercial subjects in all languages, by Mr. Rolt.
Folio, 1757.

[2] Of this preface, Mr. Boswell informs us that Dr. Johnson said he
never saw Rolt, and never read the book. "The booksellers wanted a
preface to a dictionary of trade and commerce. I knew very well what
such a dictionary should be, and I wrote a preface accordingly."
This may be believed; but the book is a most wretched farrago of
articles plundered without acknowledgment, or judgment, which,
indeed, was the case with most of Rolt's compilations.




PREFACE
TO THE TRANSLATION OF
FATHER LOBO'S VOYAGE TO ABYSSINIA[1].

The following relation is so curious and entertaining, and the
dissertations that accompany it so judicious and instructive, that the
translator is confident his attempt stands in need of no apology,
whatever censures may fall on the performance.

The Portuguese traveller, contrary to the general vein of his
countrymen, has amused his reader with no romantick absurdities or
incredible fictions: whatever he relates, whether true or not, is at
least probable; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds of
probability, has a right to demand that they should believe him who
cannot contradict him.

He appears, by his modest and unaffected narration, to have described
things as he saw them, to have copied nature from the life, and to have
consulted his senses, not his imagination. He meets with no basilisks
that destroy with their eyes; his crocodiles devour their prey without
tears; and his cataracts fall from the rock without deafening the
neighbouring inhabitants.

The reader will here find no regions cursed with irremediable
barrenness, or blest with spontaneous fecundity; no perpetual gloom or
unceasing sunshine; nor are the nations here described either devoid of
all sense of humanity, or consummate in all private and social virtues:
here are no Hottentots without religion, polity, or articulate language;
no Chinese perfectly polite, and completely skilled in all sciences: he
will discover what will always be discovered by a diligent and impartial
inquirer, that wherever human nature is to be found, there is a mixture
of vice and virtue, a contest of passion and reason; and that the
Creator doth not appear partial in his distributions, but has balanced
in most countries their particular inconveniencies by particular
favours.

In his account of the mission, where his veracity is most to be
suspected, he neither exaggerates overmuch the merits of the Jesuits, if
we consider the partial regard paid by the Portuguese to their
countrymen, by the Jesuits to their society, and by the papists to their
church; nor aggravates the vices of the Abyssinians; but if the reader
will not be satisfied with a popish account of a popish mission, he may
have recourse to the history of the church of Abyssinia, written by Dr.
Geddes, in which he will find the actions and sufferings of the
missionaries placed in a different light, though the same in which Mr.
LeGrand, with all his zeal for the Roman church, appears to have seen
them.

This learned dissertator, however valuable for his industry and
erudition, is yet more to be esteemed for having dared so freely, in the
midst of France, to declare his disapprobation of the patriarch Oviedo's
sanguinary zeal, who was continually importuning the Portuguese to beat
up their drums for missionaries who might preach the gospel with swords
in their hands, and propagate, by desolation and slaughter, the true
worship of the God of peace.

It is not easy to forbear reflecting with how little reason these men
profess themselves the followers of JESUS, who left this great
characteristick to his disciples, that they should be known by loving
one another, by universal and unbounded charity and benevolence.

Let us suppose an inhabitant of some remote and superiour region, yet
unskilled in the ways of men, having read and considered the precepts of
the gospel, and the example of our Saviour, to come down in search of
the true church. If he would not inquire after it among the cruel, the
insolent, and the oppressive; among those who are continually grasping
at dominion over souls as well as bodies; among those who are employed
in procuring to themselves impunity for the most enormous villanies, and
studying methods of destroying their fellow-creatures, not for their
crimes, but their errours; if he would not expect to meet benevolence
engage in massacres, or to find mercy in a court of inquisition,--he
would not look for the true church in the church of Rome.

Mr. LeGrand has given, in one dissertation, an example of great
moderation, in deviating from the temper of his religion; but, in the
others, has left proofs, that learning and honesty are often too weak to
oppose prejudice. He has made no scruple of preferring the testimony of
father Du Bernat to the writings of all the Portuguese jesuits, to whom
he allows great zeal, but little learning, without giving any other
reason than that his favourite was a Frenchman. This is writing only to
Frenchmen and to papists: a protestant would be desirous to know, why he
must imagine that father Du Bernat had a cooler head or more knowledge,
and why one man, whose account is singular, is not more likely to be
mistaken than many agreeing in the same account.

