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Table of Contents
  • Audiet Pugnas vitio Parentum / Rara Juventus. Hor: Young men—the few who are left after the crimes of their fathers—will hear of battles. [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Bonae leges ex malis moribus proveniunt: Good laws spring from bad habits [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Malos tueri haud tutum: Save a thief from the gallows and he’ll cut your throat [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam Praemia si tollas?: For who embraces virtue herself, if you take away the reward? [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Adjecere bonae paulo plus artis Athenae: Kind Athens Added a Little More Skill [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Mea nec Falernae Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles: Neither Falernian vines nor Formian hills mellow my cups [School and College Latin Exercises]
  • Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School
  • Advertisement for the School at Edial
  • Observations on Common Sense
  • Preface to the 1738 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • Letter to the Gentleman's Magazine on Political Journalism
  • Appeal to the Publick
  • To the Reader. [Gentleman’s Magazine]
  • Considerations on the case of Dr T.—s Sermons abridg’d by Mr Cave
  • The Jests of Hierocles
  • Preface to the 1741 Volume of the Gentleman's Magazine
  • Review of An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough
  • Proposals for Printing, by Subscription, the Two First Volumes of Bibliotheca Harleiana
  • An Account of the Harleian Library
  • Notice in Volume Two of Catalogus Bibliothecae Harleianae
  • Proposals for Printing, by Subscription, the Harleian Miscellany with An Account of this Undertaking
  • Introduction to the Harleian Miscellany: An Essay on the Origin and Importance of Small Tracts and Fugitive Pieces
  • Preface to the 1742 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • Dedication for Robert James's Medicinal Dictionary
  • Preface to the 1743 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • PROPOSALS For Printing every Fortnight, (Price Sixpence) THE PUBLISHER: CONTAINING MISCELLANIES In PROSE and VERSE. Collected by J. CROKATT, Bookseller.
  • Proposals for Printing Anchitell Grey's Debates
  • Some Remarks on the Progress of Learning Since the Reformation
  • Proposals for Printing by Subscription Hugonis Grotii Adamus Exul
  • Postscript to Lauder’s Essay on Milton’s Use and Imitation of the Moderns
  • A Letter to the Reverend Mr. Douglas
  • Preface to The Preceptor
  • The signification of WORDS how varied
  • Letter Concerning the Benefit Performance of Comus for Milton's Granddaughter
  • Proposals for printing by subscription, Essays in Verse and Prose.
  • Notice of The life of Harriot Stuart
  • Dedication to The Female Quixote
  • Dedication to Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully
  • Dedication to Philander
  • Dedication to The Greek Theatre of Father Brumoy
  • Dedication to Henrietta, 2nd Ed.
  • Proposals for Printing by Subscription The Original Works of Mrs. Charlotte Lennox
  • Letter to the Daily Advertiser concerning James Crokatt
  • Preface to A General Index of the First Twenty Volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine
  • Preface to the 1753 Volume of the Gentleman’s Magazine
  • An Account of an Attempt to Ascertain the Longitude by Sea, by an Exact Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Needle
  • Dedication and Preface to An Introduction to the Game of Draughts (1756)
  • Dedication to An Introduction to Geometry (1767)
  • Preface to Richard Rolt, A New Dictionary of Trade and Commerce
  • Reflections on the Present State of Literature
  • TO THE PUBLIC
  • Review of John Armstrong, The History of the Island of Minorca (1756)
  • Review of Stephen White, Collateral Bee-Boxes (1756)
  • Review of Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society, vols. 1–2 (1756)
  • Review of Arthur Murphy, The Gray’s-Inn Journal, 2 vols. (1756)
  • Review of Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756)
  • Review of James Hampton, The General History of Polybius (1756)
  • Review of Thomas Blackwell, Memoirs of the Court of Augustus (1753–56)
