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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




The solution of all difficulties, and the supply of all defects, must be
sought in the examples, subjoined to the various senses of each word,
and ranged according to the time of their authors.

When I first collected these authorities, I was desirous that every
quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration of a
word; I, therefore, extracted from philosophers principles of science;
from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete processes; from
divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful descriptions.
Such is design, while it is yet at a distance from execution. When the
time called upon me to range this accumulation of elegance and wisdom
into an alphabetical series, I soon discovered that the bulk of my
volumes would fright away the student, and was forced to depart from my
scheme of including all that was pleasing or useful in English
literature, and reduce my transcripts very often to clusters of words,
in which scarcely any meaning is retained: thus to the weariness of
copying, I was condemned to add the vexation of expunging. Some passages
I have yet spared, which may relieve the labour of verbal searches, and
intersperse with verdure and flowers the dusty deserts of barren
philology.

The examples, thus mutilated, are no longer to be con sidered as
conveying the sentiments or doctrine of their authors; the word, for the
sake of which they are inserted, with all its appendant clauses, has
been carefully preserved; but it may sometimes happen, by hasty
detruncation, that the general tendency of the sentence may be changed:
the divine may desert his tenets, or the philosopher his system.

Some of the examples have been taken from writers who were never
mentioned as masters of elegance, or models of style; but words must be
sought where they are used; and in what pages, eminent for purity, can
terms of manufacture or agriculture be found? Many quotations serve no
other purpose, than that of proving the bare existence of words, and
are, therefore, selected with less scrupulousness than those which are
to teach their structures and relations.

My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I might not
be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries might have
reason to complain; nor have I departed from this resolution, but when
some performance of uncommon excellence excited my veneration, when my
memory supplied me from late books with an example that was wanting, or
when my heart, in the tenderness of friendship, solicited admission for
a favourite name.

So far have I been from any care to grace my pages with modern
decorations, that I have studiously endeavoured to collect examples and
authorities from the writers before the Restoration, whose works I
regard as _the wells of English undefiled_, as the pure sources of
genuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by the
concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original
Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and
phraseology[2], from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by
making our ancient volumes the ground-work of style, admitting among the
additions of later times only such as may supply real deficiencies, such
as are readily adopted by the genius of our tongue, and incorporate
easily with our native idioms.

But as every language has a time of rudeness antecedent to perfection,
as well as of false refinement and declension, I have been cautious lest
my zeal for antiquity might drive me into times too remote, and crowd my
book with words now no longer understood. I have fixed Sidney's work for
the boundary, beyond which I make few excursions. From the authors which
rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all
the purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were
extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of
natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation
from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney;
and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost
to mankind, for want of English words, in which they might be expressed.

It is not sufficient that a word is found, unless it be so combined as
that its meaning is apparently determined by the tract and tenour of the
sentence; such passages I have, therefore, chosen, and when it happened
that any author gave a definition of a term, or such an explanation as
is equivalent to a definition, I have placed his authority as a
supplement to my own, without regard to the chronological order, that is
otherwise observed.

Some words, indeed, stand unsupported by any authority, but they are
commonly derivative nouns or adverbs, formed from their primitives by
regular and constant analogy, or names of things seldom occurring in
books, or words of which I have reason to doubt the existence.

There is more danger of censure from the multiplicity than paucity of
examples; authorities will sometimes seem to have been accumulated
without necessity or use, and, perhaps, some will be found, which might,
without loss, have been omitted. But a work of this kind is not hastily
to be charged with superfluities: those quotations, which to careless or
unskilful perusers appear only to repeat the same sense, will often
exhibit, to a more accurate examiner, diversities of significations, or,
at least, afford different shades of the same meaning: one will show the
word applied to persons, another to things; one will express an ill,
another a good, and a third a neutral sense; one will prove the
expression genuine from an ancient author; another will show it elegant
from a modern: a doubtful authority is corroborated by another of more
credit; an ambiguous sentence is ascertained by a passage clear and
determinate: the word, how often soever repeated, appears with new
associates, and in different combinations, and every quotation
contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
When words are used equivocally, I receive them in either sense; when
they are metaphorical, I adopt them in their primitive acceptation.

I have sometimes, though rarely, yielded to the temptation of exhibiting
a genealogy of sentiments, by showing how one author copied the thoughts
and diction of another: such quotations are, indeed, little more than
repetitions, which might justly be censured, did they not gratify the
mind, by affording a kind of intellectual history.

The various syntactical structures occurring in the examples have been
carefully noted; the license or negligence, with which many words have
been hitherto used, has made our style capricious and indeterminate;
when the different combinations of the same word are exhibited together,
the preference is readily given to propriety, and I have often
endeavoured to direct the choice.

Thus I have laboured, by settling the orthography, displaying the
analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the signification
of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer:
but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own
expectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence and attention it
may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements: the orthography which
I recommend is still controvertible; the etymology which I adopt is
uncertain, and, perhaps, frequently erroneous; the explanations are
sometimes too much contracted, and sometimes too much diffused; the
significations are distinguished rather with subtilty than skill, and
the attention is harassed with unnecessary minuteness.

