ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he had
undertaken to execute.

For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses;
and let it be remembered by the natives of North-Britain, to whom he
is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of that
country. There were two Messieurs Macbean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall
hereafter see partly wrote the Lives of the Poets to which the name of
Cibber is affixed; Mr. Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at
Edinburgh; and a Mr. Maitland. The sixth of these humble assistants was
Mr. Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, and published some elementary
tracts.

To all these painful labourers, Johnson shewed a never-ceasing kindness,
so far as they stood in need of it. The elder Mr. Macbean had afterwards
the honour of being Librarian to Archibald, Duke of Argyle, for many
years, but was left without a shilling. Johnson wrote for him a Preface
to A System of Ancient Geography; and, by the favour of Lord Thurlow,
got him admitted a poor brother of the Charterhouse. For Shiels, who
died of a consumption, he had much tenderness; and it has been thought
that some choice sentences in the Lives of the Poets were supplied by
him. Peyton, when reduced to penury, had frequent aid from the bounty
of Johnson, who at last was at the expense of burying both him and his
wife.

While the Dictionary was going forward, Johnson lived part of the time
in Holborn, part in Gough-square, Fleet-street; and he had an upper room
fitted up like a counting-house for the purpose, in which he gave to
the copyists their several tasks. The words, partly taken from other
dictionaries, and partly supplied by himself, having been first written