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 is[139], 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 colours[140].'
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 assertion[141]. 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 less[142]': 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 dictionaries[143].' 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 truth[144]. Let him distend, like the flaccid sides of a football[145], 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 race[146]. 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,'[147] &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.'
Here a schoolboy can detect the Doctor's ignorance, for every body knows that this word has the opposite meaning, which is indeed evident from the quotations that are intended to exemplify it.