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Various - "Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885"

W.W. Jacobs - "Captain Rogers"

David Graham Phillips - "The Second Generation"

Various - "Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861"

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The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes by Samuel Johnson

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In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be
forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever
spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little
solicitous to know whence proceeded the 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 academick 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 criticks 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
would 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[4].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] That I may not appear to have spoken too irreverently of Junius, I
have here subjoined a few specimens of his etymological
extravagance.

BANISH, _religare, ex banno vel territorio exigere, in exitium agere_.
Gal. _bannir_. It. _bandire, bandeggiare_. H. _bandir_. B. _bannen_.
Aevi medii scriptores bannire dicebant. V. Spelm. in Bannum & in
Banleuga. Quoniam vero regionum urbiumq; limites arduis plerumq;
montibus, altis fluminibus, longis deniq; flexuosisq; angustissimarum
viarum anfractibus includebantur, fieri potest id genus limites _ban_
dici ab eo quod [Greek: Bannatai] et [Greek: Bannatroi] Tarentinis
olim, sicuti tradit Hesychius, vocabantur [Greek: ahi loxoi kai mae
ithuteneis hodoi], "obliquae ac minime in rectum tendentes viae." Ac
fortasse quoque huc facit quod [Greek: Banous], eodem Hesychio teste,
dicebant [Greek: horae strangulae], montes arduos.

EMPTY, emtie, _vacuus, inanis_. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon: Aemtig]. Nescio an
sint ab [Greek: emeo] vel [Greek: emetuio]. Vomo, evomo, vomitu evacue.
Videtur interim etymologiam hanc non obscure firmare codex Rush. Mat.
xii. 22. ubi antique scriptum invenimus [Anglo-Saxon: gemoeted hit
emetig]. "Invenit eam vacantem."

HILL, _mons, collis_. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon: hyll]. Quod videri potest
abscissum ex [Greek: kolonae] vel [Greek: kolonos]. Collis, tumulus,
locus in plano editior. Hom. II. B. v. 811. [Greek: esti de tis
proparoithe poleos aipeia kolonae]. Ubi authori brevium scholiorum
[Greek: kolonae] exp. [Greek: topos eis hupsos anaekon geolofos
exochae].

NAP, _to take a nap. Dormire, condormiscere_. Cym. _heppian_. A.S.
[Anglo-Saxon: hnaeppan]. Quod postremum videri potest desumptum ex
[Greek: knephas], obscuritas, tenebrae: nihil enim aeque solet
conciliare somnum, quam caliginosa profundae noctis obscuritas.

STAMMERER, Balbus, blaesus. Goth. [Gothic: STAMMS]. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon:
stamer, stamur]. D. _stam_. B. _stameler_. Su. _stamma_. Isl. _stamr_.
Sunt a [Greek: stomulein] vel [Greek: stomullein], nimia loquacitate
alios offendere; quod impedite loquentes libentissime garrire soleant;
vel quod aliis nimii semper videantur, etiam parcissime loquentes.

[2] The structure of Hume's sentences is French. For Johnson's opinion
of it, see Boswell, i. 420. Edit. 1816.

[3] Blackstone very frequently denounces the use of Norman French in
our law proceedings, and in Parliament as a badge of slavery, which
he could have wished to see "fall into total oblivion, unless it be
reserved as a solemn memento to remind us that our liberties are
mortal, having once been destroyed by a foreign force." Much amusing
and interesting research on the once prevalent use of French in
England, is exhibited in Barrington's Observations on the more
Antient Statutes.

And Frenche she spake full fetously;
After the schole of _Stratforde at Bowe_,
For Frenche of Paris was to her unknowne.
Chaucer's Prologue to the Prioress' Tale.

[4] Dr. Johnson's Dictionary was published on the fifteenth day of
April 1755, in two vols. folio, price 4_l_. 10_s._ bound. The
booksellers who engaged in this national work were the Knaptons,
Longman, Hitch and Co. Millar, and Dodsley.



ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE
FOURTH EDITION
OF THE
ENGLISH DICTIONARY[1].