The examples are too often injudiciously truncated, and perhaps
sometimes, I hope very rarely, alleged in a mistaken sense; for in
making this collection I trusted more to memory, than, in a state of
disquiet and embarrassment, memory can contain, and purposed to supply,
at the review, what was left incomplete in the first transcription.

Many terms, appropriated to particular occupations, though necessary and
significant, are undoubtedly omitted; and, of the words most studiously
considered and exemplified, many senses have escaped observation.

Yet these failures, however frequent, may admit extenuation and apology.
To have attempted much is always laudable, even when the enterprise is
above the strength that undertakes it: To rest below his own aim is
incident to every one whose fancy is active, and whose views are
comprehensive; nor is any man satisfied with himself, because he has
done much, but because he can conceive little. When first I engaged in
this work, I resolved to leave neither words nor things unexamined, and
pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I should revel away in
feasts of literature, with the obscure recesses of northern learning
which I should enter and ransack, the treasures with which I expected
every search into those neglected mines to reward my labour, and the
triumph with which I should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I
had thus inquired into the original of words, I resolved to show
likewise my attention to things; to pierce deep into every science, to
inquire the nature of every substance of which I inserted the name, to
limit every idea by a definition strictly logical, and exhibit every
production of art or nature in an accurate description, that my book
might be in place of all other dictionaries, whether appellative or
technical. But these were the dreams of a poet, doomed at last to wake a
lexicographer. I soon found that it is too late to look for instruments,
when the work calls for execution, and that whatever abilities I had
brought to my task, with those I must finally perform it. To deliberate
whenever I doubted, to inquire whenever I was ignorant, would have
protracted the undertaking without end, and, perhaps, without much
improvement; for I did not find by my first experiments, that what I had
not of my own was easily to be obtained: I saw that one inquiry only
gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, that to search was
not always to find, and to find was not always to be informed; and that
thus to pursue perfection, was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia,
to chase the sun, which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed
to rest, was still beheld at the same distance from them.

I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, and no
longer to solicit auxiliaries, which produced more incumbrance than
assistance; by this I obtained at least one advantage, that I set limits
to my work, which would in time be ended, though not completed.

Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negligence;
some faults will at last appear to be the effects of anxious diligence
and persevering activity. The nice and subtile ramifications of meaning
were not easily avoided by a mind intent upon accuracy, and convinced of
the necessity of disentangling combinations, and separating similitudes.
Many of the distinctions which to common readers appear useless and
idle, will be found real and important by men versed in the school
philosophy, without which no dictionary can ever be accurately compiled,
or skilfully examined.

Some senses however there are, which, though not the same, are yet so
nearly allied, that they are often confounded. Most men think
indistinctly, and, therefore, cannot speak with exactness; and,
consequently, some examples might be indifferently put to either
signification: this uncertainty is not to be imputed to me, who do not
form, but register the language; who do not teach men how they should
think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts.

The imperfect sense of some examples I lamented, but could not remedy,
and hope they will be compensated by innumerable passages selected with
propriety, and preserved with exactness; some shining with sparks of
imagination, and some replete with treasures of wisdom.

The orthography and etymology, though imperfect, are not imperfect for
want of care, but because care will not always be successful, and
recollection or information come too late for use.

That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be frankly
acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that it was
unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner's language,
nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of navigation, nor
visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of artificers, to gain the
names of wares, tools, and operations, of which no mention is found in
books; what favourable accident or easy inquiry brought within my reach,
has not been neglected; but it had been a hopeless labour to glean up
words, by courting living information, and contesting with the
sullenness of one, and the roughness of another.

To furnish the academicians _della Crusca_ with words of this kind, a
series of comedies called _la Fiera_, or the Fair, was professedly
written by Buonarotti; but I had no such assistant, and, therefore, was
content to want what they must have wanted likewise, had they not
luckily been so supplied.

Nor are all words, which are not found in the vocabulary, to be lamented
as omissions. Of the laborious and mercantile part of the people, the
diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many of their terms
are formed for some temporary or local convenience, and though current
at certain times and places, are in others utterly unknown. This
fugitive cant, which is always in a state of increase or decay, cannot
be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language, and,
therefore, must be suffered to perish with other things unworthy of
preservation.

Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He that is
catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to pass by
unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is searching for
rare and remote things, will neglect those that are obvious and
familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory words have been
inserted with little illustration, because in gathering the authorities,
I forbore to copy those which I thought likely to occur, whenever they
were wanted. It is remarkable that, in reviewing my collection, I found
the word SEA unexemplified.

Thus it happens, that in things difficult there is danger from
ignorance, and in things easy from confidence; the mind, afraid of
greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself from
painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks not
adequate to her powers; sometimes too secure for caution, and again too
anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plain path, and
sometimes distracted in labyrinths, and dissipated by different
intentions.

A large work is difficult, because it is large, even though all its
parts might singly be performed with facility; where there are many
things to be done, each must be allowed its share of time and labour, in
the proportion only which it bears to the whole; nor can it be expected,
that the stones which form the dome of a temple, should be squared and
polished like the diamond of a ring.

