first dictionary which could be read with pleasure. The
definitions show so much acuteness of thought and command of
language, and the passages quoted from poets, divines, and
philosophers are so skilfully selected, that a leisure hour may
always be very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. The
faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, into
one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He knew
little or nothing of any Teutonic language except English, which
indeed, as he wrote it, was scarcely a Teutonic language; and
thus he was absolutely at the mercy of Junius and Skinner.

The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added nothing to
his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas which the
booksellers had agreed to pay him had been advanced and spent
before the last sheets issued from the press. It is painful to
relate that, twice in the course of the year which followed the
publication of this great work, he was arrested and carried to
spunging-houses, and that he was twice indebted for his liberty
to his excellent friend Richardson. It was still necessary for
the man who had been formally saluted by the highest authority as
Dictator of the English language to supply his wants by constant
toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He proposed to bring out an
edition of Shakspeare by subscription; and many subscribers sent
in their names and laid down their money; but he soon found the
task so little to his taste that he turned to more attractive
employments. He contributed many papers to a new monthly
journal, which was called the Literary Magazine. Few of these
papers have much interest; but among them was the very best thing
that he ever wrote, a masterpiece both of reasoning and of
satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyn's Inquiry into the