  • Review of Alexander Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo (1756)
  • Review of Four Letters from Newton to Bentley (1756)
  • Review of William Borlase, Observations on the Islands of Scilly (1756)
  • Review of Archibald Bower, Affidavit (1756); John Douglas, Six Letters and Review of Mr. Bower’s Answer (1757); and John Douglas, Bower and Tillemont Compared (1757)
  • Review of Francis Home, Experiments on Bleaching (1756)
  • Review of Stephen Hales, An Account of a Useful Discovery (1756)
  • Review of Charles Lucas, An Essay on Waters (1756)
  • Review of Robert Keith, A Large New Catalogue of the Bishops (1756)
  • Review of Patrick Browne, The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica (1756)
  • Review of Charles Parkin, An Impartial Account of the Invasion under William Duke of Normandy (1756)
  • Review of A Scheme for Preventing a Further Increase of the National Debt (1756)
  • Review of Conferences and Treaties (1756)
  • Review of Philosophical Transactions (1756)
  • Review of Richard Lovett, The Subtil Medium Prov’d (1756)
  • Review of Benjamin Hoadley and Benjamin Wilson, Observations on a Series of Electrical Experiments (1756)
  • Review of Johann Georg Keyssler, Travels (1756)
  • Review of Elizabeth Harrison, Miscellanies (1756)
  • Review of Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey (1757)
  • Review of Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey, Second Edition (1757)
  • Reply to a Letter from Jonas Hanway in the Gazetteer (1757)
  • Review of Samuel Bever, The Cadet (1756)
  • Review of the Test and Con-Test (1756)
  • Review of William Whitehead, Elegies (1757)
  • Review of A Letter to a Gentleman in the Country on the Death of Admiral Byng (1757)
  • Preliminary Discourse in the London Chronicle
  • Advertisement for Francis Barber in the Daily Advertiser
  • "Dedication to John Lindsay, Evangelical History of Our Lord Jesus Christ Harmonized
  • Introduction to the Universal Chronicle (1758)
  • Of the Duty of a Journalist (1758)
  • Advertisement Against Unauthorized Reprints of the Idler (1759)
  • Advertisement for the Public Ledger in the Universal Chronicle (1760)
  • To The Public in the Public Ledger (1760)
  • The Weekly Correspondent Number I [Public Ledger]
  • The Weekly Correspondent Number II [Public Ledger]
  • The Weekly Correspondent Number III [Public Ledger]
  • Preface to J. Elmer, Tables of Weights and Prices
  • From The Italian Library Containing an Account of the Lives and Works of the most valuable authors of Italy (1757)
  • Proposals for Printing by Subscription, Le Poesie di Giuseppe Baretti (1758)
  • Dedication to A Dictionary of the English and Italian Languages (1760)
  • Preface to Easy Phraseology, for the Use of Young Ladies Who Intend to Learn the Colloquial Part of the Italian Language (1775)
  • Advertisement [For The World Displayed]
  • Introduction (1759) [From The World Displayed]
  • Advertisement for Pilgrim's Progress
  • Letter I. [Daily Gazetteer]
  • Letter II. [Daily Gazetteer]
  • Letter III. [Daily Gazetteer]
  • Letter to the Society of Arts (26 February 1760)
  • Letter to the Society of Arts (8 December 1760)
  • Address of the Painter’s, Sculptors, &Architects to George III (1761)
  • Preface to A Catalogue of the Pictures, Sculptures, Models, Drawings, Prints, &c Exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great-Britain at the Great Room in Spring Gardens Charing Cross May the 17th Anno 1762 Being the Third year of their Exhibition (1762)
  • Review of William Tytler, Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Evidence Produced … Against Mary Queen of Scots
  • Contributions to John Kennedy, A Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, Unfolding the Scriptures
  • Proposals and Advertisement [for Anna Williams, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse] (1762)
  • Advertisement [for Anna Williams, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse] (1766)
  • Dedication to Jerusalem Delivered (1763)
  • Dedication to The Works of Metastasio (1767)
  • Dedication to Cyrus: A Tragedy (1768)
  • Review of Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller
  • Dedication for Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
