The Preface to A Dictionary of the English
Language:
Johnson's Revision and the Establishment of the Text
by
W. R. Keast
Several studies of Johnson's revisions of his publications have
disposed of the old belief that his care for his writings ceased
when they originally left his pen. The interest of these studies
has been chiefly in enabling us to see the process by which the
final form of each text—the form in which we are familiar with
it—was attained; only rarely has a knowledge of Johnson's
revisions enabled editors to arrive at readings superior to those
in the traditional texts.[1]
Johnson's revisions of his Preface to the Dictionary of the
English Language present a more complex and instructive case.
While noteworthy, like his other revisions, in displaying a great
stylist at work, these revisions have an additional significance
for the establishment of the true text of the Preface. For Johnson
revised the Preface twice, making an independent set of alterations
each time. And only one of these
sets of revisions has been incorporated in the versions of the
Preface printed since the eighteenth century.
Four folio editions of the Dictionary appeared during
Johnson's lifetime. The first edition was published in 1775; the
second closely followed, the first volume late in 1775 and the
second early in 1756; the third edition was published in 1765; and
the fourth in 1773. All the subsequent texts of the Preface contain
variations from the first edition both in such "accidentals" as
spelling and punctuation, and in "substantive" readings directly
affecting the sense. It is the purpose of this study to record
these
variations; to indicate, on the basis of them, the relations among
the several editions; to distinguish, so far as possible, between
those variant readings which should be attributed to Johnson and
those which should be attributed to the compositor or
proof-corrector; and to suggest the editorial principles on which
future editions of the Preface should be based.
I. The Second Folio Edition, 1755-56
The second edition departs from the first in 31 readings, of
which 15 are in the accidentals of the text and 16 affect its
substance. The accidental variants may be considered first, for
they are not of great importance, and there is no clear sign that
Johnson is responsible for any of them.
Spelling: 6 changes:
[2]
- (2) pionier to pioneer
pioneer is the spelling in the Dictionary, where
Johnson gives pionier as the French form.
- (2) recompense to recompence
recompence is the spelling in the Dictionary,
and cf.
expence (20), licence (68), (90),
chace
(72).
- (48) synonimous to synonymous
synonymous is the spelling in the Dictionary;
but cf.
synonimes (43) in all editions.
- (67) though to tho'
both forms are given in the Dictionary.
- (74) subtle to subtile
although both forms are given in the Dictionary, subtle is
noted as the spelling commonly used for the sense of
cunning, which is not the meaning here. Elsewhere in the
Preface subtle appears at (44), but subtile at
(85)
and subtilty at (69).
- (81) unreguarded to unregarded
the first edition spelling is incorrect.
Punctuation: 7 changes:
- (4) purity; to purity,
the first edition punctuation is clearly correct.
- (20) importance to importance,
an indifferent change; precedents for either reading can be found
elsewhere in the Preface, although in general Johnson prefers a
heavier punctuation.
- (29) dictionary, to dictionary
the 2d edition reading is more "modern," and may be defended by
analogy with a comparable phrase in (72); but the first edition's
comma is the less obvious punctuation, and
Johnson often encloses with commas, even when this is not necessary
to mark the syntax, phrases to which he wants to give special
prominence; cf. the last two sentences of (19).
- (55) CHEER to CHEER,
this change corrects an error in the first edition.
- (56) examples, to examples
perhaps indifferent; but the comma makes the syntax clearer and is
more consistent with Johnson's heavy punctuation. Cf. the last
sentence of (63).
- (89) both, to both;
indifferent; precedents for both punctuations can be found in the
Preface.
- (94) Beni, to Beni;
this change corrects an error in the first edition.
Capitalization: I change:
- (20) but to But
this is probably not Johnson's change, for he often began the
answer to a question with a lower-case letter. Cf. (91), where a
similar normalization was introduced in the fourth edition; and cf.
also the lower-case letter to begin the second of a series of two
questions in (88).
Typographical style: I change:
- (40) to break to to break
this change corrects an error in the first edition.