Many are the works of human industry, which to begin and finish are
hardly granted to the same man. He that undertakes to compile a
dictionary, undertakes that, which, if it comprehends the full extent of
his design, he knows himself unable to perform. Yet his labours, though
deficient, may be useful, and with the hope of this inferiour praise, he
must incite his activity, and solace his weariness.

Perfection is unattainable, but nearer and nearer approaches may be
made; and, finding my Dictionary about to be reprinted, I have
endeavoured, by a revisal, to make it less reprehensible. I will not
deny that I found many parts requiring emendation, and many more capable
of improvement. Many faults I have corrected, some superfluities I have
taken away, and some deficiencies I have supplied. I have methodised
some parts that were disordered, and illuminated some that were obscure.
Yet the changes or additions bear a very small proportion to the whole.
The critick will now have less to object, but the student who has bought
any of the former copies needs not repent; he will not, without nice
collation, perceive how they differ; and usefulness seldom depends upon
little things.

For negligence or deficience, I have, perhaps, not need of more apology
than the nature of the work will furnish: I have left that inaccurate
which never was made exact, and that imperfect which never was
completed.

[1] Published in folio, 1773.



PREFACE
TO THE
OCTAVO EDITION
OF THE
ENGLISH DICTIONARY[1].

Having been long employed in the study and cultivation of the English
language, I lately published a dictionary, like those compiled by the
academies of Italy and France, for the use of such as aspire to
exactness of criticism or elegance of style.

But it has been since considered that works of that kind are by no means
necessary to the greater number of readers, who, seldom intending to
write or presuming to judge, turn over books only to amuse their
leisure, and to gain degrees of knowledge suitable to lower characters,
or necessary to the common business of life: these know not any other
use of a dictionary than that of adjusting orthography, or explaining
terms of science, or words of infrequent occurrence or remote
derivation.

For these purposes many dictionaries have been written by different
authors, and with different degrees of skill; but none of them have yet
fallen into my hands by which even the lowest expectations could be
satisfied. Some of their authors wanted industry, and others literature:
some knew not their own defects, and others were too idle to supply
them.

For this reason a small dictionary appeared yet to be wanting to common
readers; and, as I may without arrogance claim to myself a longer
acquaintance with the lexicography of our language than any other writer
has had, I shall hope to be considered as having more experience at
least than most of my predecessors, and as more likely to accommodate
the nation with a vocabulary of daily use. I, therefore, offer to the
publick an abstract or epitome of my former work.

In comparing this with other dictionaries of the same kind, it will be
found to have several advantages.

1. It contains many words not to be found in any other.

2. Many barbarous terms and phrases, by which other dictionaries may
vitiate the style, are rejected from this.

3. The words are more correctly spelled, partly by attention to their
etymology, and partly by observation of the practice of the best
authors.

4. The etymologies and derivations, whether from foreign languages or
from native roots, are more diligently traced, and more distinctly
noted.

5. The senses of each word are more copiously enumerated, and more
clearly explained.

6. Many words occurring in the elder authors, such as Spenser,
Shakespeare, and Milton, which had been hitherto omitted, are here
carefully inserted; so that this book may serve as a glossary or
expository index to the poetical writers.

7. To the words, and to the different senses of each word, are subjoined
from the large dictionary the names of those writers by whom they have
been used; so that the reader who knows the different periods of the
language, and the time of its authors, may judge of the elegance or
prevalence of any word, or meaning of a word; and without recurring to
other books, may know what are antiquated, what are unusual, and what
are recommended by the best authority.

The words of this Dictionary, as opposed to others, are more diligently
collected, more accurately spelled, more faithfully explained, and more
authentically ascertained. Of an abstract it is not necessary to say
more; and I hope, it will not be found that truth requires me to say
less.

[1] Published in 2 vols. 1756.



MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
TRAGEDY OF MACBETH:

WITH REMARKS ON SIR T. HANMER'S EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE.

FIRST PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1745.

[Transcriber's note: There are two footnote systems in use in this
section. The numbered footnotes in square brackets, [1], [2], etc, are
those of the editor, and are to be found at the end of the section.
The lettered footnotes in round brackets, (a), (b), etc, are Johnson's,
and are to be found at the end of each Note.]


NOTE I.

ACT I. SCENE I.

