Life of Johnson, Volume 6 | Page 8

suspected that it is as you say, and have told Mr. Dodsley of it. It proceeds from the haste of the amanuensis to get to the end of his day's work. I have desired the passages to be clipped close, and then perhaps for two or three leaves it is done. But since poor Stuart's time I could never get that part of the work into regularity, and perhaps never shall. I will try to take some more care but can promise nothing; when I am told there is a sheet or two I order it away. You will find it sometimes close; when I make up any myself, which never happens but when I have nobody with me, I generally clip it close, but one cannot always be on the watch.
'I am Sir, Your most, &c. 'SAM. JOHNSON.'
These letters refer to the printing of the Dictionary, of which Dodsley and Millar were two among the proprietors, and Strahan the printer. Francis Stuart or Stewart was one of Johnson's amanuenses (ante, i. 187). In 1779 Johnson paid his sister a guinea for an old pocket-book of her brother's (ante, iii. 418), and wrote on April 8,1780 (ante, iii. 421):--'The memory of her brother is yet fresh in my mind; he was an ingenious and worthy man.' In February 1784 he gave her another guinea for a letter relating to himself that he had found in the pocket-book (ante, iv. 262). A writer in the _Gent. Mag._ for 1799, p. 1171, who had been employed in Strahan's printing-works, says that 'Stewart was useful to Johnson in the explanation of low cant phrases; all words relating to gambling and card-playing, such as _All-Fours_, _Catch-honours_ [not in Johnson's Dictionary], Cribbage [merely defined as _A game at cards_], were said to be Stewart's corrected by the Doctor.' He adds that after the printing had gone on some time 'the proprietors of the Dictionary paid Johnson through Mr. Strahan at the rate of a guinea for every sheet of MS. copy delivered. The copy was written upon quarto post, and in two columns each page. Johnson wrote in his own hand the words and their explanation, and generally two or three words in each column, leaving a space between each for the authorities, which were pasted on as they were collected by the different amanuenses employed: and in this mode the MS. was so regular that the sheets of MS. which made a sheet of print could be very exactly ascertained.' The same writer states that Stewart in a night ramble in Edinburgh with some of his drinking companions 'met with the mob conducting Captain Porteous to be hanged; they were next day examined about it before the Town Council, when, as Stewart used to say, "we were found to be too drunk to have any hand in the business." He gave an accurate account of it in the Edinburgh Magazine of that time.'
V.
_A letter about Miss Williams, taxes due, and a journey; undated, but perhaps written at Oxford in 1754_.[In the possession of Mr. Frederick Barker.]
'SIR,
'I shall not be long here, but in the mean time if Miss Williams wants any money pray speak to Mr. Millar and supply her, they write to me about some taxes which I wish you would pay.
'My journey will come to very little beyond the satisfaction of knowing that there is nothing to be done, and that I leave few advantages here to those that shall come after me.
'I am Sir, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'My compliments to Mrs. Strahan.
To Mr. Strahan.'
Miss Williams came to live with Johnson after his wife's death in 1752 (ante, i. 232). The fact that Strahan is asked to supply her with money after speaking to Mr. Millar seems to show that this letter was written some time before the publication of the Dictionary in April 1755. Millar 'took the principal charge of conducting its publication,' and Johnson 'had received all the copy-money, by different drafts, a considerable time before he had finished his task' (ante, i. 287).
His 'journey' may have been his visit to Oxford in the summer of 1754. He went there, because, 'I cannot,' he said, 'finish my book [the Dictionary] to my mind without visiting the libraries' (ante, i. 270). According to Thomas Warton 'he collected nothing in the libraries for his _Dictionary_' (ib n. 5). It is perhaps to this failure that the latter part of the letter refers, Johnson's visit, however, was one of five weeks, while the first line of the letter shews that he intended to be away from London but a short time.
VI.
_A letter about 'Rasselas,' dated_ Jan. 20, 1759.[In the possession of Mr. Frederick Barker.]
'When I was with you last night I told you of a story which I was preparing for the press. The title