down with spaces left between them, he delivered in writing their
etymologies, definitions, and various significations. The authorities
were copied from the books themselves, in which he had marked the
passages with a black-lead pencil, the traces of which could easily be
effaced. I have seen several of them, in which that trouble had not
been taken; so that they were just as when used by the copyists. It is
remarkable, that he was so attentive in the choice of the passages in
which words were authorised, that one may read page after page of
his Dictionary with improvement and pleasure; and it should not pass
unobserved, that he has quoted no authour whose writings had a tendency
to hurt sound religion and morality.

The necessary expense of preparing a work of such magnitude for the
press, must have been a considerable deduction from the price stipulated
to be paid for the copy-right. I understand that nothing was allowed by
the booksellers on that account; and I remember his telling me, that a
large portion of it having by mistake been written upon both sides of
the paper, so as to be inconvenient for the compositor, it cost him
twenty pounds to have it transcribed upon one side only.

He is now to be considered as 'tugging at his oar,' as engaged in a
steady continued course of occupation, sufficient to employ all his time
for some years; and which was the best preventive of that constitutional
melancholy which was ever lurking about him, ready to trouble his quiet.
But his enlarged and lively mind could not be satisfied without more
diversity of employment, and the pleasure of animated relaxation. He
therefore not only exerted his talents in occasional composition
very different from Lexicography, but formed a club in Ivy-lane,
Paternoster-row, with a view to enjoy literary discussion, and amuse his
evening hours. The members associated with him in this little society