[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:07.05,0:00:08.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Music]
Dialogue: 0,0:00:15.11,0:00:16.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Narrator] In 1747 in an attic room\Nin Gough Square in London,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:16.62,0:00:21.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a remarkable literary project\Nwas underway.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:21.36,0:00:28.56,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Embracing the spirit of the 18th century,\Na dictionary had been commissioned --
Dialogue: 0,0:00:28.56,0:00:30.26,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,a book that would do \Nfor the English language
Dialogue: 0,0:00:30.26,0:00:32.48,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,what Newton had done\Nfor the stars:
Dialogue: 0,0:00:32.48,0:00:39.71,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,classifying words, fixing their meaning,\Nbringing order to the chaos of language.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:39.71,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>>by the farthing,\Nfor every copy we make him 80.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>>Careful, wholes day work \Nthere you know.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Narrator] Nine years in the making \Nthis landmark of English literature
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,was the brain work of one man.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>>He was a frightful digger, \Nhuge, shambling,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,twitching, blind in one eye.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>>[Female 1] Often his wig would be singed at \Nthe front from,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from holding a candle too close \Nto his short-sighted eyes.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,>>[Female 2] Lots of people when\Nthey first met him
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,thought he was a lunatic, \Nuntil they were able to talk to him.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Narrator] Samuel Dictionary Johnson an\Nunlikely hero,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,an eccentric unknown hat writer, \Ndestined to become a literary superstar.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Samuel Johnson's dictionary is one of \Nthe most important books ever written
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the English language.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In the 250 years since its publication \Nit has served as a model
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for dictionary writing throughout \Nthe world.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Today rare first editions \Nare proudly preserved
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in the world's great libraries.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Henry Hitchings] So, here is the dictionary: \Ntwo volumes,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,forty two thousand seven hundred \Nand seventy three words,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,over a hundred thousand \Nillustrated quotations,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,two thousand \Nthree hundred pages.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And as you can see these \Nare huge cumbersome books.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You couldn't pick one of \Nthe volumes up with one hand,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,you might struggle \Nto do it with two hands.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,What's more I can't even touch\Nthis particular copy of it,
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,because this was the personal copy of\NKing George the Third.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Usually, today, when we see \Na book on this kind of scale
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that's something that's been produced \Nby people collaborating large teams
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of people who've come together.
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And when it\Nsits in front of you like this you're reminded of what a remarkable accomplishment it was for one man\Nessentially unaided this is his work but it's also a book that's produced by one\Nperson who had to overcome incredible difficulties to do that in his personal life in the life of his mind we're\Ntalking about a guy who had incredible psychological difficulties obstacles and obstructions to his Labor's and this\Nreally very orderly production is at odds with that and that's a tribute\Nreally to Johnson's personal qualities