Four of these changes —those in (81), (55), (94), and
(40)—are simple corrections of errors in the first edition. All
the errors are obvious, and the corrections merely bring the
readings into conformity with the style of the remainder of the
text. All could have been easily made by a careful compositor or an
alert press-corrector, and the general excellence of the work on
this edition suggests that the compositors were careful and the
proof-correctors alert, for although these four errors were
corrected, no new errors were introduced. I do not think,
therefore, that these four changes need be attributed to
Johnson.
Most of the remaining 11 changes are normalizations or easier
readings. None seems clearly to be by Johnson, and in view of the
relatively small number of substantive changes he made in the text
for this edition, it is perhaps doubtful that his care extended to
details of spelling and punctuation. I should be inclined to
attribute these 11 changes in accidentals, therefore, to the
compositor.
There are 16 substantive changes in the second-edition text.
(11) The first edition reads:
Such defects are not errours in orthography, but spots of
barbarity impressed so deep in the
English language, that
criticism can never wash them away; these, therefore,
must be permitted to remain untouched: but many words have likewise
been altered by accident, or depraved by ignorance, as the
pronunciation of the vulgar has been weakly followed; . . . .
In the second edition the latter portion reads:
. . . but many words have been altered by accident, or depraved
by ignorance, . . . .
The omission of
likewise may be a compositor's error, for it
is easier to omit a word than to insert one. But I think this is
Johnson's change, made because he saw that
likewise was not
quite accurate: alterations of the language from accident and
depravations from ignorance are
errors, and hence are
not produced in a manner like that which accounts for the
spots of barbarity referred to first.
likewise, furthermore,
dulls the antithesis, and weakens Johnson's charge that preventable
damage is done by accidental or ignorant alteration.
(15) The first edition reads:
I have left, in the examples, to every authour his own practice
unmolested, that the reader may balance suffrages, and judge
between us: . . . .
In the second edition the next word to the last is altered to
betwixt. In view of the care with which the compositor
followed his copy in setting this edition, I doubt that he would
have made so unnecessary a change, although it is not beyond
belief. On the other hand, I do not see why Johnson should have
made it. But on balance it should probably be attributed to
him.
(38) The first edition reads:
As composition is one of the chief characteristicks of a
language, I have endeavoured to make some reparation for the
universal negligence of my predecessors, by inserting great numbers
of compounded words, as may be found under after, fore, new,
night, fair, and many more.
The second edition text omits
fair from this list. This is
surely Johnson's change. In defining
after, fore, new, and
night in the
Dictionary, he calls attention to the
use of each in composition and gives numerous examples— 38
passages exemplifying compounds with
new, some 30
compounds
of
night, 27 with
after, and 73 with
fore. But
in defining
fair he says nothing of its use as a compounding
element, and he gives no compound words formed from it. We may
speculate on the sequence of events underlying the inclusion of
fair in the first edition. Johnson may have included it by
mistake, although this is unlikely on the face of it, and the more
so because the first four words in the list are in alphabetical
order. It is most improbable that the compositor intruded a word.
The likeliest explanation is that Johnson's manuscript contained a
fifth example which the
compositor misread as
fair; in his revisal Johnson
recognized
fair as incorrect, without being able to recall
the word he had originally written or troubling to add another. We
can only guess at what the original reading may have been. Perhaps
it was
semi, which would fall correctly in the alphabetical
series, which is treated in the
Dictionary as a prolific
source of compounds, and which could have been misread as
fair in Johnson's hand.
[3]
(38) The first edition reads:
These [compound words], numerous as they are, might be
multiplied, but that use and curiosity are here satisfied, and the
frame of our language and modes of our combination amply
discovered.
In the second edition the last words read, with a sensible
improvement of the rhythm, "modes of our combination are amply
discovered."
(39) The first edition reads:
Of some forms of composition, such as that by which
re is
prefixed to note repetition, and un to signify
contrariety or privation, all the examples cannot
be
accumulated, because the use of these particles, if not wholly
arbitrary, is so little limited, that they are hourly affixed to
new words as occasion requires, or is imagined to require them.
But
affixed is wrong, for it means "to unite to the end, or
à posteriori; to subjoin." Johnson therefore corrected
the second edition text to
united (having used
prefixed earlier in the sentence, he did not want to repeat
it).
