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THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON VOL XVIII

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Chapter One

Composition, Publication, and Reception of the Plan

The composition of The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language ranks among the most complicated processes of writing and revising that Johnson ever undertook. The successive stages in the composition can be described at length because two annotated manuscript drafts of the pamphlet are extant, a quantity seemingly unequalled by the preliminary stages of any other of Johnson's works. Our account is a shorter, simpler, altered version of a much more extensive treatment, readily accessible to the curious.

The story begins soon after Johnson had presumably decided to accept the tentative proposal of seven important London booksellers (John and Paul Knapton, Thomas Longman and Thomas Shewell, Charles Hitch, Andrew Millar, and Robert Dodsley, who apparently initiated the proposal) that he prepare a new dictionary of the English language, or at least that he draw up a prospectus of such a work which, meetingwith their approval, would lead to a formal contract (which, in the event, he and the booksellers signed on 18 June 1746). Accordingly, Johnson wrote "A Short Scheme for compiling a new Dictionary of the English Language," a holograph manuscript now part of the Hyde Collection at the Houghton Library, which is reproduced (and accompanied by a printed text) in the Appendix below (pp. 378-427). Both his known habit of rapid composition and the manuscript itself suggest that the "Scheme" was drawn up only a short time before 30 April 1746, the date noted by Johnson on the last leaf, supposedly just after completing the piece. For a man who had "long thought" of making a dictionary and who testified repeatedly to his speed in writing, the composition of the nineteen-leaf "Scheme" was, at most, probably a matter of a few days' labor. Indeed, like "forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage" (Life, I.166), the whole document may have been created at a single sitting.

Whatever the exact period of composition, a study of the manuscript indicates, first, that Johnson was primarily intent on setting down, quickly and systematically, his notions about the problems and practices involved in compiling a dictionary of the English language and, second, that he was not making a conscious effort to write in his most polished style. The "Scheme" originally consisted of nineteen leaves, but part of the third and all of the eighth are now missing. The remaining seventeen and one-third leaves3 contain approximately 3,500 words arranged in some 41 paragraphs. In these paragraphs, which correspond to the "body" (pars. 7-74) of the first printed text, Johnson treated, sequentially, such topics as the choice of words for inclusion in his dictionary, spelling, pronunciation, etymology, syntax, definition, "the Distribution of words into their proper classes," and illustrative quotations. That he recorded his thoughts speedily and painlessly and without very much attention to the niceties of writing is evidenced, in varying degrees, by the clean appearance of most of the leaves, the probable omission of several words, the heavy reliance on the comma for pointing and the absence of all punctuation marks in a good many spots where one would normally expect them, the few lapses from "correct" or typically Johnsonian syntax, and the small number of revisions relative to the number made during subsequent stages in the composition of the Plan.

The changes that Johnson made before submitting the manuscript to readers consist almost wholly of (1) the substitution of words or phrases for the originals, (2) the correction of mistakes resulting from haste or carelessness, and (3) the deletion of words (largely) or phrases. These changes are distributed fairly evenly throughout the document, with fourteen of the seventeen and one-third leaves each containing, roughly, from two to five.

After he had written the "Scheme" and had made changes of the sort just described, Johnson presumably passed the manuscript to at least one reader and possibly more: two different persons wrote comments on it. We can offer no conjecture about the identity of the more taciturn of the two, who seems, from the location of his remarks, to have been the second reader. But we think that the first, and much more vocal, reader was probably the bull-breeding king of Ashbourne, Johnson's close friend Dr. John Taylor. Taylor's handwriting is markedly similar to the writing of this first reader, whose comments, especially one about "your Dictionary," sound as though he were on terms of easy familiarity with the author. Moreover, we know that Johnson had earlier entrusted Taylor with the manuscript of Irene and that also, according to Taylor's recollection long afterward, he sent him "in the country" a draft of the Plan, possibly, though not certainly, the "Scheme" itself.