Dialogue: 0,9:59:59.99,9:59:59.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Narrator] What we know about the author of this\Nextraordinary book is largely gleaned from one of the most celebrated biographies in the English language\NBoswell's life of Johnson James Boswell was a young Scottish lawyer who met\NJohnson some eight years after the publication of the dictionary Boswell\Nimmediately fell under the authors spell and for over 20 years he doggedly pursued Johnson filling notebook after\Nnotebook with records of their many conversations intending one day to publish the story of Johnson's life\Ntruly conceived by those who Pina indeed have ventured to say there's more\Nscience and learning within a circumference of 10 miles of where we now sit there is in all the rest of the\Nworld well the only disadvantage is a very great distance at which people live from one another just occasion by its\Nlarge which in turn is a very cause of all the other advantages there are times where I would willingly leave London\Nretire to our desert either a deserts enough in Scotland a man of intellect\Nwould never willingly leave London nope when a man's tired of London he's tired in life well there is in London all that\Nlife can afford Johnson's passion for London is legendary he wrote his famous\Ndictionary here in GOP's Square a house of Fleet Street which was in the 18th\Ncentury the very heart of literary London welcome everybody to dr.\NJohnson's house I'd like to roll back in time a little bit just tell you a little bit about Johnson's earlier years if we\Ncould just have a look at the picture on the wall here now this is a rather quirky picture it's by Johnson's friend\NJoshua Reynolds and obviously it's retrospective as as Reynolds didn't know\NJohnson when he was about six months old or however old years and you can see even then he's having great thoughts\Nabout and about something now Johnson was born in in quite poor health I mean\Nhe was baptized on the spot and was with Johnson himself said that he was a diseased and sickly infant\Nhe contracted scrofula from his wet nurses milk which is TB at the lymph nodes he managed to throw it off\Nnaturally but this was not withstanding the several rather odd cures one of\Nwhich is to have a cut made on the child's arm which was they're not allowed to heal up for several years but\Nthis scar filler did leave him badly affected in terms of his eyesight and\Nhis hearing he described himself as being nearly blind in one eye and certainly his hearing was very bad as\Nwell Johnson was born in Litchfield in\Nthe Midlands in 1709 the son of a bookseller he was from the very stars a\Nvoracious reader in his sickness he sought refuge in Greek and Latin classics taken from his father's shelves\Nbut Johnson's mother disapproved of much of his reading preferring instead to steer him towards Christian Texas find\Ngood things here things you'll need this\None I don't just read it learn it don't you'll find things in\Nhere you'll never regret in life sir\Nwhen Johnson was a child in petticoats and had learned to read his mother one\Nmorning put the Common Prayer book into his hands pointed to the collect for the day and said Sam you must get this by\Nheart she went upstairs leaving him to study it but by the time she had reached the\Nsecond floor she heard him following her what's the matter she said I can see it\Nhe replied and he repeated it distinctly though he could not have read it more\Nthan twice throughout his life Johnson\Nwas a stern moralist doubtless the result of his mother's early influence the family bookshop was equally\Nsignificant in developing Johnson's precocious intellect but it failed to generate enough income to sent into\Nuniversity indeed it was only when he was nineteen years old that a chance legacy gave the family just enough money\Nto get Johnson started at Pembroke College Oxford\Nthis is the college chapel which was some in the 18th century guard as one of\Nthe greatest monstrosity is to be erected so it was being built when\NJohnson first came here as an undergraduate but the rest of the court didn't exist at all thing was just works\Nbeing carried out on this there about 40 students 40 students and fellows in\Ntotal and that would be also you would know every Johnson would have made his presence felt because he would know\Nsimply everybody in the college and everyone would know him so I know so you can't be inconspicuous you can't fade\Ninto the background if you're in a college of only 40 people so he was you know and this would be up here would be\Nwhere his rooms were so in the gatehouse which we can go and look up\Nwe have to imagine these some stairs and Johnson's time it would be very lighting\NOxford 18th century Oxford is just full of hierarchy so where and where you\Nlived proclaim very visibly the kind of student you were so Johnson may have\Ndefined himself as a gentleman but his rooms as you can see were not\Nnecessarily those pertaining to gentlemanlike status this would have\Nbeen the bedroom hardly larger than a cupboard as it is recorded at the time\Nwhen he'd been reading assiduously for years before that so he came equipped\Nwith a massive store of knowledge and it was in this room that he would have set his hundred volumes which he came\Nequipped with what you know on horseback traveling these 76 miles from Litchfield\Nso this is where it all happened where he would have written his essays and prepared his themes\Nwell Johnson's account of his time here is that he disregarded all power and all\Nauthority and I think that's what we can see almost from his first moments in the college and in his first week he's\Nmissing tutorials which is certainly something you wouldn't expect a student in their first week of their course to\Ndo he writes extraordinary good pieces of work but not necessarily the ones he was\Nasked right he goes off sliding when he should be attending lectures he goes off\Ndrinking in taverns when he's supposed to be on college premises I think again this is this extra enough in your first\Nweek as an undergraduate you expect this you know extraordinary dutiful you know observance of everything you're supposed\Nto do but there's Johnson willfully taking the