University of Virginia Library

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

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  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:

In the second edition the latter portion reads: 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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

In the second edition the final part of this passage reads: 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:

The second edition's "caprice of every tongue that speaks it" is an obvious improvement by Johnson.

(78) The first edition reads:

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 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:

Johnson, perhaps to avoid repeating and four times in quick succession, altered this in the second edition to read:

(92) The first edition reads:

Perhaps this seemed too categorical, especially for the peroration. Johnson revised it to read: As will be seen, Johnson again made this change when he revised the Preface for the 1773 edition.

(93) The first edition reads:

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:

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.