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MONDAY, JULY 6, 1936.
WHO MAKES WARS?
L})
over
I
You have heard of
Doctor
Johnson, alleged dry-as-dust classic. But did you know-
He
gave us the language
we speak.
Tivo
hundred years ago he wrote the first dictionary-because he failed as teacher
WAS in the Cheshire Cheese the other day, drinking with a friend, a foolish man whose views are always wrong, and who is always airing them.
"What about this old Dr. Johnson?" be said. "Who was
he?"
a
by
LORD
CLONMORE
their fortunes, Johnson by literature, Garrick on the stage, Garrick wal successful almost from the start, bul Johnson had to face ten years
I guessed there was something struggle and poverty. There were times when he did not have enough tiresome coming.
money to buy a night's lodging.
"Used to come in here, didn't - Wrote a dictionary, didn't. Dry old bird, I should say.".
Y
N 1747 access at
last began to come
never have been written.
To TASTE. ...$>
W
HEN he was beginning, a friend came ta aco him, and asked him how he expected to finlet the work single- handed in three years, when forty learned men of the French Academy had taken forty years to finish their work.
"Sir," said Johnson (he was alm Waya saying "Sir"), “thus it is; this is the proportion, fet mo sec; forty fine forty la sixteen hundred. As hree to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman."
Ode by Garrick
When the book was finished and an advertisement appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine," it contained
a complimentary ode by David Gar rick, which ended up:-
And Johnson welt armed like a
hero of yore,
Has heat farty French, and will
beat forty ntore."
*** To try by the mouth ; to eat; Milton, To have a smack; to produce on the palato a particular, fenfation...
Baten, Swift Tq diftinguith intellectually. Swift, 41. Toselih intellectually, to approve.
Milien. To be inflicted, orreceive fame yea lity or character. "
"Shakespiert To try the relift of any thing..
To have perception of.
To take enjoyment.
To enjoy sparingly.
TASTE, ƒ, [from the verb.]-
Dabis. Wildest
Dryden
OHNSON'S die- tionary is A bulky work, and was originally publish- ed in two voltine, 1 think most of the inter editions are in four. If you should be in the neighbourhood of Eton, to the
П
It is
ool Ibrary and
pen to the you will find a first edition of the diction. ary resting the desk at which Johnsen
worked. iiton
r. The act of tailing quitation. Milich
2. The fenfe by which the relifh of any thing on the palate ja perceived.
Blend Bacon, Waller, That fenfation which all things taken into the mouth give particularly to the tongue,
4. Intellectual rellsh or difceriment.
Hesker Milton?
5. An effiya trial ;' an experiment.
Shakespeare.
the
gentleman Part of a page
The book is full of Interesting information in addition to ledni- tions of words. John- son backs up most of lyin
definitions
with
quotations from Eng- lish nuthors, and from these it is clear that his rending must have been extremely wide.
He was fL violent, vivacious
JIAN,
with strong loves and hater, and now and then he can no longer contain himself.
For instance, he hated the Excise aystem which was imposed at the
time, and defines Exeled commodities and ad-
au" hateful tax levied
Judged not by the com mon juiges of property. but wretches hired by those to whom Excise definition pah." For this he
IR given the name of narrowly escaped being who scd prosecuted.
Johnson was the first With rack You may agree with my friend in the Cheshire Cheese and say this is man to put into print all dull. You may be dull like him, everything that could be -the author You may say that dictionaries are known about the English language. usefid books, that you can buy the But for him, you and I might be for sixpence, nowadays, and that the less you hear about them the better. talking and writing entirely different
I hate a fool, and I hate to hearer But my friend thought he was in a foot discussing sensible people.
teresting me. He went on with n lot of talk about dry-as-dust professors and that sort of thing.
It may seem to you that a mus English from the English' we use to- who is prepared to write a dictionary day. must either be a mechanical des Helped by
(** 0 pedantic old Cool. Juhnson himself when he wrote his dictionary described--2--lexicographer as writer of dictionaries, a harness drudge."
Six Writers_
He was at work on it for eight years, though he was optimistic enough at first to think it would take Alm only three, He did all the dificult work alone, and was helped But Johnson and his dictionary by six writers who. attended to the
fne from dull. Until that mechanical side.
A Boisterous Like the deaf adéur, I stopped up manufac- my ears. It set me thinking, how-
Gentleman ever, and I remembered that for about ten years I had neglected one of the most enjoyable books ever written. Boswell's "Life of Jolmson."
He hated the Scots, and says, of oats that it is a grain which in England is usually given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."