(40) The first edition reads:
These [verbal phrases] I have noted with great care; and though
I cannot flatter myself that the collection is complete, I believe
I have so far assisted the students of our language, that this kind
of phraseology will be no longer insuperable; . . . .
In the second edition Johnson changed
I believe I have to
I have perhaps, possibly with a view to continuing more
consistently the modest tone of the preceding clause.
(41) The first edition reads:
Many words yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey,
Ainsworth, Philips, or the contracted Dict. for
Dictionaries subjoined: of these I am not always certain
that they are read in any book but the works of lexicographers. Of
such I have omitted many, because I had never read them; . . .
.
The second edition reads: "of these I am not always certain that
they are seen in any book but the works of lexicographers." I see
no reason to attribute
this change to the compositor. Johnson's alteration not only
eliminates the rather awkward repetition of
read, but
distinguishes nicely between
seeing a word in a dictionary
and
reading it in a book.
(43) First edition:
And such is the fate of hapless lexicography, that not only
darkness, but light, impedes and distresses it; things may be not
only too little, but too much known, to be happily illustrated. To
explain, requires the use of terms less abstruse than that which is
to be explained, and such terms cannot always be found; for as
nothing can be proved but by supposing something intuitively known,
and evident without proof, so nothing can be defined but by the use
of words too plain to admit a definition.
In the second edition the final part of this passage reads:
so nothing can be defined but by supposing some words too plain
to admit a definition.
I am not sure I can assay this change correctly; but I do not
believe it is Johnson's. Johnson's point is not that definition
forces us to suppose (what we might not otherwise know) that some
words are too plain to be defined. This we already know ("such
terms cannot always be found"). Instead, his point is that
definition is impossible without the use of these words, which
cannot themselves be defined. In the first edition the phrase
the use of words stands directly below
by supposing
something, and I suspect that the second-edition compositor
read the wrong line—the surrounding words are very
similar—and
carried
by supposing some down into the next line as he set
it.
(45) The first edition reads:
If of these [words of loose and general signification] the whole
power is not accurately delivered, it must be remembered, that
while our language is yet living, and variable by the caprice of
every one that speaks it, these words are hourly shifting their
relations, . . . .
The second edition's "caprice of every tongue that speaks it" is an
obvious improvement by Johnson.
(78) The first edition reads:
That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be
frankly acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that
it was unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner's
language, nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of
navigation, nor visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of
artificers, to gain the names of wares, tools and operations, of
which no mention is found in books; . . . .
On re-reading this passage Johnson was perhaps struck by the
repetition in
warehouses: wares, or perhaps by the imperfect
balance which results
from illustrating the contents of
warehouses with one word
and of
shops with two. Whatever the reason, he made the
phraseology at once more elegant and more particular by
substituting for
wares the words
commodities,
utensils: "the warehouses of merchants, and shops of
artificers, to gain the names of commodities, utensils, tools and
operations, of which no mention is found in books."
(85) The first edition reads:
. . . the stile of Amelot's translation of father
Paul is observed by Le Courayer to be
un peu
passè; . . .
The error in accent may not have been Johnson's, but it was
probably he who corrected the second-edition text to
un peu
passè.
(89) The first edition reads:
He that has long cultivated another language, will find its
words and combinations croud upon his memory; and haste and
negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed terms
and exotick expressions.
Johnson, perhaps to avoid repeating
and four times in quick
succession, altered this in the second edition to read:
and haste or negligence, refinement or affectation, . .
.
(92) The first edition reads:
In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids
to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to
the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of
philology to the nations of the continent.
Perhaps this seemed too categorical, especially for the peroration.
Johnson revised it to read:
that we may no longer yield the palm of philology without a
contest to the nations of the continent.
As will be seen, Johnson again made this change when he revised the
Preface for the 1773 edition.
(93) The first edition reads:
. . . some who distinguish desert . . . will consider . . . that
sudden fits of inadvertency will surprize vigilance, slight
avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind
will darken learning; . . .
In the second edition the words
of the mind are omitted. I
do not think Johnson made this change: it weakens the rhythm and
obscures the meaning. The compositor accidentally dropped the
phrase.