opportunity to slide instead so and this was the source of the first\Nof Johnson's many finds in the corner actually where he was fined tuppence as he said for a lecture not worth a penny\Nwhich also is not guaranteed to give you an easy passage through the college\Nwhen Johnson arrived at Oxford he appears to have been ashamed of his family circumstances deciding to\Nregister as the son of a gentleman rather than the more appropriate title of tradesman the college record books at\Nthe time contained further clues to Johnson's life at Oxford okay\Nand these are the battles books for 1720 and 1729 and these contain all the\Nrecords of the expenditure of every individual student and fellow in the\Ncollege and they're written in an as-yet unbroken 17th century code which if we\Ncould break it would be absolutely wonderful and then there's Johnson there and as\Nyou can see lots of annotations for Johnson always below the line and these\Nare the things that were we able to break this code would tell us an awful lot more about what Johnson was like as\Nan undergraduate fine somehow finds rectally on this particular I don't see\Nbeing a good boy at this point but if we went over to this one over here we can\Nsee a lengthy unfirm black mark you see he has a black mark against his name\Nbelow the line that is very clearly a fine here I'm not a thing October I was rather like the graffiti\Nat the end I get pages like these actually I always scrutinize these\Nextensive see whether there's anything for Johnson here there's lots of Morley's which suggests that maybe the\Ncollege wasn't a single sex as we suspect or Molly seems to be here quite a lot under fear this is the fear as\Nwell somewhere there's quite a lot about Johnson's friends here's Philip Jones Jones is a four-piece dog and come forth\NPhilip Jones and hey you know answer your charge for exceeding the battles again so Johnson wasn't really keeping\Ncompany that led him to keep them maybe the most economical ways in the college\Nafter 13 months Johnson had to pack up his belongings it's thought Jonathan left because he'd\Nran out of money and he didn't make any effort as far as we can see from the\Ncollege records to modify his spendings or to exist more economically while he\Nwas here so he has a very sustained level of expenditure his 8 shillings a\Nweek from beginning to end and then suddenly the record stops halfway through one week and Johnson disappears\Noff the college books\NJohnson returned to the family bookshop in Litchfield where his father was now\Nseriously ill and soon to die he was expected to take over the business\Nbut after Oxford he thought that selling books was beneath him I remember once I\Nwas disobedient to my father wasn't long after I had returned from Oxford the\Ntruth it was just weeks before he died I refused to accompany him to you tops at\Na market where he went regularly to sell books he'd asked me for help she needed\Nmy help despite his condition hell is only a few\Nyears ago I decided to attend this fault so I went to you tops it and very bad\Nweather I stood for hours bare headed in the rain very spot where\Nmy father's bookstore used to stand I stood in contrition\Nit was my penance my atonement\Nso ashamed\Nhaving turned his back on the family business Johnson sought to make a living from writing he wrote a number of essays for\Nthe Birmingham Journal and was paid five pounds for translating father Jerome Lobos voyage to Abyssinia and then in\N1735 Johnson made a rather unlikely marriage Johnson was actually the\Noriginal toy boy he married a widow who was more than twenty years older than\Nhimself when he was in his mid-20s she was claiming 40 at the time and was\Nprobably nearer and 45:46 as an older woman she saw something in Johnson that\Nperhaps a younger woman who would only look at the surface of things with not see Teti as he called her Elizabeth\NPorter always strikes me as quite a sad character as she gave up a lot to marry\NJohnson she never really again had her own home until she moved here and by\Nthen really hurt her poor health meant that she couldn't really enjoy it we all\Nknow that love can manifest itself in some quite bizarre ways but it's certainly the the great puzzler of\NJohnson's life is that he married this woman who seems so wrong not an intellectual so much older most a mother\Nfigure one suggestion is he may originally have been interested in her daughter but the daughter spurned his\Nadvances and so he turned to the mother people who have an antipathy to Johnson have cast all kinds of cynical\Naspersions on what the marriage was all about that it wasn't consummated or that Johnson was incredibly inept when it\Ncame to lovemaking and say tatty pretty quickly showed him the door on that front it's fascinating to speculate\Nabout but there's very little first-hand information Johnson's literary career failed to take\Noff so he decided instead to set up this school just outside Litchfield using his\Nwife's money but the school also failed attracting only a tiny number of pupils\Nas prospective parents were deterred by Johnson's very eccentric behavior dr.