Whether Taylor or someone else, the first reader made a total of approximately fifty sets of marks, corrections, and/or comments on the manuscript, most of them inserted between Johnson's lines or in the margins. At least one appears on every leaf except 19, which contains only three lines of text, but there are more than twice as many-roughly thirty-four to fifteen-on leaves 1-10 as there are on leaves 11-18. About seventeen suggest various changes in phraseology, ranging from a single word to a much longer part of a sentence. Eleven other notes consist of as many terms ("Words," "Orthography," etc.) used to describe the series of topics discussed in the "Scheme" and written at the beginnings of appropriate paragraphs. Some ten are concerned-briefly, for the most part-with examples that illustrate general statements in the manuscript. Several additional alterations supply small words omitted by Johnson in writing the document.

Finally, three notes resulted from three of Johnson's generalizing remarks about his intentions in the Dictionary. First, he had said: "When the Orthography and Pronunciation are adjusted the Etymology or Derivation is next to be considered, and the words are to be placed in their different classes whether simple ... or compound ... whether primitive ... or derivative" (p. 40 below). Evidently assuming that this statement disclosed Johnson's intention to arrange the words in his Dictionary on the basis of their etymologies, the reader argues vigorously, in his longest single note, for a strictly alphabetical arrangement. He begins by inquiring: "Is not Fabers [sic] Method quite thro', the best?" and then continues: "If the Words are not alphabetically placed, a Man must understand the Language only to find a Derivative, & then he has no Occasion for your Dictionary. This would spoil the Sale of it to Schools & Foreigners. Besides may not the Author & I differ in a Derivation, & if it should so happen, by what Rule can I find the Derivative I want? A Dictionary has no more to do wth Connection and Dependance than a Warehouse book. They are both mere Repertoriums, & if they are not such they are of no Use at all" (p. 394 below). In his second general note, the reader again directs Johnson's attention to the model for a new English dictionary provided, in classical lexicography, by Basilius Faber's Thesaurus Eruditionis Scholasticae (1571). Commenting on Johnson's statement, in the section on definition, that it may be "necessary to give the interpretation of the principal words in some other Languages" (p. 406 below), he says, "Look at Faber's Thesaurus" (p. 408 below). These references to Faber, together with the second reader's mention of "Stephen[s]," offer more evidence, it should be pointed out, of the inclusiveness of the lexicographical tradition-Continental as well as English-within which Johnson worked and the nature of which we have examined on pp. xvii-xxi above. In the last of his general notes, prompted by Johnson's remarks (p. 422) about the illustrative quotations to be cited in his Dictionary, the reader expresses precise recommendations: "All Examples should be compleat Sense & Grammar, (not the Author's whole Sense) for without that a Learner can not judge how, why, in what Sense a word is employed. At the Conclusion of each word there ought to be Examples 1 of the Elegant Uses of each Word & Phrase in which it is employed. 2. Examples of the Abuse of each Word &c. wth Cautions how to correct & avoid it" (p. 424 below).

The comments of the second reader can be treated briefly, for there are only three of them on the manuscript. Two are reactions to specific examples of kinds of usages. The third, like the note of the first reader quoted above, takes issue with Johnson's statement about placing words "in their different classes." "Whether," the second reader asks, "Stephen's Method which seems to be meant here will not be more puzzling?" (p. 394 below). "Stephen[s]" designates, of course, a member of the famous French family (Stephanus or Estienne) of classical scholars, lexicographers, and printers; and the "Method" that the reader almost certainly had in mind is the modified etymological arrangement followed in Robert Stephanus's Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1531), published in four volumes at London in 1734-35.

After at least two critics had read the "Scheme," Johnson made additional changes in the manuscript. One group of approximately eight changes appears to respond to the first, and only the first, reader's remarks; a second, smaller group appears to be independent of the remarks. Neither group gives any sign of systematic revision. On the whole, Johnson was not very hospitable to the reader's suggested improvements. He accepted, naturally, all the words that he had omitted and the reader had presumably supplied. But he usually preferred his own prose to that of the reader, and the very few alternatives he accepted are slight. He also made an occasional revision of his own that seems to have been, in part at least, the consequence of the reader's proposed alterations. Apparently he was influenced only once by the reader's comments about the examples presented in the "Scheme"; and, so far as we can tell, he was not led, by the general remarks, to change any of his statements about the various aspects of preparing a dictionary.