(94) The first edition reads:
If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and
comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive
ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, and
co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not
secure them from the censure of Beni . . . I may surely be
contented without the praise of perfection. . . .
Johnson altered
be yet to are yet in the second edition. It
is true that Johnson notes in the
Grammar of the English
tongue that "the indicative and conjunctive moods are by modern
writers frequently confounded," and that after
if the
conjunctive is used "among the purer writers." But he may have
decided that the conjunctive did not suit well the mood of the
verbs in the two succeeding
if-clauses in this passage, and
he may have chosen to sacrifice purity to a stronger suggestion
that the lexicons of ancient tongues are inadequate.
Of these 16 changes introduced in the second edition,
two—those in (43) and (93)—are probably compositor's
errors.
The rest are probably by Johnson.
II. The Third Folio Edition, 1765
This text of the Preface has no independent textual authority.
It is a page-for-page reprint of the second edition, and follows
that edition in all the readings in which it departs from the first
edition. The third edition introduces no new substantive readings.
It departs from the second edition text in only 12 places: five of
these are sporadic normalizations of spelling, three are slight
changes in punctuation, of which one is indifferent and two obscure
Johnson's syntax, and four are clear compositor's errors.[4] The third edition may therefore be
disregarded.
III. The Fourth Folio Edition, 1773
The fourth edition of the Preface is a page-for-page reprint of
the first-edition text, varying from it in 38 readings, of which 21
are accidental
and 17 substantive. Except for five of these readings, the text of
the fourth edition does not repeat any of the variants introduced
in the second-edition text nor any of the variants from the second
edition introduced in the third. The five readings in which the
second, third, and fourth editions agree against the first must
therefore be examined in order to determine whether they imply
dependence of the fourth-edition text on the second or third rather
than, as the preponderance of the evidence would suggest, on the
first. Four of the readings in which 1773 agrees with 1755-56 and
1765 are in accidentals: in (81) the correction of
unreguarded to
unregarded; in (55) the insertion
of
a necessary comma between
to CHEER and its definition; in
(94) substitution of a semicolon for a comma after
Beni to
separate the second and third of three long parallel clauses; and
in (40) a correction in typographical style,
changing an italic
to to roman in the phrase "to
break
off" in conformity with the style in a list of examples. The
fifth variant from the first-edition text in which the three later
editions agree is a substantive change. In (92), as we have seen,
Johnson originally said:
In hope of giving longevity to hat which its own nature forbids
to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to
the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of
philology to the nations of the continent.
In the second edition he had changed this to "that we may no longer
yield the palm of philology without a contest to the nations of the
continent"; this reading was repeated in 1765. The fourth edition
reading is identical with the second, except that the phrase
"without a contest" is set off with commas.
Do these five readings establish a textual connection between
the second edition and the fourth, or between the third and the
fourth? I do not think they do. The four changes in accidentals are
all simple corrections of manifest errors, of the kind that could
easily have been made by any careful workman, guided by the
consistent practice in the rest of the text, whether or not he had
a corrected copy before him. As to the alteration in (94), I think
we must suppose either that Johnson in 1773 remembered having made
this change in 1755 (and he may have done so because this is the
beginning of the noble close of the Preface), or that he invented
it anew (which he might easily have done, for once the need for
some softening of the sentence is felt, the phrase inserted has a
degree of inevitability). If we suppose instead that Johnson
derived this reading from the second or third-edition text, we must
suppose what is almost
inconceivable—that in all the other instances listed above in
which these texts vary from the first edition Johnson rejected the
reading of the intermediary text and returned by pure chance to the
readings of the first edition. The agreement
among the three later editions in these five places is to be
attributed, therefore, not to a direct line of descent from one to
another, but to the coincidence of simple and obvious corrections
by compositors or proof-correctors (or, less likely, by Johnson)
and to Johnson's chance recollection or repetition of one of his
earlier revisions. The fourth-edition text is independently derived
from the first edition.
The remaining 33 variations between the texts of the first and
fourth editions may now be examined.[5] 17 affect the accidentals of the
text.
Spelling: 1 change:
- (6) registred to registered a random normalization,
probably not by Johnson; cf. registered (31).
