but by turning to the reference in the printed volumes. Some indulgence
nevertheless may well be claimed and granted. If Homer at times nods, an
index-maker may be pardoned, should he in the fourth or fifth month of
his task at the end of a day of eight hours' work grow drowsy. May I
fondly hope that to the maker of so large an Index will be extended the
gratitude which Lord Bolingbroke says was once shown to lexicographers?
'I approve,' writes his Lordship, 'the devotion of a studious man at
Christ Church, who was overheard in his oratory entering into a detail
with God, and acknowledging the divine goodness in furnishing the world
with makers of dictionaries[32].'

In the list that I give in the beginning of the sixth volume of the
books which I quote, the reader will find stated in full the titles
which in the notes, through regard to space, I was forced to compress.

The Concordance of Johnson's sayings which follows the Index[33] will be
found convenient by the literary man who desires to make use of his
strong and pointed utterances. Next to Shakespeare he is, I believe,
quoted and misquoted the most frequently of all our writers. 'It is not
every man that can _carry_ a _bon-mot_[34].' Bons-mots that are
miscarried of all kinds of good things suffer the most. In this
Concordance the general reader, moreover, may find much to delight him.
Johnson's trade was wit and wisdom[35], and some of his best wares are
here set out in a small space. It was, I must confess, with no little
pleasure that in revising my proof-sheets I found that the last line in
my Concordance and the last line in my six long volumes is Johnson's
quotation of Goldsmith's fine saying; 'I do not love a man who is
zealous for nothing.'

In the 'forward' references in the notes to other passages in the book,