Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from His Works

by James Thomson Callender

'But the most curious kind of definitions are these œnigmatical ones of our author, by which he industriously prevents the reader from knowing the meaning of the words he explains. Thus, the hair he tells us is one of the common teguments of the body; but this will not distinguish it from the skin, and shews the extreme poverty of judgment under which the Doctor laboured, when he could not point out the distinguishing mark between the hair and skin. A dog is "a domestic animal remarkably various in his species," but this does not distinguish him, except to natural historians, from a cow, a sheep, or a hog; for of these there are also different breeds or species. A cat is "a domestic animal that catches mice;" but this may be said of an owl, or a dog; for a dog will catch mice if he sees them, though he does not watch for them as a cat does. Nay, if we happen to overlook the word animal, or not to understand it, we may mistake the cat for a mouse-trap. The earth, according to our learned author, is "the element distinct from fire, air, or water;" but this may be light or electricity as well as earth.—Air is "the element encompassing the terraqueous globe;" but an unlearned reader would be very apt to mistake this for the ocean, &c.

'When the Doctor comes to his learned definitions, he outdoes, if possible, his œnigmatical ones. Network is "any thing reticulated or decussated at equal distances." A nose is "the prominence on the face which is the organ of scent, and the emunctory of the brain."—The heart is "the muscle which by its contraction and dilatation propells the blood through the course of circulation, and is therefore considered as the source of vital motion."—Now let any person consider for whom such strange definitions can possibly be intended. To give instruction to the ignorant they certainly are not designed; neither can they give satisfaction to the learned, because they are not accurate. The nose, for instance, he says is the emunctory of the brain; but every anatomist knows that it performs no such office, neither hath the nose any communication with the brain, but by means of its nerves.—Yet this dictionary is reckoned the best English one extant. What then must the rest be; or what shall we think of those who mistake a book, stuffed with such stupid assemblages of words, for a learned composition? Definitions undoubtedly are necessary, but not such as give us no information, or lead us astray. Neither can any thing shew the sagacity, or strength of judgment, which a man possesses, more clearly than his being able to define exactly what he speaks about; while such blundering descriptions as these, above quoted, shew nothing but the Doctor's insignificance[121].'

That the courteous reader may be qualified to judge for himself, I shall now insert a variety of quotations from this wonderful, amazing, admirable, astonishing, incomparable, immortal, and inimitable book. Too much cannot be said in its praise. I shall however let it speak for itself. Every page, indeed, is so pregnant with superexcellent beauties, that in selecting them, the critic's situation resembles that of the schoolman's ass between two bundles of hay; his only difficulty is where to begin. The pious husband of Bathsheba had asked 'What is Man?' But let it be told in Rome, and published in the streets of Paris, to the honour of the English nation, that her greatest philosopher has received 300l. a-year for informing us that—

Man is a 'Human being. 2. Not a woman. 3. Not a boy. 4. Not a beast.' Woman. 'The female of the human race.' Boy. '1. A male child; not a girl. 2. One in the state of adolescence.' Girl. 'A young woman or child.' (Female child he should have said.) Damsel. 'A young gentlewoman; a wench; a country lass.' Lass. 'A girl; a maid; A young woman.' Wench. '1. A young woman. 2. A young woman in contempt. 3. A strumpet.' Strumpet. 'A whore, a prostitute.' Whore. '1. A woman who converses unlawfully with men; a fornicatress; an adultress; a strumpet. 2. a prostitute; a woman who receives men for money.' To whore, v. n. (from the noun) 'To converse unlawfully with the other sex.' To whore, v. a. 'To corrupt with regard to chastity.' Whoredom, s. (from whore) 'Fornication.' (Here follow several other definitions on the same pure subject, which every body understands as well as Dr Johnson.) Young. 'Being in the first part of life. Not old.' Youngster, younker. 'A young person.' (I pass by ten other articles, about youthful compounded of youth and full, &c. &c. because young people are in no danger of thinking themselves old.) Yuck, s. (jocken, Dutch.) 'Itch,' Old. 'Past the middle part of life; not young; not new; ancient; not modern. Of old. Long ago; from ancient times.' Hum, interj. 'A sound implying doubt and deliberation, Shakespeare.' Fiddlefaddle, s. (a cant word) 'Trifles.' Fiddlefaddle, a. 'Trifling; giving trouble.'