Punctuation: 15 changes:
- (3) neglected, to neglected;
- (3) exuberance, to exuberance;
- (3) fashion, to fashion;
these changes introduce heavier stops between long verb phrases in
series, in accordance with the normal style of the Preface; cf.
(1), (42), (62). They may be due to Johnson, but just as easily to
a careful compositor or proofreader.
- (11) them away; to them away:
- (11) untouched: to untouched;
these changes depart from Johnson's usual style. He regularly uses
the colon, not only to introduce a series or an expansion, but to
separate long complex clauses in which semicolons are used, or to
separate clauses between which the connection is slight, where
there is no conjunction and where we would normally use a period.
Cf. for the first type, (4), (15), (17), (42), (51), (72), (86);
for the second, (6), (17), (46), (48), (54), (65), (67), (92),
(94). The colon is a heavier stop than the semicolon. In the
sentence under consideration, the first ed. employs the two marks
in the normal subordination; the fourth ed. reverses it.
- (16) been, perhaps, to been perhaps
probably a printing-house change; Johnson usually encloses such
parenthetical elements: cf. (18), (51), (61), (65), (88),
(90).
- (21) and, though familiar to and though familiar
probably a printing-house change; Johnson is usually careful to
mark both ends of a qualifying element if he marks one. Cf. (28),
(44).
- (31) fashion, or lust to fashion or lust
probably a printing-house change. The pointing of the first edition
text is at least consistent: ". . . words which our authours have
introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of
their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion, or
lust of innovation." If the comma is removed after fashion,
that after languages should also be deleted. (Johnson uses
no comma after vanity because it is not followed by a
genitive phrase.)
- (41) Dictionaries subjoined: to
Dictionaries
subjoined;
- (42) grammatically considered: to grammatically
considered;
- (45) settled meaning: to settled meaning;
a little rash of normalizations like those in (II); the compositor
or proof-reader did not understand Johnson's use of the
colon.
- (65) those quotations which to those quotations,
which
although Johnson is not perfectly consistent in his punctuation of
restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, the first edition pointing
seems more in keeping with his usual style.
- (72) ransack, to ransack; a change perhaps
occasioned
by a substantive revision; see the list below.
- (87) but a little, above to but a little above the
first edition is clearly correct.
- (94) I wished to please, have sunk to I wished to
please have sunk perhaps indifferent, although Johnson usually
prefers the heavier pointing.
Capitalization: I change:
- (91) it remains to It remains Cf. the change made
in
the second edition at (20). Johnson seems to have been in the habit
of beginning the answer to a question with a lower-case letter;
this change is probably the compositor's.
As in the second edition, the changes in accidentals seem to be
the occasional intrusion of the compositor or proof-reader.
Johnson's revision was casual and did not extend to the minutiae of
the text.
The text of the fourth edition contains 16 changes in the
substantive readings of the first edition. Readers familiar with
the Preface will recognize these, because they have been
incorporated in the standard text; one or two of them, I think,
should not be attributed to Johnson.
(2) The first edition reads:
Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom
mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of
science, the pionier of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish
and clear obstructions from the paths of Learning and Genius, who
press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on
the humble drudge that facilitates their progress.
1773: . . . doomed only to remove rubbish and clear
obstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius press
forward to conquest and glory, . . . .
(8) In 1755 Johnson writes that uncertain pronunciation is the
source of
that diversity of spelling observable in the Saxon
remains, and I suppose in the first books of every nation, which
perplexes or destroys analogy, and produces anomalous formations,
which, being once incorporated, can never be afterward dismissed or
reformed.
In 1773 the final relative pronoun is changed: "anomalous
formations, that, being once incorporated. . . ." Johnson's use of
that and
which in the Preface follows no
principle
consistently, and it is accordingly difficult to fix the
responsibility for this change. But the printers seem in general to
have followed their copy closely, and I suspect that Johnson
changed the
relative to eliminate the repetition of
which, from which a
false parallelism might be inferred.
(15) Discussing the dependence of spelling on a writer's
knowledge of the language from which English words are derived,
Johnson concludes, in the first edition:
. . . some words, such as dependant, dependent; dependance,
dependence, vary their final syllable, as one or other language
is present to the writer.
