Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from His Works

Stone. 'Stones are bodies insipid, hard, not ductile or malleable, nor soluble in water.' This definition answers wood, or glass, or the bones of an animal. One. 'Less than two; single; denoted by an unit.' Raleigh.

Without consulting Raleigh, we know that a man may have 'less than two' guineas in his pocket, and yet have more than one. But still we are not sure, that he has even a single farthing. One is single, but we are only where we started, for single (more Lexiphanico) is 'one, not double; not more than one.' The matter is little mended, when he subjoins that one is that which is expressed by an unit, for this may be the numerator of any fraction. Take his book to pieces, put it into the scales of common sense, and see how it kicks the beam.

A circle is, '1. A line continued till it ends where it began. 2. The space inclosed in a circular line. 3. A round body, an orb.'

The first of these definitions does not distinguish a circle from a triangle, or any other plain figure. He might have found a circle properly defined in Euclid, and a hundred other books. What are we to think of the rest of his mathematical definitions? Well, but he clears up this point, for a circle is 'the space inclosed in a circular line,' The third definition is no less erroneous than the second, for if a man were to mention the circle of the earth, we could not suspect that he meant the globe itself.

Botany and the electrical fluid, are not inserted. Electricity he terms a property in bodies. From this expression, and from all he says on the subject, we can ascertain his ignorance of that most curious and important branch of natural philosophy. Electricity in general signifies 'the operations of a very subtile fluid, commonly invisible, but sometimes the object of our sight and other senses. It is one of the chief agents employed in producing the phænomena of nature.' Its identity with lightning was discovered in 1752, three years before the publication of Dr. Johnson's folio dictionary. For the author then to talk of it as 'a peculiar property, supposed once to belong chiefly to amber,' is shameful. It shews us the depth of his learning, and the degree of attention which he thought proper to bestow on his great work.

Elasticity. 'Force in bodies, by which they endeavour to restore themselves.' To what? To their former figure, after some external pressure? And without adding some words like these the definition conveys no meaning.

Of Water, we get a very long winded account, which neither Dr. Johnson nor any body else can comprehend, for he sinks into mere jargon. Canst thou conceive (gentle reader) what are 'small, smooth, hard, porous, spherical particles' of water! Water, says Newton, 'is a fluid tasteless salt, which nature changes by heat, into vapour, and by cold into ice, which is a hard fusible brittle stone, and this stone returns into water by heat149.' Boerhaave calls water, 'a kind of glass that melts at a heat any thing greater than 32 degrees of Farenheit's thermometer. The boundary between water and ice150.'

Claw. 'The foot of a beast or bird armed with sharp nails.' Nail. 'The talons of birds or beasts.' Talon. 'The claw of a bird of prey.' Dict. 4th edit.

Here a nail is talons; Talons are a claw; and a claw is said to be a foot (alias a nail) armed with nails. The quotations are literal and complete. The words are all plain English. And if you cannot comprehend a nail armed with nails, wait upon Dr. Johnson, and perhaps he will explain it.

Legion. 'A body of Roman soldiers, consisting of about five thousand.'

This is not accurate. The number of men in a Roman legion rose by degrees from about 3200 to about 7000.

Decemvirate. 'The dignity and office of the ten governors of Rome.' Tribune. 'An officer of Rome chosen by the people.' Censor. 'An officer of Rome, who had the power of correcting manners.' Consul. 'The chief magistrate in the Roman republic.'