  • 23 Sept. 1765 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1–4 Oct. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 20 Nov. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 19 Dec. 1765. [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 24 December 1765 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 3 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 8 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 14 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 23 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 23 March 1768 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 13 March 1769 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 1 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 13 October 1774 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 September 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 4 September 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • 5 Sept. 1780 [Political Writing for Henry Thrale]
  • Dedication for George Adams, A Treatise Describing and Explaining the Construction and Use of New Celestial and Terrestrial Globes
  • Dedication to John Gwynn, London and Westminster Improved
  • Preface to Alexander MacBean, A Dictionary of Ancient Geography
  • Meditation on a Pudding
  • Hereford Infirmary Appeal
  • Dedication for A General History of Music (1776)
  • From A General History of Music, Vol. II (1782)
  • Dedication to An Account of the Musical Performance . . . in Commemoration of Handel (1785)
  • Advertisement for the Spectator
  • Dedication to Zachary Pearce, A Commentary, with Notes, on the Four Evangelists and the Acts of the Apostles
  • Letter of 16 May 1777
  • The Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council Assembled, Friday 6 June 1777
  • Letter to Lord Bathurst, the Lord Chancellor, 8 June 1777
  • Letter to William Murray, First Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, Wednesday, 11 June 1777
  • Petition of Mrs. Mary Dodd to the Queen
  • Dodd’s Letter to the King, Sunday, 22 June 1777
  • Petition of William Dodd to the King, Monday, 23 June 1777
  • Dodd’s Last Solemn Declaration, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Johnson’s Observations on the Propriety of Pardoning William Dodd, Wednesday, 25 June 1777
  • Introduction and Conclusion to Occasional Papers (1777)
  • Proposal for Printing William Shaw, An Analysis of the Scotch Celtic Language
  • Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Seven Discourses
  • Preface to Thomas Maurice, Oedipus Tyrannus
  • The Case of Collier v. Flint
  • Translation of Sallust, De Bello Catilinario
  • General Rules of the Essex Head Club
  • On the Character and Duty of an Academick
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The signification of WORDS how varied
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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS HOW VARIED (1749)
[Editorial Introduction]
Johnson signed the contract for his Dictionary of the English Language on 18 June 1746.1 He had finished his preliminary “Short Scheme for compiling a new Dictionary of the English language” a bit earlier, on April 30. On 6 August 1748, Thomas Birch reported to Philip Yorke that the amanuenses “have almost transcribed the authorities.”2 It is clear, then, that Johnson was at work on the Dictionary and had begun collecting his illustrative quotations in February of 1749 when the following article appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine, in the form of a letter to Edward Cave, the proprietor, known in the publication as Mr. Urban (XIX.65–66). The letter is signed with the initials “W. S.,” which seem to point to William Strahan, the printer of the Dictionary.3 Strahan is not known to have written for the Gentleman’s Magazine, however, nor was Johnson known to have used the initials W. S., so the initials may not be good clues to discovering authorship in this case. Whoever wrote the piece was familiar with the “authorities” that Johnson was collecting at this time, as the notes below will show. Johnson may have given some notes and quotations to the author, or he may be the author himself. The latter seems more likely to us, although there is not enough independent, clearly Johnsonian prose to make a positive identification.4


