214 Anecdotes and Remarks
arrangement of all the words in the English language, and then hunt through the whole compass of English literature for all their different significations, would have taken the whole life of any individual ; but Johnson, who, among other peculiarities of his character, excelled most men in contriving the best means to accomplish any end, devised the following mode for completing his Dictionary, as he himself expressly described to the writer of this account. He began his task by devoting his first care to a diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in their language z , and under every sentence which he meant to quote, he drew a line, and noted in the margin the first letter of the word under which it was to occur. He then delivered these books to his clerks, who transcribed each sentence on a separate slip of paper, and arranged the same under the word referred to. By these means he collected the several words and their different significations ; and when the whole arrangement was alphabetically formed, he gave the definitions of their meanings, and collected their etymologies from Skinner, Junius 2 , and other writers on the subject. In completing his alphabetical arrangement, he, no doubt, would recur to former dictionaries 3 , to see if any words had escaped him ; but this, which Mr. Boswell makes the first step in the business, was in reality the last ; and it was doubtless to this happy arrangement that Johnson effected in a few years what employed the foreign academies nearly half a century.
Mr. Boswell objects to the title of Rambler, which he says was ill-suited to a series of grave and moral discourses, and is translated into Italian // Vagabonds, as also because the same
1 It was in this work that he ac- in Cambridge has recorded that Bent- quired a great part of his extra- ley said he thought himself likely to ordinary knowledge of books. ' Dr. live to fourscore, an age long enough Adam Smith (writes Boswell) once to read everything which was worth observed to me that "Johnson knew reading.' Monk's Bentley, ii. 412. more books than any man alive." ' 2 For Francis Junius and Stephen Life, i. 71. 'I never knew a man Skinner see Life, i. 186. who studied hard (said Johnson). 3 * An interleaved copy of Bailey's I conclude, indeed, from the effects, dictionary in folio he made the repo- that some men have studied hard, as sitory of the several articles.' Haw- Bentley and Clarke.' Ib. ' Tradition kins, p. 175.
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