The 1773 text reads: "as one or another language is present to the
writer." I do not see the motive for this change, unless "one or
other" seemed archaic in 1773; but again, in view of the
infrequency of compositorial intervention, I think the change
should be attributed to Johnson unless there is a clear reason for
assigning it to the printer.
(25) Defending himself against the charge of injustice to Junius
as an etymologist, Johnson writes, in 1755:
. . . it can be no criminal degree of censoriousness to charge
that etymologist with want of judgment, who can seriously derive
dream from drama, because life is a
drama, and a
drama is a dream; and who declares with a tone of defiance,
that no man can fail to derive moan from
μόνοζ, monos, who considers that grief
naturally loves to be alone.
By 1773 Johnson had perhaps become convinced that he could not
expect from his readers enough Greek to follow him and Junius; at
any rate he added a gloss after
monos: "single or solitary,
. . ."
(34) 1755:
Words arbitrarily formed by a constant and settled analogy, like
diminutive adjectives in ish, as greenish,
bluish,
adverbs in ly, as dully, openly, substantives in
ness, as vileness, faultiness, were less diligently
sought, and many sometimes have been omitted, when I had no
authority that invited me to insert them; . . . .
The reading
many sometimes is clearly faulty, although
Johnson had let it slip past him when he revised the Preface for
the second edition:
many words cannot with propriety be
sometimes omitted. In 1773 Johnson solved the difficulty by
deleting
many. But the error in the first edition must be
accounted for. I suspect that Johnson originally wrote
and may
sometimes have been omitted, and that the first-edition
compositor misread
may as
many. If this was
the
original reading, it gives a sense preferable to that which results
from Johnson's deletion of
many, for the fourth edition text
makes it seem that Johnson knows which of these words have been
omitted, whereas the point is clearly that he does not know. A bold
editor might introduce
may into the text.
(36) 1755:
The participles are likewise omitted, unless, by signifying
rather qualities than action, they take the nature of adjectives;
as a thinking man, a man of prudence; a pacing
horse,
a horse that can pace: these I have ventured to call participial
adjectives.
1773 reads: "unless, by signifying rather habit or quality than
action, . . . ." The
qualities of the first edition conceals
a distinction conveyed in Johnson's two examples, of which, in the
1773 text,
habit (defined in the
Dictionary as
"a
power or ability in man of doing any thing, when it has been
acquired by frequent doing the same thing" [Locke]) is illustrated
by
thinking, and
quality ("accomplishment;
qualification") by
pacing.
(40) 1755:
There is another kind of composition more frequent in our
language than perhaps in any other, from which arises to foreigners
the greatest difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs
by a particle subjoined; as to come off, to escape by a
fetch; to fall on, to attack; . . . .
In 1773 "the signification of many verbs" is altered to "the
signification of many words." This seems to be a compositor's
error. This type of composition is confined to verbs, as is shown
by the list of examples, all of which are verbs, and by Johnson's
reference at the end of the paragraph to "combinations of verbs and
particles."
(47) Johnson confesses that he has been unable to explain some
words because he does not understand them. In the first edition he
says:
. . . when Tully owns himself ignorant whether
lessus, in the twelve tables, means a funeral
song,
or mourning garment; and Aristotle doubts
whether
οὔρευς, in the Iliad, signifies a
mule, or muleteer, I may freely, without
shame, leave
some obscurities to happier industry, or future information.
For
I may freely the 1773 text has
I may
surely.
Johnson perhaps sought a more modest tone.
(69) 1755:
Thus have I laboured to settle the orthography, display the
analogy, regulate the structures, and ascertain the signification
of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful
lexicographer: but I have not always executed my own scheme, or
satisfied my own expectations.
Johnson changed this in 1773 to read:
Thus have I laboured by settling the orthography, displaying the
analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the
signification of English words, to perform all the parts of
a faithful lexicographer: . . . .
This change eliminates an awkward shift in construction in the
original
text, where
to perform . . . must be taken not as the final
member of a series, which it appears at first to be, but as a
summary phrase. In improving the syntax Johnson did not notice, or
chose to disregard, the new implication of the sentence—that he
had in fact settled the orthography, displayed the analogy,
etc.—an implication denied in the second clause, in the rest of
the paragraph, and in the two paragraphs that follow.