(——His own example strengthens all his laws,
Sam is himself the true sublime he draws.)

Fiddler, s. (from fiddle) 'A musician, one that plays upon a fiddle.' Here follow fiddlestick, compounded of fiddle and stick, and warranted an English word by Hudibras; and Fiddle-string, s. (Fiddle and string) 'the string of a fiddle. Arbuthnot.' Sheep's eye. 'A modest and diffident look, such as lovers cast at their mistresses.' Love. 'Lewdness.' And thirteen other explanations. Lovemonger. 'One who deals in affairs love.' (Besides about twenty other articles concerning this subject of equal obscurity and importance.) Sweetheart. 'A lover or mistress.' Mistress. 'A woman beloved and courted; a whore, a concubine.' Wife. 'A woman that has a husband.' A Runner. 'One who runs.' Husband. 'The correlative to wife.' Shrew. 'A peevish, malignant, clamorous, spiteful, vexatious, turbulent woman.' Scold. 'A clamorous, rude, mean, low, foul mouthed woman.' Henpecked, a. (hen and pecked) 'Governed by the wife.' Strap. 'A narrow long slip of cloth or leather.' Whip. 'An instrument of correction tough and pliant.' Cuckingstool, s. 'An engine invented for the punishment of scolds and unquiet women.' Cuckoldom. 'The state of a cuckold.' (Cuckold, s. Cuckold, v. a. Cuckoldy, a. and Cuckoldmaker, s. (compounded of cuckold, and maker) I leave out, as the reader is, perhaps, already initiated in the mysteries of that subject.) Arse, s. 'The buttocks' To hang an arse. 'To be tardy, sluggish' Buttock. 'The rump, the part near the tail' Rump. '1. The end of the backbone. 2. The buttocks.' Thimble. 'A metal cover by which women (yea and taylors too Doctor) secure their fingers from the needle.' Needle. 'A small instrument pointed at one end to pierce cloth, and perforated at the other to receive the thread.' Gunpowder. 'The powder put into guns to be fired.' Maidenhead. Maidenhode. Maidenhood. 'Virginity, virgin purity, freedom from contamination.' Oh, interj 'An exclamation denoting pain, sorrow, or surprise.' Hope 'That which gives Hope. The object of Hope.' Fear. '1. Dread; horror; apprehension of danger. 2. Awe; dejection of mind. 3. Anxiety, solicitude,' &c. Impatience. 'Heat of passion; inability to suffer delay, eagerness.' Virgin. 'A woman not a mother.' Virginity. 'Maidenhead; unacquaintance with man.' Fart. 'Wind from behind. Suckling' To fart. 'To break wind behind. Swift.' Marriage. 'The act of uniting a man and woman for life.' Repentance. 'Sorrow for any thing past.' Kiss. 'Salute given by joining lips.' Kisser. 'One that Kisses.' To piss, v. n. 'To make water. L'Estrange.' Piss s. (from the verb) 'Urine; animal water. Pope.' Pissburnt, a. 'Stained with urine.' Pedant. 'A man vain of low knowledge.'