Wherein did the Decemviri differ from the King, the Consul, the Dictator, the Triumvir, the Military Tribune, the Cæsar, and the Emperor, for all these were likewise 'Governors of Rome?' The Decemviri were also an inferior set of men appointed to take care of the Sybil's books, to conduct colonies, &c. So that this definition is very incompleat. A Tribune was 'chosen by the people.' But this does not distinguish him from many other magistrates. The Censor had 'the power of correcting manners;' but he had other powers beside that, and every magistrate had that power as well as he, though it was a province more peculiarly his. The Censor is an officer still known in Venice, and in countries where the liberty and abuse of the press are unknown, the licensers of books are called Censors, though the Doctor does not give us these two explanations of the word. A Consul is 'the chief magistrate in the Roman republic.' He was a magistrate long after the republic was dissolved; for Caligula made his horse a Consul! But tho' the Consul was commonly one of the chief magistrates in Rome, he was never the chief, as the Doctor roundly expresses it, for he had always a colleague. The Censor was at least his equal, and the Dictator was by law his superior. What we learn of the Centurion, the Triumvir, and the Lictor, is very trifling. Innumerable words which puzzle the plain reader of a Roman historian are wanting, such as an Ædile, a Prætor, a Quæstor, a Cæsar, a Military Tribune, the Hastati, Principes, Triarii, Velites, the Labarum, or Imperial Standard, the Balistæ, the Balearians, &c. A Maniple is 'a small band of soldiers.' And a Cohort is 'a troop of soldiers, containing about 500 foot.' A Cohort was in general the tenth part of the foot in a Roman Legion, consequently their number varied, and the Prætorian Cohort, or that to which the standard was intrusted, contained, at least in latter ages, many more men than any of the rest. But in the very page where this concise author thus blunders about a Cohort, he takes care to tell us, that Coition, is copulation; the act of generation. That cold is 'not hot, not warm, chill, having sense of cold, having cold qualities.' That coldly is 'without heat.' that coldness is 'want of heat;' and a heap of similar jargon. Blot. 'A blur.' Blur. 'A blot.'

The Doctor's admirers will answer, that in so large a work there was no room for full definitions. I reply, that his account of Whipgrafting, of Will-with-a-Wisp, of a Wood-louse, and of the Stool of Repentance, are very full; that if he was to say no more of a Roman Consul, he should have said nothing at all; but that there are other books of the same kind, and of half the price too, which find room for copious and useful definitions. Pardon's dictionary is not much less than the Doctor's octavo, though its price is only six shillings; (7th edition) and of many useful articles, such as the Roman Legion, there is a very clear and full explanation. Besides which, it contains a description of the counties, the cities, and the market towns in England; and in the end of the book there is inserted a list of near 7000 proper names, none of which are to be found in the Doctor's dictionary. With what then has Dr. Johnson filled his book? With words of his own coining, with roots, and authorities often ridiculous, and always useless; or with definitions impertinent and erroneous. A Bashaw he calls 'the viceroy of a province;' and he might as well have said that every man in England is six feet high. A Condoler is 'one who compliments another upon his misfortunes.'

From the Rambler's accurate and profound knowledge of anatomy, we must form very high expectations as to his knowledge of medicine, and we are not disappointed; for Arthritis is 'the Gout' and the Gout is 'Arthritis; a periodical disease attended with great pain.' The first part of this definition is not true; and the second will not distinguish the Gout from the Gravel, the Tooth-ach, &c. &c. Gravel is 'sandy matter concreted in the kidneys,' and as often in the bladder too. His account of a Gonnorhœa is no less incomplete. A Headach is 'a pain in the head.' Jaundice is 'a distemper from obstructions of the glands of the liver, which prevent the gall being duly separated from the blood.' The Doctor seems to have borrowed his system of anatomy from the antients; for the moderns have discovered that the liver (which he ingeniously calls 'one of the entrails') is itself an indivisible gland. The Jaundice arises from an obstruction in the biliary ducts. Tympany is 'a kind of obstructed flatulence, that swells the body like a drum.' Flatulence is not inserted; but Flatulency is said to be 'windiness; fulness of wind.' And what does he mean by an obstructed fullness of wind, or by his elegant simile of a drum? His descriptions of the Rickets, Rupture, Rheumatism, Scrophula, Dropsy, Scurvy, &c. are equally perspicuous and perfect. The Doctor had no great occasion to attest, that 'the English dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned151.' For in almost every department of learning, from astronomy down to the first principles of grammar, his ignorance seems amazing. His book is a mass of words without ideas. Through the whole there runs a radical corruption of truth and common sense. It is most astonishing that the Idler has hardly ever been attacked in this quarter by any of his innumerable invidious and inveterate enemies.