(72) 1755:
When first I engaged in this work, I resolved to leave neither
words nor things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of
the hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, the
obscure recesses of northern learning, which I should enter and
ransack, the treasures with which I expected every search into
those neglected mines to reward my labour, and the triumph with
which I should display my acquisitions to mankind.
In 1773 the passage reads instead:
. . . and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I
should revel away in feasts of literature, with the obscure
recesses of northern learning, which I should enter and ransack;
the treasures. . . .
The original reading is clear, and the change in 1773 produces some
difficulty. In the first edition,
prospect controls a series
of four parallel elements—
hours, recesses, treasures,
and
triumph. The
with added before
the
obscure
recesses in 1773 destroys this parallelism and appears to
initiate a new one, less precise than the old, between
prospect and
recesses; and the added
with must
also be understood as preceding
the treasures and
the
triumph, for Johnson, if he made this change, could not prefix
a
with to each of these because each is followed by a
with-construction. This is all very awkward; it is also
imprecise, for although Johnson could please himself in advance
with the
prospect of recesses of learning he intended to
enter, he could not please himself with the recesses themselves, as
the altered reading would have it, until he had entered them. If
this is Johnson's change,
he was careless, as he appears to have been nowhere else in the
course of this revision. Despite the general accuracy of the
compositor, therefore, I attribute this change to him rather than
to Johnson.
(73) 1755:
I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself,
and no longer to solicit auxiliaries, which produced more
incumbrance than assistance: by this I obtained at least one
advantage, that I set limits to my work, which would in time be
finished, though not completed.
In 1773 Johnson altered the ending to read "which would in time be
ended, though not completed." This is an elegant change, and shows
Johnson at his most fastidious. In the
Dictionary to end is
defined as "to terminate; to
conclude; to cease; to fail," and
to finish as "1. to bring
to the end purposed; to complete. 2. to perfect; to polish to the
excellency intended. 3. to end; to put an end to." The same nicety
appears in the Advertisement Johnson composed for the 1773 edition:
"Many are the works of human industry, which to begin and finish
are hardly granted to the same man."
(74) 1755:
Many of the distinctions which to common readers appear useless
and idle, will be found real and important by men versed in the
school philosophy, without which no dictionary ever shall be
accurately compiled, or skilfully examined.
In 1773
ever shall is transposed, by Johnson, I presume, to
shall ever.
(84) 1755:
Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design,
require that it should fix our language, and put a stop to those
alterations which time and chance have hitherto been suffered to
make in it without opposition.
In 1773:
Those who have been persuaded to think well of my design, will
require. . . .
I am not sure what to make of this. It does not look like the
compositor trying to repair a sentence he found difficult to
understand. Perhaps Johnson in 1755 had in mind the hopes actually
expressed by friends, and in 1773, these circumstances being long
past, recast the sentence to give not only a better rhythm but a
firmer contrast to his own shifting opinions as expressed in the
next sentence.
(84) 1755:
When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after
another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that
promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal
justice may the lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce
no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases
from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his
language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in
his power to change sublunary nature, or clear the world at once
from folly, vanity, and affectation.
In 1773 the lexicographer is made to imagine that he can "change
sublunary nature, and clear the world at once from folly" etc. The
change, which I take to be Johnson's, heightens the vanity of the
lexicographer and perfects the parallelism of the last two
clauses.
(88) In 1755, Johnson, commenting on Swift's proposal that words
should not be allowed to become obsolete, says:
But what makes a word obsolete, more than general agreement to
forbear it? and how shall it be continued, when it conveys an
offensive idea, or recalled again into
the mouths of mankind, when it has once by disuse become
unfamiliar, and by unfamiliarity unpleasing.
The inversions at the end of this passage are changed in 1773 to
the straightforward "when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse,
and unpleasing by unfamiliarity." Since Johnson's style in his
later prose tends to be less artfully contrived than in his earlier
writing, I take this change to be his.
