The
Plan of a Dictionary, 1747
Sir—I too am a student of meaning,
of sounds and recalcitrant hopes, a thing
the tongue holds, turns, and lets by, and
therefore
intimate with scope and detail, and for
my efforts in the matter stand apart
from others, viz, a servant of this art.
Persons of like bearing; ruffian, priest,
all in their places high or low, the least
of whom considers his fellow’s words, knows
them as they were known from infancy, blows
a merry smoke of guile or trust. It reads
against itself, for signatures are seeds
in dusty soil, and will not make a crop.
The meaning heard is understood. The sop
who listens, hears. Who calls a horse by
name,
understands the measure of the road. Shame
dogs the rest, whom for bough imagine bow.
My point is this, describe a farmer’s plough
by its purpose to that industry, set
it to its furrow, and meaning will be met,
truly. All things are so, all words and ways
by which the mind is pricked, all signs and
days.
For my model, schoolboy Latin Grammar,
keen Rhetoric, and Shakespeare – hammer
and forge, the New, and so metamorphose
to lead this nomenclature by the nose.
How the book runs, Sir, words in their habit
and condition, I will undertake it –
improve the state of these asides, infer
this humdrum civility of manner
a dirt beneath the nail, yet not offend
subscribers it may by and by befriend.
Our follies may be dressed, and for amusement
stripped of any sense, through taste,
argument,
and the subtle starting of alphabet
in sequences according to this set
of bold parameters. Be advised, this
enterprise is Hydra-headed, its hiss
and slither précis to its bite and fire.
I remain, Sir, Yours – Sam. Johnson, Esquire.
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