Page 194

The signification of WORDS how varied
Mr Urban,
One of the most peculiar circumstances relating to language is the mutation of the sense of words in different ages, so that the same word to which a good meaning was formerly affixed, may now have a signification directly opposite. This happens so universally, that, I believe, no language, whether antient or modern, has been exempted from it; but the change proceeds so slowly and insensibly, that the life of one man is not sufficient to afford him an opportunity of perceiving the change. With regard to our own language, if we look into those authors who flourish’d a century and half ago, numerous instances will occur; and the reading of the following passage in Turberville’s 2d Eclogue, a gentleman who was educated at Oxford, and wrote in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, led me into this observation.
Among the rest of all the route, A passing proper lass, A white-hair’d trull of twenty yeares, Or neere about, there was; In stature passing all the rest, A gallant girl for hewe; To be compar’d to townish nimphs, So faire she was to viewe. Her forehead cloth with gold was purld A little, here and there; With copper clasp about her neck A kerchief did she weare, That reached to her breast and paps: The wench about her wast, A gallant gaudy riband had, That girt her body fast.1


Page 195

Here we find the poet in describing an innocent country beauty, does not scruple to call her a trull, which now signifies a strumpet. Dr Swift says,
So Mævius, when he drain’d his skull, To celebrate some suburb trull; His similies in order set, And ev’ry crambo he could get; And gone thro’ all the common places, Worn out by wits who rhime on faces, Before he could his poem close, The lovely nymph had lost her nose.2
In the same manner Turberville puts wench for a young woman, which is now rarely used, but by way of contempt, and seems to be threatned with the same fate that trull has received.3 The alteration of knave, which formerly signify’d a servant,4 and of villain, a sort of slave, is generally known.5Pedant anciently meant a schoolmaster; thus Shakespear in his Twelfth Nighta mentions
A pedant that keeps a school i’th’ church.
But this word now gives an idea of a stiff, formal, and unpolished man of literature. Thus Addison in his whig examiner:
The remaining part of the preface has so much of the pedant, and so little of the conversation of man in it, that I shall pass over it.


Page 196

And Swift:
In learning let a nymph delight,
The pedant gets a mistress by’t.6
In like manner, leech anciently signify’d a physician.
And straightway sent with careful diligence,
To fetch a leech, the which had great insight
In that disease of grieved conscience;
And well could cure the same: his name was Patience.
Spenser’s Fairy Queen.
Even Dryden uses it in this sense.
Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pains pronounce the humours crude;
Deaf to complaints they wait upon the ill,
’Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.7
Roscommon has thus described the insect which has now usurped this name by being used in bleeding.
Sticking like leeches till they burst with blood.8
Leechcraft was also used for physick.
We study speech, but others we persuade,
We leechcraft learn, but others cure with it.
Sir John Davis.9
The word dame, says Dr Watts, in his Logick, originally signify’d a mistress of a family, who was a lady, and it is used still in the English law to signify a lady; but in common use now-a-days


Page 197

it represents a farmer’s wife, or a mistress of a family of the lower rank in the country.1
Tho’ the cause of such mutations may be principally ascribed to the caprice of mankind, yet much may be imputed to words being debased by vulgar use. An instance of this kind we have in the word lawyer, a name vulgarly given to every the2 meanest pettifogger;3 every farrier, little apothecary, or surgeon’s mate, is also commonly honoured with the title of doctor; even chimney doctors are become frequent.4 So that doctor and lawyer will, perhaps, in time undergo the same change, with leech and pedant, though physician and counsellor still retain their dignity.
However, it is hoped, that our language will be more fixed, and better established when the publick is favoured with a new dictionary, undertaken with that view, and adapted to answer several other valuable purposes; a work now in great forwardness.
W. S.