_Enter three Witches._

In order to make a true estimate of the abilities and merit of a writer,
it is always necessary to examine the genius of his age, and the
opinions of his contemporaries. A poet, who should now make the whole
action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief
events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured as
transgressing the bounds of probability; he would be banished from the
theatre to the nursery, and condemned to write fairy tales instead of
tragedies; but a survey of the notions, that prevailed at the time when
this play was written, will prove, that Shakespeare was in no danger of
such censures, since he only turned the system that was then universally
admitted to his advantage, and was far from over-burdening the credulity
of his audience.

The reality of witchcraft or enchantment, which, though not strictly the
same, are confounded in this play, has in all ages and countries been
credited by the common people, and in most by the learned themselves[1].
These phantoms have indeed appeared more frequently, in proportion as
the darkness of ignorance has been more gross; but it cannot be shown,
that the brightest gleams of knowledge have at any time been sufficient
to drive them out of the world. The time, in which this kind of
credulity was at its height, seems to have been that of the holy war, in
which the Christians imputed all their defeats to enchantment or
diabolical opposition, as they ascribe their success to the assistance
of their military saints; and the learned Dr. Warburton appears to
believe (Supplement to the Introduction to Don Quixote) that the first
accounts of enchantments were brought into this part of the world by
those who returned from their eastern expeditions. But there is always
some distance between the birth and maturity of folly, as of wickedness:
this opinion had long existed, though, perhaps, the application of it
had in no foregoing age been so frequent, nor the reception so general.
Olympiodorus, in Photius's Extracts, tells us of one Libanius, who
practised this kind of military magick, and having promised [Greek:
choris hopliton kata barbaron energein], _to perform great things
against the barbarians without soldiers_, was, at the instances of the
emperess Placidia, put to death, when he was about to have given proofs
of his abilities. The emperess showed some kindness in her anger by
cutting him off at a time so convenient for his reputation.

But a more remarkable proof of the antiquity of this notion may be found
in St. Chrysostom's book de Sacerdotio, which exhibits a scene of
enchantments, not exceeded by any romance of the middle age; he supposes
a spectator, overlooking a field of battle, attended by one that points
out all the various objects of horrour, the engines of destruction, and
the arts of slaughter. [Greek: Deiknuto de eti para tois enantiois kai
petomenous hippous dia tinos manganeias kai hoplitas di aeros
pheromenous, kai pasaen goaeteias dunamin kai hidean.]_Let him then
proceed to show him in the opposite armies horses flying by enchantment,
armed men transported through the air, and every power and form of
magick_. Whether St. Chrysostom believed that such performances were
really to be seen in a day of battle, or only endeavoured to enliven his
description, by adopting the notions of the vulgar, it is equally
certain, that such notions were in his time received, and that,
therefore, they were not imported from the Saracens in a later age; the
wars with the Saracens, however, gave occasion to their propagation, not
only as bigotry naturally discovers prodigies, but as the scene of
action was removed to a greater distance, and distance, either of time
or place, is sufficient to reconcile weak minds to wonderful relations.

The reformation did not immediately arrive at its meridian, and though
day was gradually increasing upon us, the goblins of witchcraft still
continued to hover in the twilight. In the time of queen Elizabeth was
the remarkable trial of the witches of Warbois, whose conviction is
still commemorated in an annual sermon at Huntingdon. But in the reign
of king James, in which this tragedy was written, many circumstances
concurred to propagate and confirm this opinion. The king, who was much
celebrated for his knowledge, had, before his arrival in England, not
only examined in person a woman accused of witchcraft, but had given a
very formal account of the practices and illusions of evil spirits, the
compacts of witches, the ceremonies used by them, the manner of
detecting them, and the justice of punishing them, in his dialogues of
_Daemonologie_, written in the Scottish dialect, and published at
Edinburgh. This book was, soon after his accession, reprinted at London;
and, as the ready way to gain king James's favour was to flatter his
speculations, the system of _Daemonologie_ was immediately adopted by
all who desired either to gain preferment or not to lose it. Thus the
doctrine of witchcraft was very powerfully inculcated; and as the
greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than
that they are in fashion, it cannot be doubted but this persuasion made
a rapid progress, since vanity and credulity co-operated in its favour,
and it had a tendency to free cowardice from reproach. The infection
soon reached the parliament, who, in the first year of king James, made
a law, by which it was enacted, chap. xii. That, "if any person shall
use any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked spirit; 2. or
shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil
or cursed spirit to or for any intent or purpose; 3. or take up any dead
man, woman or child out of the grave,--or the skin, bone or any part of
the dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft,
sorcery, charm or enchantment; 4. or shall use, practise or exercise any
sort of witchcraft, sorcery, charm or enchantment; 5. whereby any person
shall be destroyed, killed, wasted, consumed, pined or lamed in any part
of the body; 6. That every such person, being convicted, shall suffer
death." This law was repealed in our time.