The Government in power in his day was undoubtedly corrupt, and he disapproved of it. Pensions were one "of the politician's-menna-of-gaining his ends; ho therefore says that a pension is "an allowance made to nny- one without an equivalent. In Eng- land it is generally understood t mean pay to a State hireling for treason to his country." Pension Doubts
Who makes wars? This ques- tion has been engaging the at- tention of the British Press Intterly, and there is, as might be expected, considerable diver- sity of view on the subject. During the Great War, American diplomat asserted that it was "is King business" that he? was, responsible. But since he?
his way, as he was hotsteroUK those days, many Kings have
comissioned to write a dictionary of came along and, as a OU'D have found the English language, and for this contemporary said, "sta- vanished and war clouds, denser
he was to be paid £1,500 (te him dry," I uhswer-
English from Johnson's than over, seem to hang
enough, if one thinks of the labour bilised „ed, "You'd find and expense involved): If his school ngunge," there wer the world. Some lay the guilt anybody dry who wasn't like a P. G. had not failed his dictionary might to real dictionaries in
dictionary England. at the door of the professional | Wodehouse hero. Have some more soldier, but here, again, there is beer and we'll talk about something scarcely an old soldier who more in your line." knows war who does not de- nounce it in unmeasured tones. At the recent annual conference of the British Legion, which was attended by many
foreign soldiers, high-placed, officers of Something various nationalities expressed a went Wrong: sincere desire never to see war again. Armament turers are also blamed, but there were wars in plenty before these big concerns came into being and when there were no large profits to be made out of war. Some say that the origin of most wars is to be laid at the door of politicians and diplomatists who entangle themselves among their own swords and cannot cut their way out except by the sword. The answer to the query has still to be found, but this much School Had can be said that whoever is to Two Pupils blame it is not the people. No In 1738 they invested the money in nation persistently and con- school for boys at Edinl, in Stafford. sistently desires and plans wars.
shire. The school was a complete failure. They were only able to get There is another fact, which is
two pupils. One of these was David deserving of emphasis when con- Garrick, who afterwards became the sidering this matter-namely, famous netor. that when a war ends' no-one) When the school failed, Johnson respects his late enemy ardently and sincerely than the men who have done.the fighting.devotion of the British sailors That point was made plain while who fought in the war. An- the Great War was going on, other gratifying feature of the and since then there have been Jutland' commemoration Was many proofs that whoever that the British and German wishes to keep up evil feeling, communities. in. Gothenburg,
And then I found that it was 200 years ago this year when something went wrong indirectly caused us to be given the first complete English dictionary.
Mrs.
In 1735 a clever but penniless young lnitis from Lichfield called Samuel Johnson Porter, a widow much older than himself, who had a little fortune.
married
more
and Garrick came to London to reck ་་་
it is not the old soldier or sailor. Sweden, for the first time held a A British ex-naval officer who
witnessed the dedication of the common service in memory of naval memorial at Kiel says he the dead. These are points was particularly impressed by which we should do well to bear the friendly feeling that alt in mind amid all our fears of Germans he met have for Great the future. And the thought Britain and the British people, can hardly be escaped that upon At the same gathering, the such a structure it should be German Commander-in-Chief possible to lay the foundations paid a generous tribute to the of a great and lasting peace.
Werd
SIDE GLANCES
By George Clark
“You see, we couldn't pay the doctor as much as he ust- ally gets, so we named the baby after him to`sort of
make up for it."
It is not surprising that when King George II, eventually gave Dr. John son a pension of £100 a year, he was not sure if he ought to accept it.
Some of his writing we might think rather pompous and obscure. What about litla sentence from the preface to his dietionary: "When the radical idea branches out into parallel rumi- fications, how can n' consecutive series be formed of senses in their own no- ture collateral"?
Boswell, his biographer, thought this wonderful, and quotes it us an example of how clearly he wrote, but I doubt if even Gertrude Stein could be more difficult to understand.
He Wasn't Handsome
Johnson was certainly no sourfaved petant, but he cannot have been hand-
some.
His wife said that when he was first introduced to her "his appearance was very forbidding; he was then leah and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrophula were deeply vigible.""
But Johnson was a geniai, kindly iman, who loved good food and the company of his friends, and though ho was usually bullying and bluster- ing in conversation, was never happy as when sitting in a tavern with his friends, or, better still,in post-chalec
·RO
JOHNSON was.
D"much of a dohn Bull,
Haya Boswell. He was. He was what all good John Bulls ought to be, a lover of friends and good living, and a hater of fools and knaves, especially of fools,
If you want to think of the real Johnson you must see hini, not poring ovor his books in the garret where he worked, but enjoying good food and company in the tavern.