I anticipate the answer of his admirers, viz. That 'the nature of his work did not admit of a copious explanation for every word.' But let them first tell why he gave such a strange jumble of quotations, to support a word of which he himself knows not the meaning, and are we to be told that the nature of any work whatever, can entitle its author to write nonsense, or to write on a subject of which he knows nothing. Indeed the Doctor himself has repeatedly declared, that his book is deformed by a profusion of errors, and those who decline to credit my assertion, ought, PERHAPS, to credit his own. He says, 'I cannot hope, in the warmest moments to preserve so much caution through so long a work, as not OFTEN to sink into negligence, or to obtain so much knowledge of all its parts as not FREQUENTLY to fail by ignorance. I expect that sometimes the desire of accuracy will urge me to superfluities, and sometimes the fear of prolixity betray me to omissions; that in the extent of such variety, I shall be OFTEN bewildered, and in the mazes of such intricacy152, be frequently entangled, &c.153' Here is a beautiful confession, which he afterwards recants: for 'despondency has never so far prevailed, as to depress me to negligence,' &c.154 But his recantation is in effect immediately re-recanted, and we are informed, 'That 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 contempt155.' That this distrust of his own merit did not arise from want of pride or vanity we discover within a few lines: For 'in this work' (the English dictionary, as its author modestly terms it) 'when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed. If our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt, which no human powers have hitherto completed. – I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude' (London, or its neighbourhood) 'what would it avail me156?' And again, 'I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country157.' Item. 'I cannot but have some degree of parental fondness.' But after all this parental fondness, this zeal for the honour of his country, the Doctor's extraordinary preface concludes in perhaps the most extraordinary language that ever flowed from an author's pen. 'Success and miscarriage are empty sounds, I therefore dismiss it' (his dictionary) 'with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure, or from praise.' All this is surely despicable. The booksellers had paid their workman on the nail, or the Doctor would have had something to hope and fear. But an honest and sensible tradesman, though paid before-hand, will always wish and endeavour to please his employers. From this writer's own words, it would appear that he is incapable of a sentiment so generous.

Bawd 'A Procurer, or Procuress.' To bawd, v. n. 'To procure.' Bawdily (from bawdy) 'obscenely.' Bawdiness (from bawdy) 'obsceneness.' Bawdry, s. '1. A wicked practise of procuring and bringing whores and rogues together. 2. Obscenity.' Bawdy, a. (from bawdy) 'Obscene, unchaste.' Bawdyhouse. 'A house where traffic is made by wickedness and debauchery.' Baggage. 'A worthless woman.' Bitch. '1. The female of the canine kind. 2. A name of reproach for a woman.' Blackguard158. 'A dirty fellow.' Block. 'A Blockhead.' Blockhead. 'A stupid fellow; a dolt; a man without parts,' Blunderer. 'A blockhead.' Blockhead 'A stupid fellow' Bloodletter. 'A Phlebotomist.' Suds. 'A Lixivium of soap and water.' Sun. 'The luminary that makes the day.'

The English dictionary is prodigiously defective —Nervi desunt. It has no force of thought. This wilderness of words displays a mind, patient, but almost incapable of reasoning; ignorant, but oppressed by a load of frivolous ideas; proud of its own powers, but languishing in the last stage of hopeless debility. We have long extolled it with the wildest luxuriance of adulation, and we pretend to despise the worshippers of the golden calf.

No man has done more honour to England, than Mr Locke. What would he have said or thought, had Dr Johnson's dictionary been published in his days? We can easily determine his opinion from several passages in his works. I select the following, because it is both short and decisive; and he who feels any respect for Mr Locke will retain little for the author of the Rambler. His words are these: 'If any one asks what this solidity is159, I send him to his senses to inform him. Let him put a flint, or a football between his hands, and then endeavour to join them and he will know. If he thinks this not a sufficient explication of solidity, what it is, and wherein it consists, I promise to tell him, what it is, and wherein it consists, when he tells me, what thinking is, or wherein it consists, or explains to me what extension or motion is, which perhaps seems much easier. The simple ideas we have are such as experience teaches them us; but if, beyond that, we endeavour by words to make them clearer in the mind, we shall succeed no better, than if we went about to clear up the darkness of a blind man's mind by talking, and discourse into him the ideas of light and colours160.'