If the Portuguese were biassed by any particular views, another bias
equally powerful may have deflected the Frenchman from the truth; for
they evidently write with contrary designs: the Portuguese, to make
their mission seem more necessary, endeavoured to place, in the
strongest light, the differences between the Abyssinian and Roman
church; but the great Ludolfus, laying hold on the advantage, reduced
these later writers to prove their conformity.

Upon the whole, the controversy seems of no great importance to those
who believe the holy Scriptures sufficient to teach the way of
salvation; but, of whatever moment it may be thought, there are no
proofs sufficient to decide it.

His discourses on indifferent subjects will divert, as well as instruct;
and if either in these, or in the relation of father Lobo, any argument
shall appear unconvincing, or description obscure, they are defects
incident to all mankind, which, however, are not rashly to be imputed to
the authors, being sometimes, perhaps, more justly chargeable on the
translator.

In this translation (if it may be so called) great liberties have been
taken, which, whether justifiable or not, shall be fairly confessed, and
let the judicious part of mankind pardon or condemn them.

In the first part, the greatest freedom has been used, in reducing the
narration into a narrow compass; so that it is by no means a
translation, but an epitome, in which, whether every thing either useful
or entertaining be comprised, the compiler is least qualified to
determine.

In the account of Abyssinia, and the continuation, the authors have been
followed with more exactness; and as few passages appeared either
insignificant or tedious, few have been either shortened or omitted.

The dissertations are the only part in which an exact translation has
been attempted; and even in those, abstracts are sometimes given,
instead of literal quotations, particularly in the first; and sometimes
other parts have been contracted.

Several memorials and letters, which are printed at the end of the
dissertations to secure the credit of the foregoing narrative, are
entirely left out.

It is hoped that, after this confession, whoever shall compare this
attempt with the original, if he shall find no proofs of fraud or
partiality, will candidly overlook any failure of judgment.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This translation was Johnson's first literary production, and was
published in 1735, with London on the title page, though, according
to Boswell, it was printed at Birmingham. In the preface and
dedication, the elegant structure of the sentences, and the harmony
of their cadence, are such as characterize his maturer works. Here
we may adopt the words of Mr. Murphy, and affirm that "we see the
infant Hercules." In the merely translated parts, no vestige of the
translator's own style appears. For Burke's opinion on the work, see
Boswell's Life of Johnson, i.; and for Johnson's own, see Boswell,
iii. In Murphy's Essay on the Life and Genius of Dr. Johnson, there
is a compendious account of the benevolent travels of the Portuguese
missionary, who may fairly be called the precursor of Bruce.
Independent of its intrinsic merits, this translation is interesting
as illustrative of Johnson's early fondness for voyages and travels;
the perusal of which, refreshed Gray when weary of heavier labours,
and were pronounced by Warburton to constitute an important part of
a philosopher's library.




AN ESSAY ON EPITAPHS[1].
[1] From the Gentleman's Magazine.

Though criticism has been cultivated in every age of learning, by men of
great abilities and extensive knowledge, till the rules of writing are
become rather burdensome than instructive to the mind; though almost
every species of composition has been the subject of particular
treatises and given birth to definitions, distinctions, precepts and
illustrations; yet no critick of note, that has fallen within my
observation, has hitherto thought sepulchral inscriptions worthy of a
minute examination, or pointed out, with proper accuracy, their beauties
and defects.

The reasons of this neglect it is useless to inquire, and, perhaps,
impossible to discover; it might be justly expected that this kind of
writing would have been the favourite topick of criticism, and that
self-love might have produced some regard for it, in those authors that
have crowded libraries with elaborate dissertations upon Homer; since to
afford a subject for heroick poems is the privilege of very few, but
every man may expect to be recorded in an epitaph, and, therefore, finds
some interest in providing that his memory may not suffer by an
unskilful panegyrick.

If our prejudices in favour of antiquity deserve to have any part in the
regulation of our studies, epitaphs seem entitled to more than common
regard, as they are, probably, of the same age with the art of writing.
The most ancient structures in the world, the pyramids, are supposed to
be sepulchral monuments, which either pride or gratitude erected; and
the same passions which incited men to such laborious and expensive
methods of preserving their own memory, or that of their benefactors,
would, doubtless, incline them not to neglect any easier means by which
the same ends might be obtained. Nature and reason have dictated to
every nation, that to preserve good actions from oblivion, is both the
interest and duty of mankind: and, therefore, we find no people
acquainted with the use of letters, that omitted to grace the tombs of
their heroes and wise men with panegyrical inscriptions.