was, that as agricultural allotments had not been thought of in the
days of Dr. Johnson, no explanation of the term in this use is to be
found in Johnson's Dictionary; as, however, this happened to be
unknown, alike to the questioner and to the House, the former missed a
chance of 'scoring' brilliantly, and the House the chance of a third
laugh, this time at the expense of the Minister. But the replies of
the latter are typical of the notions of a large number of persons,
who habitually speak of 'the Dictionary,' just as they do of 'the
Bible,' or 'the Prayer-book,' or 'the Psalms'; and who, if pressed as
to the authorship of these works, would certainly say that 'the
Psalms' were composed by David, and 'the Dictionary' by Dr. Johnson.

I have met persons of intelligence who supposed that if Dr. Johnson
was not the sole author of 'the Dictionary'--a notion which, in view
of the 'pushfulness' wherewith, in recent times, Dictionaries,
American and other, have been pressed upon public notice, is now not
so easily tenable--he was, at least, the 'original author,' from whose
capacious brain that work first emanated. Whereas, in truth, Dr.
Johnson had been preceded by scores of workers, each of whom had added
his stone or stones to the lexicographic cairn, which had already
risen to goodly proportions when Johnson made to it his own splendid
contribution.

For, the English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, is the
creation of no one man, and of no one age; it is a growth that has
slowly developed itself adown the ages. Its beginnings lie far back in
times almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, although
the English Dictionary of to-day is lineally developed from them, were
neither Dictionaries, nor even English. As to their language, they
were in the first place and principally Latin: as to their substance,