Of the event of this work, for which, having laboured it with so much
application, I cannot but have some degree of parental fondness, it is
natural to form conjectures. Those who have been persuaded to think well
of my design, will require that it should fix our language, and put a
stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been
suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will
confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear, that
I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can
justify. When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after
another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises
to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the
lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a
nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall
imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from
corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary
nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity and affectation.

With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard the
avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders;
but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too
volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to
lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to
measure its desires by its strength. The French language has visibly
changed under the inspection of the academy; the style of Amelot's
translation of father Paul is observed by Le Courayer to be _un pen
passe_; and no Italian will maintain, that the diction of any modern
writer is not perceptibly different from that of Boccace, Machiavel, or
Caro.

Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen; conquests
and migrations are now very rare; but there are other causes of change,
which, though slow in their operation, and invisible in their progress,
are, perhaps, as much superiour to human resistance, as the revolutions
of the sky, or intumescence of the tide. Commerce, however necessary,
however lucrative, as it depraves the manners, corrupts the language;
they that have frequent intercourse with strangers, to whom they
endeavour to accommodate themselves, must in time learn a mingled
dialect, like the jargon which serves the traffickers on the
Mediterranean and Indian coasts. This will not always be confined to the
exchange, the warehouse, or the port, but will be communicated by
degrees to other ranks of the people, and be at last incorporated with
the current speech.

There are likewise internal causes equally forcible. The language most
likely to continue long without alteration, would be that of a nation
raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity, secluded from
strangers, and totally employed in procuring the conveniencies of life;
either without books, or, like some of the Mahometan countries, with
very few: men thus busied and unlearned, having only such words as
common use requires, would, perhaps, long continue to express the same
notions by the same signs. But no such constancy can be expected in a
people polished by arts, and classed by subordination, where one part of
the community is sustained and accommodated by the labour of the other.
Those who have much leisure to think, will always be enlarging the stock
of ideas; and every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will
produce new words, or combinations of words. When the mind is unchained
from necessity, it will range after convenience; when it is left at
large in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as any
custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it; as
any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same
proportion as it alters practice.

As by the cultivation of various sciences, a language is amplified, it
will be more furnished with words deflected from their original sense;
the geometrician will talk of a "courtier's zenith, or the eccentrick
virtue of a wild hero;" and the physician of "sanguine expectations and
phlegmatick delays." Copiousness of speech will give opportunities to
capricious choice, by which some words will be preferred, and others
degraded; vicissitudes of fashion will enforce the use of new, or extend
the signification of known terms. The tropes of poetry will make hourly
encroachments, and the metaphorical will become the current sense:
pronunciation will be varied by levity or ignorance, and the pen must at
length comply with the tongue; illiterate writers will, at one time or
other, by publick infatuation, rise into renown, who, not knowing the
original import of words, will use them with colloquial licentiousness,
confound distinction, and forget propriety. As politeness increases,
some expressions will be considered as too gross and vulgar for the
delicate, others as too formal and ceremonious for the gay and airy; new
phrases are, therefore, adopted, which must, for the same reasons, be in
time dismissed. Swift, in his petty treatise on the English language,
allows that new words must sometimes be introduced, but proposes that
none should be suffered to become obsolete. But what makes a word
obsolete, more than general agreement to forbear it? and how shall it be
continued, when it conveys an offensive idea, or recalled again into the
mouths of mankind, when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse, and
unpleasing by unfamiliarity?

There is another cause of alteration more prevalent than any other,
which yet in the present state of the world cannot be obviated. A
mixture of two languages will produce a third distinct from both; and
they will always be mixed, where the chief part of education, and the
most conspicuous accomplishment, is skill in ancient or in foreign
tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find its
words and combinations crowd upon his memory; and haste and negligence,
refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed terms and exotick
expressions.

The great pest of speech is frequency of translation. No book was ever
turned from one language into another, without imparting something of
its native idiom; this is the most mischievous and comprehensive
innovation; single words may enter by thousands, and the fabrick of the
tongue continue the same; but new phraseology changes much at once; it
alters not the single stones of the building, but the order of the
columns. If an academy should be established for the cultivation of our
style; which I, who can never wish to see dependance multiplied, hope
the spirit of English liberty will hinder or destroy, let them, instead
of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour, with all their
influence, to stop the license of translators, whose idleness and
ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a
dialect of France.

If the changes, that we fear, be thus irresistible, what remains but to
acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of
humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we
palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though
death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a
natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our
constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.[3]

In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be
immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour
of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology,
without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of
every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add any thing by
my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to
time: much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much
has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for
the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment
useless or ignoble, if, by my assistance, foreign nations, and distant
ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the
teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of
science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.

When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book,
however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man
that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become popular I
have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders, and risible
absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may,
for a time, furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into
contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never can
be wanting some who distinguish desert; who will consider that no
dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is
hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away;
that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that
even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design
includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does
not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to
the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task, which Scaliger
compares to the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious
is not always known, and what is known is not always present; that
sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations
will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken
learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory, at
the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive
readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.