'Many people have imagined that so extensive a work would have been best performed by a number of persons, who should have taken their several departments of examining, fitting, winnowing, purifying, and finally fixing our language by incorporating their respective funds into one joint stock.
'But, whether this opinion be true or false, I think the public in general, and the republic of letters in particular, are greatly obliged to Mr. Johnson for having undertaken and executed so great and desirable a work. Perfection is not to be expected from man; but if we are to judge by the various works of Mr. Johnson already published, we have good reason to believe that he will bring this as near to perfection as any one man could do. The plan of it, which we published some years ago, seems to me to be a proof of it. Nothing can be more rationally imagined or more accurately and elegantly expressed. I therefore recommend the previous perusal of it to all those who intend to buy the dictionary, and who, I suppose, are all those who can afford it.'
No. 103. The 'World.'—Dec. 19, 1754.
Mr. FitzAdam relates an anecdote establishing the good breeding of highwaymen of the upper class:—
'An acquaintance of mine was robbed a few years ago, and very near shot through the head by the going off of a pistol of the accomplished Mr. M'Lean, yet the whole affair was conducted with the greatest good breeding on both sides. The robber, who had only taken a purse this way because he had that morning been disappointed of marrying a great fortune, no sooner returned to his lodgings than he sent the gentleman two letters of excuses, which, with less wit than the epistles of Voltaire, had infinitely more natural and easy politeness in the turn of their expressions. In the postscript he appointed a meeting at Tyburn, at twelve at night, where the gentleman might purchase again any trifles he had lost; and my friend has been blamed for not accepting the rendezvous, as it seemed liable to be construed by ill-natured people into a doubt of the honour of a man who had given him all the satisfaction in his power for having unluckily been near shooting him through the head.'
No. 112. The 'World.'—Feb. 20, 1755.
'My cobbler is also a politician. He reads the first newspapers he can get, desirous to be informed of the state of affairs in Europe, and of the street robberies of London. He has not, I presume, analysed the interests of the respective countries of Europe, nor deeply considered those of his own; still less is he systematically informed of the political duties of a citizen and subject. But his heart and his habits supply these defects. He glows with zeal for the honour and prosperity of old England; he will fight for it if there be an occasion, and drink to it perhaps a little too often and too much. However, is it not to be wished that there were in this country six millions of such honest and zealous, though uninformed, citizens?