[880] In the third edition, published in 1773, he left out the words perhaps never, and added the following paragraph:—
'It sometimes begins middle or final syllables in words compounded, as block-head, or derived from the Latin, as compre-hended.' BOSWELL. In the Abridgment, which was published some years earlier, after never is added 'except in compounded words.'
[881] It was published in the Gent. Mag. for April, 1755 (xxv. 190), just below the advertisement of the Dictionary.
[882] In the original, 'Milton and Shakespeare.'
[883] The number of the French Academy employed in settling their language. BOSWELL.
[884] The maximum reward offered by a bill passed in 1714 was £20,000 for a method that determined the longitude at sea to half a degree of a great circle, or thirty geographical miles. For less accuracy smaller rewards were offered. Ann. Reg. viii. 114. In 1765 John Harrison received £7,500 for his chronometer; he had previously been paid £2,500; ib. 128. In this Act of Parliament 'the legislature never contemplated the invention of a method, but only of the means of making existing methods accurate.' Penny Cyclo. xiv. 139. An old sea-faring man wrote to Swift that he had found out the longitude. The Dean replied 'that he never knew but two projectors, one of whom ruined himself and his family, and the other hanged himself; and desired him to desist lest one or other might happen to him.' Swift's Works (1803), xvii. 157. In She Stoops to Conquer (Act i. sc. 2), when Tony ends his directions to the travellers by telling them,—'coming to the farmer's barn you are to turn to the right, and then to the left, and then to the right about again, till you find out the old mill;' Marlow exclaims: 'Zounds, man! we could as soon find out the longitude.'
[885] Joseph Baretti, a native of Piedmont, came to England in 1750 (see Preface to his Account of Italy, p. ix). He died in May, 1789. In his Journey from London to Genoa (ii. 276), he says that his father was one of the two architects of the King of Sardinia. Shortly after his death a writer in the Gent. Mag. (Iix. 469, 570), who was believed to be Vincent, Dean of Westminster, thus wrote of him:—'Though his severity had created him enemies, his talents, conversation, and integrity had conciliated the regard of many valuable friends and acquaintance. His manners were apparently rough, but not unsocial. His integrity was in every period of his distresses constant and unimpeached. His wants he never made known but in the last extremity. He and Johnson had been friends in distress. One evening, when they had agreed to go to the tavern, a foreigner in the streets, by a specious tale of distress, emptied the Doctor's purse of the last half-guinea it contained. When the reckoning came, what was his surprise upon his recollecting that his purse was totally exhausted. Baretti had fortunately enough to answer the demand, and has often declared that it was impossible for him not to reverence a man, who could give away all that he was worth, without recollecting his own distress.' See post, Oct. 20, 1769.
[886] See note by Mr. Warton, ante, p. 275. BOSWELL.
[887] 'On Saturday the 12th, about twelve at night, died Mr. Zachariah Williams, in his eighty-third year, after an illness of eight months, in full possession of his mental faculties. He has been long known to philosophers and seamen for his skill in magnetism, and his proposal to ascertain the longitude by a peculiar system of the variation of the compass. He was a man of industry indefatigable, of conversation inoffensive, patient of adversity and disease, eminently sober, temperate, and pious; and worthy to have ended life with better fortune.' BOSWELL.
[888] Johnson's Works, v. 49. Malone, in a note on this passage, says:—'Johnson appears to have been in this year in great pecuniary distress, having been arrested for debt; on which occasion Richardson became his surety.' He refers to the following letter in the Richardson Corres, v. 285:—