Thus, in the time of Shakespeare, was the doctrine of witchcraft at once
established by law and by the fashion, and it became not only unpolite,
but criminal, to doubt it; and as prodigies are always seen in
proportion as they are expected, witches were every day discovered, and
multiplied so fast in some places, that bishop Hall mentions a village
in Lancashire, where their number was greater than that of the
houses[2]. The Jesuits and Sectaries took advantage of this universal
errour, and endeavoured to promote the interest of their parties by
pretended cures of persons afflicted by evil spirits; but they were
detected and exposed by the clergy of the established church.

Upon this general infatuation Shakespeare might be easily allowed to
found a play, especially since he has followed with great exactness such
histories as were then thought true; nor can it be doubted that the
scenes of enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed, were both by
himself and his audience thought awful and affecting[3].


NOTE III. [Transcriber's note: sic]

ACT I. SCENE II.

--The merciless Macdonal,--from the western isles
Of _Kernes_ and _Gallowglasses_ was supply'd;
And fortune on his damned _quarry_ smiling,
Shew'd like a rebel's whore.--

_Kernes_ are light-armed, and _Gallowglasses_ heavy-armed soldiers. The
word _quarry_ has no sense that is properly applicable in this place,
and, therefore, it is necessary to read,

And fortune on his damned _quarrel_ smiling.

_Quarrel_ was formerly used for _cause_, or for _the occasion of a
quarrel_, and is to be found in that sense in Hollingshed's account of
the story of Macbeth, who, upon the creation of the prince of
Cumberland, thought, says the historian, that he had _a just quarrel_ to
endeavour after the crown. The sense, therefore, is, _fortune smiling on
his execrable cause, &c_.


NOTE III.

If I say sooth, I must report, they were
As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks.
So they redoubled strokes upon the foe.

Mr. Theobald has endeavoured to improve the sense of this passage by
altering the punctuation thus:

--They were
As cannons overcharg'd; with double cracks
So they redoubled strokes.--

He declares, with some degree of exultation, that he has no idea of _a
cannon charged with double cracks_; but, surely, the great author will
not gain much by an alteration which makes him say of a hero, that he
_redoubles strokes with double cracks_, an expression not more loudly to
be applauded, or more easily pardoned, than that which is rejected in
its favour. That a _cannon is charged with thunder_ or _with double
thunders_ may be written, not only without nonsense, but with elegance:
and nothing else is here meant by _cracks_, which in the time of this
writer was a word of such emphasis and dignity, that in this play he
terms the general dissolution of nature the _crack of doom_.

There are among Mr. Theobald's alterations others which I do not
approve, though I do not always censure them; for some of his amendments
are so excellent, that, even when he has failed, he ought to be treated
with indulgence and respect.


NOTE IV.

_King_. But who comes here?

_Mal_. The worthy Thane of Rosse.

_Len_. What haste looks through his eyes?
So should he look, that _seems_ to speak things strange.
The meaning of this passage, as it now stands, is, _so should he look,
that looks as if he told things strange_. But Rosse neither yet told
strange things, nor could look as if he told them; Lenox only
conjectured from his air that he had strange things to tell, and,
therefore, undoubtedly said,

--What haste looks through his eyes?
So should he look, that _teems_ to speak things strange.

He looks like one that _is big_ with something of importance; a metaphor
so natural, that it is every day used in common discourse.


NOTE V.

SCENE III.

_Thunder. Enter the three Witches_.

_1 Witch_. Where hast thou been, sister?

_2 Witch_. Killing swine.

_3 Witch_. Sister, where thou?

