Johnson of London 4 A Dictionary of the English Language

A DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

During this scene Boswell is sitting in his usual place with his bottle of wine on the table on the left of the stage. On the other side, off stage, are the scribes who write out the definitions which Johnson dictates to them.  One scribe is working there at the moment.

BOSWELL           Things looked as though they would go from bad to worse, but, as long as we don’t give up, the wheel has a habit of coming round full circle.  Just when things look blackest, they pick up again. 

Johnson was writing odd bits and pieces here and there, and slowly but surely, but mainly slowly, he was gaining a reputation.  He was an expert on the English language.  That was clear.  And it happened that at that time, there wasn’t any dictionary of English worth the name.  (Whispering)  What was worse, everyone else had one!  The Italians and the Spanish and the French!  They all had their dictionary! Yes, that didn’t go down very well, the French having something we didn’t!  The French had their Académie Française, with forty members, and with money from the King, all very efficient. So what happened?  Well, as usual, the English muddled through and got there in the end. Six booksellers got together and approached Johnson and asked him to…to write a dictionary!  And that’s what he did!  It was nine years’ hard labour, but at least he had something to work at.  He had something definite in his life. We all need something to help us through the day, and that’s why our jobs are so important. And he did it single-handed.  Well, he had six helpers to copy it out, but he composed every definition himself.

(Addressing the audience in a confidential tone)  The French took fifty-five years, and there were forty of them!  Johnson got the job done in nine!  And on his own!  And English has far more words than French.  (He starts to lecture.) It’s all to do with the origin of English, you see.  French is from Latin but English words come from Anglo Saxon and from French.  That’s why we have two words for everything, one Saxon and one Romance.  We have “freedom” and “liberty”.  We have “enter” and we have “go in”.  And that’s why… but I digress.  I must not get carried away!

People would point him out as he walked down Fleet Street. “Look over there!  That’s Johnson!  Dictionary Johnson!”  Yes, he became known as Dictionary Johnson.  That was before I knew him, of course, but he’s told me all about it.

(The light on Boswell fades, and Johnson is revealed, pacing up and down, centre stage.)

JOHNSON   A steady job! I have a steady job at last.  There can be nothing as steady as writing a dictionary!  My secretary shouts out the words and I give the definitions and that’s how we get on. 

SCRIBE (Off stage, shouting in a Scottish accent.) “Lexicographer!”

JOHNSON   “Lexicographer!”  A harmless drudge.  Yes, why not?  (He shouts back.) “A writer of dictionaries!  A harmless drudge!”  Well, it’s steady work all right, but I am the man to do it!  The vital thing about energy is using it somewhere.  How much human energy down the ages has been wasted! Now I am in harness, thank goodness, and that feels good.

SCRIBE   “Whig”.

JOHNSON   (To himself) “Whig”, ha!  Whigs and Tories!  Politicians!  We must not let the Whig dogs get the best of t!  (He shouts to the scribe.)  “Whig.  The name of a faction!”

(He walks over to his desk and takes up a book.)

BOSWELL Nine years it took him.  Yes, he was the man for the job.  Over forty thousand definitions!  One hundred and fourteen thousand quotations. You see, he gave examples of how the words were used by different authors.  He must have had all these instances in his head and remembered how any word was used by Shakespeare or Spencer or Milton or in the Bible.

He had six men to help him copy them out, and five of them were Scottish.  So much for his dislike of the Scots!  For him a poor Scotsman was as much in need of help as a poor Englishman, though he never could resist a joke about us!

SCRIBE (In broad Scots accent)   I’ve got down as far as “oats”.  How do you define “oats”? 

JOHNSON   “Oats”.  ((He dictates slowly, giving the man time to copy it down.)  “Oats.  A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people”.

SCRIBE   (He can be heard muttering in Gaelic.  It is unintelligible except for the last word.)  Sassenach!

JOHNSON  I didn’t quite catch that.  Luckily!

SCRIBE      (Off) “Pension”!

BOSWELL Can I come in here a moment?  At that time a pension was awarded by the government not only to people who had achieved some public good, but also to men of influence who would later support the party in power.  So a pension was often a way of buying political support and that was how Johnson defined it.

JOHNSON (Shouting to scribe.)  What was that?

SCRIBE      “Pension”.

JOHNSON Pension.  Right!  “In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.” (To himself). Come on, Johnson.  That was a bit near the bone!  It’ll get you into hot water.

BOSWELL And get him into hot water it did!  A few years later, in 1762, the year before I met him, he himself was offered a pension for his work on the dictionary.  But could he accept it after defining it as he did in the dictionary? That was the question!  A friend reassured Johnson by saying, “It is not given you for anything you are to do, but for what you have done.”  So Johnson accepted it. It was £300 a year which in those days was a reasonable sum and it enabled Johnson to be free from money worries at last.

JOHNSON Yes, that was a bit near the bone.  Let us be more circumspect and more learned!

SCRIBE      “Network”

JOHNSON “Network”   Right!  More learned.  (Loudly and pompously)  “Network.  Anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances with interstices between the intersections.”

SCRIBE      (off) You what?

JOHNSON (To himself)  I thought that would be too much for him, but I’ll stick to it!  A man has a right to indulge himself sometimes!  (To scribe)  I’ll write it out for you!  (He goes to the window and looks out at the street.)  What weather!  November!  London in November!  “The melancholy charm of an English winter!”  I forget who wrote that, but there is no charm in melancholy.  A man has to be in good spirits to indulge in melancholy.  If you are really down, melancholy has no charm at all. You have to be happy to be able to write a tragedy.  When you are feeling low, there is enough tragedy in your life already! 

“The melancholy charm of an English winter!” Ha!  Cold is cold, and that’s the end of it!  No, I do not care overmuch for November, but I do love London!

SCRIBE   “Network!”

JOHNSON Alright, alright, I’ll write it out for you!  (He goes to his desk and starts to write.) “Anything reticulated…”

BOSWELL (Holding up a copy of the first “Rambler”.)  While he was dictating definition after definition for the Dictionary, he was also writing “The Rambler”.  Here.  Look at this!  This is the first one.  “The Rambler” was an essay, published as a broadsheet, like a newspaper. Twice a week for three years he produced an article on whatever was in his head at the time.  His mind was a well of information and ideas, and the printer’s deadline, twice a week, was the bucket that dropped into it.  Thank goodness for deadlines!  Without a deadline Monday’s newspaper would appear on Friday.  Without a deadline we would never get up in the morning.  Without a deadline the great novels would never have been written and the Louvre would be empty of paintings.  Without deadlines no job would ever be finished!

JOHNSON (He walks over to his table and picks up a copy of the Rambler”.)  Yes, oh yes, “The Rambler”!  (He reads a little.) Did I really write this?  It’s not bad!  Every Tuesday and Saturday for three years!  My thoughts on paper are fine!  Very wise!  How easy it is to be wise on paper!  But it’s when I am not writing that my head gets out of hand!  My mind wanders to this and that!  (He looks at “The Rambler” again.)  On paper thoughts are fixed at least!  They don’t run off!  Come on, now!  Back to work!  At least when at work my mind can’t be galloping off in all directions!

SCRIBE      “Pastern”.

JOHNSON “Pastern”. “Pastern”?   What in earth is a pastern?  I can’t look it up!  I am the dictionary!

SCRIBE      (Insisting) “Pastern”, Mr Johnson.

JOHNSON I have no idea what a pastern is!

SCRIBE      Pastern!

JOHNSON (Shrugging his shoulders.) Alright.  I’m coming!  I’m coming!  (He walks off stage to the scribe.)

BOSWELL  And so passed the nine dictionary years!