(92) As already noted, Johnson in 1773, as in the second
edition, softened
. . . that we may no longer yield the palm of philology to the
nations of the continent to
. . . that we may no longer yield the palm of philology, without
a contest, to the nations of the continent.
(94) 1755:
. . . it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English
Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned,
and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities
of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst
inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow: and it
may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if
our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an
attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed.
The rhythm and power of this noble passage are enhanced by
Johnson's revision in 1773: he ends the first sentence with
sorrow, deletes the
and, and begins a new
sentence
with
It.
On the basis of this comparison of the texts of the four
editions of the Preface printed in Johnson's lifetime, the
relationships among them may be summarized as follows:
- (1) the second edition, 1755-56, was printed from the first;
there is no sign that Johnson or the compositor returned to the
manuscript (and a strong sign that they did not; cf. the deletion
in (38)).
- (2) the third edition, 1765, was printed from the second:
wherever the second edition varies from the first, the third
edition follows the second; when the third varies from the second,
it never returns to a reading of the first; the third edition
introduces no readings which can be attributed to Johnson.
- (3) the fourth edition, 1773, was printed from the first,
with revisions by Johnson independent of those he introduced into
the second-edition text: the fourth edition does not follow the
third in any of its variations from the second, nor, with the
exceptions already accounted for, does it follow the second in any
of its variations from the first.
We have, then, three texts of the Preface—since the text of
the third edition may be disregarded—which possess textual
authority. The second and fourth editions present texts
independently revised, and contain substantive changes of
importance. It does not appear from the number of these substantive
changes that Johnson's revision of the Preface for either edition
was systematic; this fact, together with the nature of the changes
in the accidentals of the texts, suggests that he did not extend
his attention to the details of spelling and punctuation, and that
the changes in the accidentals are probably not by Johnson. Nor can
all the substantive revisions in the two editions be automatically
ascribed to Johnson; most of them are surely his, but some, as I
have tried to show, may be suspected.
We need not be surprised at Johnson's failure to recall, in
1773, the revisions he had made in the Preface late in 1755. During
the intervening eighteen years he had, as he wrote to Boswell,
"looked very little into" the Dictionary,
[6] and he had been heavily occupied
with
other writing. And the revisions made in 1755 were not on the whole
so striking—with a single exception, perhaps—as to stick for
years in the mind of a man who wrote and revised much. Nor need we,
on the other hand, be surprised that Johnson, even if he had
forgotten the changes made in 1755, did not once more notice at
least the errors he had then corrected, if not the elegancies he
had added, and correct them again in 1773. Both revisions were
rather casual performances, not at all like his thorough-going work
on the Rambler. He evidently read rapidly through the text,
mending or improving where something happened to catch his eye.
The two sets of revisions therefore complement each other. Each
represents, for certain passages in the Preface, Johnson's "final
intention." And the editorial procedure to be adopted in the light
of these circumstances is clear. There is no ground for adopting,
as the copy-text for an edition of the Preface, the text of the
fourth edition. This has been the procedure followed in all
editions since 1773, on the familiar theory that the last edition
published in the author's lifetime is the one most likely to
contain his final intentions with respect to the work.[7] Greg and Bowers have recently
demonstrated that even for works whose textual history is more
normal than that of the Preface to the
Dictionary this is an
editorial theory certain to produce corrupt texts.
[8] For the Preface this theory has led,
in
all modern texts, to the exclusion of half of all the revisions
made by Johnson, to the perpetuation of errors and stylistic
defects which he had carefully expunged, and to the omission of
several stylistic elegancies which he had added. Future editors
must therefore adopt the text of the first edition as their
copy-text and introduce into it the two sets of Johnsonian
revisions from the second and fourth editions, together with such
changes in the accidentals from these texts as seem necessary for
correctness or consistency. The editor will have to determine for
himself which of the changes made in substantive readings in the
second and fourth editions are authoritative; I have tried to
indicate which are Johnson's,
but I do not suppose that I have chosen correctly in every case.
But the editor cannot avoid the responsibility of making a choice.
The resulting text will be a composite, but only a composite text
can reflect accurately the composite of intentions which influenced
Johnson in 1755 and 1773.
Notes