Page 198

Editorial Notes
1 Life, I.182–83; Hawkins, Life, p. 208n.
2 Allen Reddick, The Making of Johnson’s Dictionary, 1746–1773 (1990; rev. ed., 1996), p. 42, citing British Library Add MS 35397, f. 140. Cf. Sledd and Kolb, p. 143.
3 Arthur Sherbo seriously considers this possibility in “Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary: A Preliminary Puff,” Modern Philology, 31 (1952), 91–93.
4 Reddick treats this piece and argues that SJ “had a hand in the preparation” of it (The Making of Johnson’s Dictionary, p. 42). Kolb and DeMaria came to a similar conclusion but decided against including the piece in Johnson on the English Language (Yale, XVIII) because “the writing is not irrefutably Johnson’s, and the quotations, which certainly come from Johnson’s labors, belong to the body of, not the preliminaries to, the Dictionary” (pp. xi–xii).
1 George Turberville, “The ii. Egloge entituled Fortunatus,” in The Eglogs of the Poet B[aptista] Mantuan Carmelitan, turned into English verse” (1567), fols. 14r–v. Dictionary includes the first eight lines, with slight changes in illustration of trull, sense 2. SJ comments, “It seems to have had at first at least a neutral sense; a girl; a lass; a wench.” SJ cites Baptista Spagnuoli Mantuan in his brief history of pastoral poetry in his Life of Ambrose Philips (Yale, XXIII.1312–13).
2 “To Stella, Who Collected and Transcribed His Poems,” ll. 71–78. In Dictionary, SJ quotes the first four and last two lines in illustration of trull, sense 1, and the first four lines alone in illustration of crambo (“A play at which one gives a word, to which another finds a rhyme; a rhyme”).
3 In Dictionary, SJ traces the meaning of wench from “1. A young woman” to “2. A young woman in contempt; a strumpet” to “3. A strumpet.”
4 In Dictionary, SJ defines knave as “1. A boy; a male child” and “2. A servant,” adding to the second definition the remark, “Both of these are obsolete.”
5 SJ defines villain as “One who held by a base tenure” (Dictionary, sense 1); he illustrates the meaning with a quotation from John Davies: “The Irish inhabiting the lands fully conquered, being in condition of slaves and villains, did render a greater revenue, than if they had been made the king’s free subjects” (Historical Relations, or, A Discovery of the True Causes Why Ireland Was Never Intirely Subdu’d nor Brought Under Obedience of the Crown of England [1666], p. 130).
a Twelfth Night emend.] TwelfthNight GM
6 In Dictionary, SJ defines pedant as “1. A schoolmaster” and “2. A man vain of low knowledge; a man awkwardly ostentatious of his literature.” He uses the quotation from Twelfth Night (III. ii.75–76) under sense 1, and the quotations from Addison (Whig Examiner, no. 1, 14 September 1710) and Swift (Cadenus and Vanessa, ll. 742–43) under sense 2.
7 In Dictionary, SJ’s first definition of leech is “A physician; a professor of the art of healing; whence we still use cowleech.” He adduces the passage from Spenser (Faerie Queene, I.10.xvi), omitting the first line and the first two words of the second line. He also uses the above passage from Dryden (Astraea Redux, ll. 175–78), omitting the second line and the last three words of the fourth.
8 Illustrating his second definition of leech in Dictionary (“A kind of small water serpent”), SJ uses the line from Roscommon (Horace’s Art of Poetry, third to last line) plus the next half line.
9 In Dictionary, SJ defines leechcraft as “The art of healing” and cites these lines from Davies (Nosce Teipsum, “Of Humane Knowledge,” ll. 101–2).
1 SJ refers to Watts’s Logic (8th ed., 1745), p. 50, which appears in illustration of dame in Dictionary (sense 1). SJ’s copy of Watts (8th ed.) marked up for inclusion in the Dictionary is in the British Library (C.28.g.9).
2 Every the: a now obsolete expression meaning “even the,” OED, s.v. every, 1c. This sense is not in Dictionary.
3 In Dictionary, SJ does not render the mutation of lawyer. He defines pettifogger, however, as “A petty small-rate lawyer.”
4 SJ’s first two definitions of doctor in Dictionary display some of the mutation he remarks here. He says in sense 1, “In its original import it means a man so well versed in his faculty, as to be qualified to teach it,” but sense 2 is merely “A man skilled in any profession.”
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Document Details
Document TitleThe signification of WORDS how varied
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1749
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorN/A
ClassificationSubject: Words; Subject: Language; Subject: Usage; Subject: Linguistics; Subject: Dictionary; Genre: Philology; Genre: Linguistic; pseud: W. S.
PrinterN/A
PublisherEdward Cave
Publ. PlaceLondon
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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