Exclusive of those discussed above, the revisions Johnson definitely or probably made in the "Scheme" after its return from the readers number some four or five (the actual total may be larger, since it may include some changes that cannot be classified either as "pre-" or "post-reader"), are limited to five of the first seven leaves of the manuscript, and may have occurred at different times. Two of these revisions are additional passages written on the versos of leaves 4 and 7 (pp. 386, 394 below) and designed for insertion on the rectos of the same leaves. The latter passage forms the final paragraph on pronunciation in the printed Plan (p. 40 below); the former appears in the section on the choice of words in the Dictionary (p. 34 below). Two other fragmentary changes, on leaves 1 and 2 respectively (pp. 378, 380 below), show that Johnson had begun to rewrite, or at least to consider rewriting, the "Scheme." The last of this group of revisions involved both the addition, on leaf 4 (p. 384 below), of a reference to the Fourth Earl of Chesterfield's views on spelling and the crossing-through of about half the remainder of the same paragraph. Versions of this crossed-out passage and also of the rest of the paragraph eventually become the ultimate paragraph of the section on orthography (p. 35 below).

The allusion to Chesterfield constitutes the earliest documentary evidence of the Earl's influence on the composition of the Plan. That initial influence was hardly trifling, for Johnson's original estimate of the "settled propriety" of English spelling gives way to Chesterfield's assertion of its "great uncertainty among the best writers." As we point out below, however, Chesterfield's subsequent effects on specific parts of the Plan are much less significant. Although the exact date of its insertion remains unclear, the reference to Chesterfield not only belongs to the post-30 April 1746 group of revisions but was also one of the later additions to that group. Probably Johnson did not entertain the thought of addressing the Plan to Chesterfield until after he had reached an oral agreement with the booksellers; for he says in the fair copy of the piece that he had been "content with the Terms ... Stipulated" (p. 430 below) until he found that his design had excited the Earl's curiosity and attracted his favor. The causes of the latter's positive interest may have been his putative perusal of an early draft of the Plan, possibly the "Scheme," and his ensuing conversation or conversations with Johnson about the Dictionary-all of these events predating his certain scrutiny of, and comment on, the fair copy of the Plan.

The second major step in the composition of the Plan was the expansion of the "Scheme" into a document closely resembling the printed form of the piece. With the "Scheme" evidently close at hand, Johnson presumably wrote another holograph manuscript, beginning with the address to Chesterfield as "one of his Majesty's [George II's] Principal Secretaries of State" and concluding with one version of the final sentence in the Plan. The precise period of composition remains uncertain but it must have occurred after 29 October 1746, since Chesterfield did not become a secretary of state until that time. We may guess that Johnson wrote the enlarged draft during the fall of 1746 and/or the winter of 1746-47.

The manuscript itself is lost. However, a clerk's fair copy of the Plan-consisting, originally, of forty-six leaves (of which all except leaf 32 are extant; see pp. 428-89 below)-was almost certainly made from this manuscript. Thus we are able, by comparing the "Scheme" and the fair copy, to reconstruct most of the contents of the missing document.

A broad generalization about the lost manuscript can be drawn immediately from our comparison; in transforming the "Scheme" into the Plan, Johnson, with only one clear exception, built on what he had done already. He kept the basic form of the structure the same, so to speak, but added an entrance and exit and some new rooms. Specifically, he added (1) the introductory and closing remarks addressed to Chesterfield (pp. 428, 486-89 below); (2) the paragraph (p. 435), in the discussion of the principles governing the selection of words for the Dictionary, about the moral to be deduced from the reluctant admission of "Terms of Science" into the French Académie's Dictionnaire; (3) the statements, in the section devoted to orthography, about the "Contest ... between Etymology and Pronunciation" (p. 443) and also about his decision (p. 444) to "make no Innovations" in spelling "without a reason sufficient to balance the Inconveniencies of Change"; (4) examples (p. 474), in the section on definition, of the varied "characters of words" that will be explained in the Dictionary; (5) a reply (p. 476), at the conclusion of the discussion of definition, to those persons who may consider "many of these remarks ... trifling"; (6) the announcement (p. 482), at the end of the section on classifying words, of his decision-prompted by Chesterfield's "opinion" -to "Interpose my own Judgment" concerning "Questions of purity, or propriety"; and (7) the statement (p. 483), in the section on quotations and "Authorities," that "Mr Pope" had "chosen ... Many of the Authours" to be cited in the Dictionary.

(Continues...)

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