In the title page of his octavo, we learn, that 'the words are deduced from their originals.' And in the preface, he adds, that 'the etymologies and derivations, whether from foreign languages or native roots, are more diligently traced, and more distinctly noted, than in other dictionaries of the same kind.' Mr Whitaker assures us that in this single article the Doctor has committed upwards of three thousand errors: And the historical pioneer produces abundant evidence in support of his assertion161. But independent of this curious circumstance, let us ask the Doctor what he means by crouding such trifles into an abstract, which is, he says, intended for those who are 'to gain degrees of knowledge suitable to lower characters, or necessary to the common business of life.' To tell such people, that the word porridgepot is compounded of porridge, and pot, is to insult their understandings; and of his Greek and Saxon roots, not one individual in a thousand can read even a single letter. The preface commences with a pitiful untruth. Having mentioned the publication of his folio dictionary, he subjoins, 'it has since been considered that works of that kind are by no means necessary for the bulk of readers.' Here he would insinuate that the abstract was an after-thought: But every body sees, that its publication was delayed, only to accelerate the sale of his folio dictionary. There is not room now left, to dissect every sentence in the preface to his octavo. I shall therefore conclude that subject with one particular, wherein the Doctor's taste, learning, and genius, blaze in their meridian.

In the title page to his octavo dictionary, we are informed, that the words are 'authorised by the names of the writers in whose works they are found.' And this tale is repeated at greater length in the preface, where 'it will be found that truth requires him to say less162': For under letter A only, there are between four and five hundred words, for which the Idler has not assigned any authority – and of these one hundred and eighty are to be found in no language under heaven. He boasts indeed that his dictionary 'contains many words not to be found in any other.' But it also contains many words, not to be found at all in any other book. If we compute that letter A has a thirteenth part of these recruits, we shall find that the whole number scattered through his compilation exceeds two thousand. A purchaser of his abstract has a title to ask the Doctor, why the work is loaded with such a profusion of trash, which serves only to testify the folly of him who collected or created it. Men of eminent learning have been consulted, who disown all acquaintance (in English) with most articles in the following list:

Abacus, Abandonement, Abarticulation, Abcedarian, Abcedary, Aberrant, Aberuncate, Abject, v. a. Ablactate, Ablactation, Ablation, Ablegate, Ablegation, Ablepsy, Abluent, Abrasion, Abscissa, Absinthiated, Abitention, Absterge, Accessariness, Accidentalness, Accipient, Acclivious, Accolent, Accompanable, Accroach, Accustomarily, Acroamatical, Acronycal, Acroters, or Acroteria, Acuate, Aculerate, Addulce, Addenography, Ademption, Adiaphory, Adjectitious, Adition, Abstergent, Acceptilation, Adjugate, Adjument, Adjunction, Adjunctive, Adjutor, Adjutory, Adjuvant, Adjuvate, Admensuration, Adminicle, Adminicular, Admix, Admonishment, Admurmuration, Adscititious, Adstriction, Advesperate, Adulator, Adulterant, Adulterine, Adumbrant, Advolation, Advolution, Adustible, Aerology, Aeromancy, Aerometry, Aeroscopy, Affabrous, Affectuous, Affixion, Afflation, Afflatus, Agglomerate, Agnation, Agnition, Agreeingness, Alate, Abb, Alegar, Alligate, Alligation, Allocution, Amalgmate, Amandation, Ambidexterity, Ambilogy, Ambiloquous, Ambry, Ambustion, Amende, Amercer, Amethodical, Amphibological, Amphibologically, Amphisch, Amplificate, Amygdalate, Amygdaline, Anacamptick, Anacampticks, Anaclacticks, Anadiplosis, Anagogetical, Anagrammatize, Anamorphosis, Anaphora, Anastomosis, Anastrope, Anathematical, Androgynal, Androgynally, Androgynus, Anemography, Anemometer, Anfractuousness, Angelicalness, Angiomonospermous, Angularity, Angularness, Anhelation, Aniented, Anileness, Anility, Animative, Annumerate, Annumeration, Annunciate, Anomalously, Ansated, Antaphroditick, Antapoplectick, Antarthritick, Antasthmatick, Anteact, Auscultation, Antemundane, Antepenult, Antepredicament, Anthology, Anthroposophy, Anthypnotick, Antichristianity, Auxiliation, Antinephritick, Antinomy, Antiquatedness, Apert, Apertly, Aphilanthrophy, Aphrodisiacal, Aphrodosiack, Apocope, Apocryphalness, Apomecometry, Appellatory, Apsis, Aptate, Aptote, Aqua, Aquatile, Aqueousness, Aquose, Aquosity, Araignee, Aratory, Arbuscle, Archchanter, Archaiology, Archailogick, Archeus, Arcuation, Arenose, Arenulous, Argil, Argillaceous, Argute, Arietate, Aristocraticallness, Armental, Armentine, Armigerous, Armillary, Armipotence, Arrentation, Arreptitious, Arrison, Authentickness, Arrosion, Articular, Articulateness, Austral, Arundinaceous, Arundineous, Asbestine, Ascriptitious, Asinary, Asperation, Asperifolious, Aspirate, v. a. Assassinator, Assumptive, Astonishingness, Astrography, Attiguous, Attinge, Aucupation, Avowee.

