[842] 'Talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to give to literature and literary men, "Andrew Millar," says Johnson, "is the Maecenas of the age."' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 200. Horace Walpole, writing on May 18, 1749 (Letters ii. 163), says:—'Millar the bookseller has done very generously by Fielding; finding Tom Jones, for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell so greatly, he has since given him another hundred.' Hume writing on July 6, 1759, says:—'Poor Andrew Millar is declared bankrupt; his debts amount to above £40,000, and it is said his creditors will not get above three shillings in the pound. All the world allows him to have been diligent and industrious; but his misfortunes are ascribed to the extravagance of his wife, a very ordinary case in this city.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 64. He must soon have recovered his position, for Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 434) met Millar at Harrogate in 1763. In the inn were several baronets, and great squires, members of parliament, who paid Millar civility for the use of his two newspapers which came to him by every post. 'Yet when he appeared in the morning, in his well-worn suit of clothes, they could not help calling him Peter Pamphlet; for the generous patron of Scotch authors, with his city wife and her niece, were sufficiently ridiculous when they came into good company.' Mr. Croker (Boswell, p. 630) says that Millar was the bookseller described by Johnson, post, April 24, 1779. as 'habitually and equably drunk.' He is, I think, mistaken.
[843] His Dictionary. BOSWELL.
[844] 'A translation of Apollonius Rhodius was now intended by Mr. Warton.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
[845] Kettel Hall is an ancient tenement built about the year 1615 by Dr. Ralph Kettel, President of Trinity College, for the accommodation of commoners of that Society. It adjoins the College; and was a few years ago converted into a private house. MALONE.
[846] 'At Ellsfield, a village three miles from Oxford.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
[847] It was published on April 15, 1755, in two vols. folio, price £4 10_s_. bound. Johnson's Works, v. 51.
[848] 'Booksellers concerned in his Dictionary.' WARTON.—BOSWELL. 'June 12, Mr. Paul Knapton, bookseller. June 18, Thos. Longman, Esq., bookseller.' Gent. Mag., xxv. 284. The 'Esq.' perhaps is a sign that even so early as 1755 the Longmans ranked higher than most of their brethren.
[849] 1. Own not in the original. Johnson's Works, v. 36.
[850] 'I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own expectations.' Johnson's Works, p. 41.
[851] In the Plan of an English Dictionary (ib. p. 16) Johnson, writing of 'the word perfection' says:—'Though in its philosophical and exact sense it can be of little use among human beings, it is often so much degraded from its original signification, that the academicians have inserted in their work, the perfection of a language, and, with a little more licentiousness, might have prevailed on themselves to have added the perfection of a Dictionary.' In the Preface to the fourth edition he writes:—'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.' Ib. p. 52.