_1 Witch_. A sailor's wife had chesnuts in her lap,
And mouncht, and mouncht, and mouncht. Give me, quoth I.
(a) Aroint thee, witch!--the rump-fed ronyon cries.
Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' th' Tyger:
But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
And like a rat without a tail,
I'll do--I'll do--and I'll do.

_2 Witch_. I'll give thee a wind.

_1 Witch_. Thou art kind.

_3 Witch_. And I another.

_1 Witch_. I myself have all the other.
And the (b) very points they blow;
All the quarters that they know,
I' th' ship-man's card.--
I will drain him dry as hay,
Sleep shall neither night nor day,
Hang upon his pent-house lid;
He shall live a man (c) forbid;
Weary sev'n nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine;
Tho' his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tost.
Look, what I have.

_2 Witch_. Shew me, Shew me.


(a) Aroint thee, witch!
In one of the folio editions the reading is _anoint thee_, in a sense
very consistent with the common accounts of witches, who are related to
perform many supernatural acts by the means of unguents, and
particularly to fly through the air to the place where they meet at
their hellish festivals. In this sense _anoint thee, witch_, will mean,
_away, witch, to your infernal assembly_. This reading I was inclined to
favour, because I had met with the word _aroint_ in no other author;
till looking into Hearne's Collections, I found it in a very old
drawing, that he has published, in which St. Patrick is represented
visiting hell, and putting the devils into great confusion by his
presence, of whom one that is driving the damned before him with a
prong, has a label issuing out from his mouth with these words, "OUT OUT
ARONGT," of which the last is evidently the same with _aroint_, and used
in the same sense as in this passage.

(b) And the _very_ points they blow.
As the word _very_ is here of no other use than to fill up the verse, it
is likely that Shakespeare wrote _various_, which might be easily
mistaken for _very_, being either negligently read, hastily pronounced,
or imperfectly heard.

(c) He shall live a man _forbid_.
Mr. Theobald has very justly explained _forbid_ by _accursed_, but
without giving any reason of his interpretation. To _bid_ is originally
_to pray_, as in this Saxon fragment:

[Anglo-Saxon: He is wis thaet bit g bote,] &c.

He is wise that _prays_ and makes amends.

As to _forbid_, therefore, implies to _prohibit_, in opposition to the
word _bid_, in its present sense, it signifies by the same kind of
opposition to _curse_, when it is derived from the same word in its
primitive meaning.


NOTE VI.

SCENE V

The incongruity of all the passages, in which the Thane of Cawdor is
mentioned, is very remarkable; in the second scene the Thanes of Rosse
and Angus bring the king an account of the battle, and inform him that
Norway,

Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
The Thane of Cawdor, 'gan a dismal conflict.

It appears that Cawdor was taken prisoner, for the king says, in the
same scene,

--Go, pronounce his death;
And with his former title greet Macbeth.

Yet though Cawdor was thus taken by Macbeth, in arms against his king,
when Macbeth is saluted, in the fourth scene, _Thane of Cawdor_, by the
Weird Sisters, he asks,

But how, of Cawdor? the Thane of Cawdor lives.
A prosp'rous gentleman;--

And in the next line considers the promises, that he should be Cawdor
and King, as equally unlikely to be accomplished. How can Macbeth be
ignorant of the state of the Thane of Cawdor, whom he has just defeated
and taken prisoner, or call him a _prosperous gentleman_ who has
forfeited his title and life by open rebellion? Or why should he wonder
that the title of the rebel whom he has overthrown should be conferred
upon him? He cannot be supposed to dissemble his knowledge of the
condition of Cawdor, because he inquires with all the ardour of
curiosity, and the vehemence of sudden astonishment; and because nobody
is present but Banquo, who had an equal part in the battle, and was
equally acquainted with Cawdor's treason. However, in the next scene,
his ignorance still continues; and when Rosse and Angus present him from
the king with his new title, he cries out,

--The Thane of Cawdor lives;
Why do you dress me in his borrow'd robes?

Rosse and Angus, who were the messengers that, in the second scene,
informed the king of the assistance given by Cawdor to the invader,
having lost, as well as Macbeth, all memory of what they had so lately
seen and related, make this answer,