Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches
A number of alterations have been made with the aim of correcting printing errors, while changing the text as little as possible. No attempt has been made to alter spellings, or to modernise punctuation or grammar. The complete list of all such changes appear at the end of thi...
A number of alterations have been made with the aim of correcting printing errors, while changing the text as little as possible. No attempt has been made to alter spellings, or...
2. Part 2A short introduction is scarcely the place to examine the presumed existence of these defects in the _Dictionary_. Nevertheless, a few facts, based on a random sampling of passa...
3. Part 3Beauty is 'that assemblage of graces which pleases the eye.' But, in the Idler[15], he displays his true idea of beauty; and it is a very lame piece of philosophy. Judge from a...
4. Part 4In Gray's ode on spring, 'The thoughts have nothing new, the morality is natural, but too stale[60].' Read the poem, and then esteem the critic if you can. Speaking of _the Bard...
5. Part 5No man was more violent than Dr Johnson in abusing Walpole. We have already seen some of those political definitions, which at this hour deform the Doctor's Dictionary. His late...
6. Part 6Window. 'An _aperture_ in a building by which air and light are _intromitted_.' _N. B._ Almost the whole of the same page is daubed over with such jargon. Said. 'Aforesaid.' Sco...
7. Part 7Bawd 'A Procurer, or Procuress.' To bawd, _v. n._ 'To procure.' Bawdily (from _bawdy_) 'obscenely.' Bawdiness (from _bawdy_) 'obsceneness.' Bawdry, _s._ '1. A wicked practise of...
8. Part 8Highflier. 'One that carries his opinion to extravagance.' The word relates to a particular set of men in this country, and to them only. A Dervise, a Friar, and a Bramin, profe...
9. Part 9[84] Dr Johnson on Cymbeline. The same sentiment is started in his account of Pope, 'To the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet, or pre...