Of these extracts, I suppose opinion is uniform. Every man who reads them, reads them with contempt. To tell us that a man is not a beast, seems to be an insult, rather than a definition. To say, that young is not old, and, that old is not young, of old, &c. is to say nothing at all. There is a medium; there is a state between these periods of life. And his definitions convey no meaning; for a man may be not old tho' he is not young. Many articles, such as whoring, whoremaster, whoremonger, whorishly, &c. are as indecent, as they are impertinent, and seem only designed to divert school boys. Hum, Yuck, Fiddle, Fiddler, Fiddlefaddle, s. Fiddlefaddle, a. Fiddlestick, Fiddlestring, Thimble, Needle, Gunpowder, Hope, O, and O—and Oh, and twenty-eight or thirty explanations of the particle on, are left without remark to the reader's penetration. Some are well enough acquainted with a maidenhead, and such as are not, will be no wiser by reading Dr Johnson: For he says, That it is virginity, and that again is explained (like more than half the words in his book) by the word it explains. Neither can a maidenhead ensure freedom from pollution; for a girl may be polluted, without losing her maidenhead; and on the other hand, the Doctor dare not say that a married woman is, for that reason, polluted. Love, he calls lewdness, and he may as well say, that light is darkness. His admirers will answer, that he also gives the right meaning; but let them tell, why he gave any besides the right meaning, and why he collected such a load of blunders into his book. Or since he did collect them, why he did not mark them down as wrong. For in the preface to his octavo, he tells us, that it is written for 'explaining terms of science.' But to select twenty barbarous misapplications of a word, is not explaining the word, but only confusion worse confounded. Indeed that whole preface is a piece of the most profound nonsense, which ever insulted the common sense of the world. A virgin, is a woman not a mother. But many wives, and many concubines too, have never propagated the species, though they had (as Othello says) a thousand times committed the act of shame. From this literary chaos, a foreigner would be apt to imagine that they were virgins.

Corking pin. 'A pin of the largest size.' Bum. 'The part upon which we sit.' Butter. 'An unctuous substance.' Buttertooth. 'The great broad foretooth.' Off. prep. 'Not on.' Potato. 'An esculent root.' Turnip. 'A white esculent root.' Parsley, 'A plant.' Parsnep. 'A plant.' Colliflower. 'Cauliflower.' Cauliflower. 'A species of cabbage.' Cabbage. 'A plant.' Pit. 'A hole in the ground.' Pin. 'A short wire, with a sharp point, and round head, used by women to fasten their cloaths.' Plate. 'A small shallow vessel of metal (or of stone or wood Doctor) on which meat is eaten.' Play. 'Not work.' Poker. 'The iron bar with which men stir the fire.' Pork. 'Swine's flesh unsalted.' (Here you may find Porker, Porkeater, Porket, Porkling, with all their derivations, definitions, and authorities.) Porridge. 'Food made by boiling meat in water.' Porridge-pot, (porridge and pot) 'The pot in which meat is boiled for a family.' Porringer, (from porridge) 'a vessel in which broth is eaten.' Part. 'Some thing less than the whole.' And thirteen other ramifications. Pulse. 'Oscillation; vibration.' Puff. 'A quick blast with the mouth.' Vid. in same page, Pudding, s. from the Swedish, (which is a mistake, for it is from the French boudin) Pudding Pie, from Pudding and Pie, and Pudding-time, from Pudding and time. Puddle, s. Puddle, v. a. & Puddly, &c. Shadow. 'Opacity, darkness, Shade.' Shade. 'The cloud or opacity made by interception of the light.' Darkness. 'Obscurity. Umbrage.' Shadiness, 'The state of being shady; umbrageousness.' Shady. 'Full of shade; MILDLY gloomy.'

(No light, but rather darkness visible.)

Sevenscore. 'Seven times twenty.' Shadowy. 'Dark, opake.' To yawn. 'To gape, to oscitate,' Yawn, s. 'Oscitation, Hiatus.' Yea. 'Yes.' Yes, 'A term of affirmation, the affirmative particle opposed to no.' See also in the same place, Yest. Year. (12 months) Yesterday, s. The day last past, the next day before to-day. Yesterday, ad. Yesternight, s. Yesternight, ad. Yet, con. Yet, ad. Nine times explained. Vent. 'A small aperture; a hole; a spiracle.' Wind. 'A flowing wave of air; flatulence; windiness.' Winker. 'One who winks.' To wink. 'To shut the eyes.'