Of these words about forty only are proper, yet though they are so, and though they are frequently to be found in the best authors, yet the Doctor has not given any authority for them. His reading therefore must have been very circumscribed, or his negligence very great. Is the word Avowee, for instance, one of those which 'are however, to be yet considered as resting only upon the credit of former dictionaries163.' Besides these forty, there are under letter A, some hundreds of the most common words, for which no author's name is quoted. A gross omission according to the plan which he lays down.

Let us put the case, that a foreigner sits down to compose a page of English, by the help of Dr Johnson's work. The strange combinations of letters (for I dare not call them words) which swell his book to its present bloated size, are not marked with an asterisk, to distinguish them as barbarous: The novice would therefore adopt a stile unknown to any native of England. Here is a short specimen of what he would say.

'An Admurmuration has long wandered about the world, that the pensioner's political principles are anfractuous. Their anfractuousness, their insipience, and their turpitude, are no longer amphibological. His nefarious repercussion of obloquy must contaminate, and obumbrate, and who can tell but it may even aberuncate his feculent and excrementitious celebrity. His perspicacity will see without comity, or hilarity, that his character as an author and a gentleman, requires resuscitation, for it is neither immane nor immarcessible. This is a homogeneous truth164. Let him distend, like the flaccid sides of a football165, his sal, his sapience, and his powers of ratiocination. The mellifluous and numerose cadence of equiponderant periods cannot ensure him from a luxation, a laceration, and a resiliency of his adminicular concatenation with the rugged mercantile race166. The loss of this adscititious adminicle would make the sage's impeccable, but lugubrious bosom vibrate with the horrors of dilution and dereliction. His organs of vision would gush with salsamentarious torrents of spherical particles, of equal diameters, and of equal specific gravities, as Dr Cheyne observes – their smoothness – their sphericity – their frictions, and their hardness,'167 &c.

To the last edition (the 4th) of the folio dictionary, there is prefixed an advertisement, from which I have extracted a few lines: '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.' That his improvements, bear a very small proportion to the quantity of errors still in his book is true, for after a long and painful search, I have only been able to trace out ONE alteration. The word Gazetteer is now defined without that insolent scurrility formerly quoted. But in this correct edition, thunder continues to be a most bright flame. Whig is still the name of a faction; and a Tory is said to be an adherent to the antient constitution of England. Oats, Excise, Monarch, &c. are all in the same stile. Nowise, n. s. '(no and wise: this is commonly spoken and written by IGNORANT BARBARIANS, noways). Not in any manner, or degree.' Theorem, n. s. 'A position laid down as an acknowledged truth.'