\NJohnson is probably the best example of Tourette syndrome within history it's\Nonly the best described case I think this is a quote from Fanny Burney this\Nis what she described Johnson by saying his mouth is almost constantly opening and shutting as if he were chewing\Nhe has a strange Methodist frequently twirling his fingers and twisting his hands his body is in a continual\Nagitation see-sawing up and down his feet are never a moment quiet and in short his whole person is in perpetual\Nmotion here's another passage from Boswell's life of dr. Johnson he made various\Nsounds with his mouth sometimes giving half a whistle sometimes clucking like a hen and these\Nsound to me like phonic tics my view\Nabout how Tourette's works is that any one time in all of our brains there are\Na whole range of motor phenomena and behavior that are competing to be expressed but that a part of our brain\Ncalled the striatum filters all of them out and only lets through those bits of behavior which are appropriate to the\Ncircumstance in Tourette's syndrome that feels free or as other people are called as a firewall isn't working for some\Nreason most people with Tourette's syndrome have obsessions and compulsions this is what boss wall notes he had\Nanother peculiarity this was his anxious care to go out or in a tad oral passage by a certain\Nnumber of steps from a certain point or at least so that either his right or his left foot I'm not certain which should constantly\Nmake the first actual movement when he came close to the door or passage that's a wonderful example of what I call a\Njust right compulsion which are very common in Tourette's syndrome it's a feeling of having to do or say or\Nthink something so it's absolutely just right and if you don't do it in that way you have to go back and do it again so\Nit doesn't surprise me at all that dr. Johnson wrote an English language dictionary because I think he\Nis characteristic which is obviously having to do or say or think something so that it's just right would be a\Npersonality characteristic which would very much suit a dictionary writer then he wouldn't rest until he felt that the\Ndefinition of the word was just right and that would allow him to feel comfortable mentally and I would imagine if he hadn't have settled upon exactly\Nthe right definition he would have suffered from a mental uncomfortableness\Ndespite the many handicaps that Johnson faced he resolved to resume his literary\Nambitions and set out for London in March 17:37 people talked about grub Street\Nwhich was not so much a physical space as a kind of state of mind there was this culture of jobbing\Nauthors hacks who turned out pieces to order and Johnson saw himself as definitely having the capacity to kind\Nof participate in that however his whole sort of physical bearing meant that when\Npeople saw him they thought Covent Garden Porter that's you and so actually a lot of people turned in a way but it\Nwas here at some John's gate in Clerkenwell that he got his first big literary break\Nthis was where the gentlemen's magazine was based the jugglers magazine was run by a man called Edward cave who like\NJohnson was a native of the West Midlands and cave recognised Johnson's abilities and quickly employed Johnson\Nas someone to write reports of parliamentary debates and all kinds of other topical pieces and this was really\Nwhere Johnson served his apprenticeship as a jobbing author it was a very modest\Nliving and it's it's certainly clear that he lived a hand-to-mouth existence constantly moving from one abode to the\Nnext and it was precarious and it was during that time that he consorted with some of London's sort of dodgiest\Ncharacters he had one particular friend Richard savage who was a destitute and\Nbadly behaved poet who was at one point accused of murdering someone in a coffeehouse brawl and Johnson would\Nassociate with people like savage and often stay out all night and sleep in the street and this was a guy who was\Ndefinitely you know quite close to the gutter this was formative in terms of developing his his sense of really I\Nthink urgency about his professional career but also his humanity that he knew about you know the wretches who\Nwere one whole stratum of of kind of London life and certainly the junk women's magazine was was a very\Nimportant and cultural organ of the period and it gave him a kind of platform and it was like sort of doing\Nwork experience he was able to acquire kind of plethora of different skills all of which would be useful in due\Ncourse you know these days people who want to be writers have all kind of noble aspirations that they start out with Johnson was much more\Nnuts-and-bolts in his approach and he worked up from the ground and learned all kinds of useful things about you\Nknow shorthand and reporting and and kind of he was a book muncher I kind of like to think of him as this sort of you\Nknow omnivore almost out there in the literary wilderness Johnson was in his\Nlate 20s when he arrived in London famously he loved the city it stimulated\Nhim it set him in an intellectual community that had been missing since his Oxford days you must understand that\Nevery man has his genius and it's true to say that the great rule by which all excellence is achieved and successes\Nprocured is to follow that genius my own particular genius as you have observed\Nduring our conversations is manifests in extreme layers I'm either very silent or\Nvery noisy very gloomy or very merry very sour or very kind what you must\Nunderstand is that with juice submission to Providence a man who genius has seldom ruined but by himself\Nthe literary London that Johnson was reveling in during the 1730's and 40s was a fast changing world where once\Nliterature had been the plaything of aristocratic patrons a new professionalism was emerging bookseller\Npublishers were assuming a new importance what they could sell on the market determined which projects were\Ncommissioned and it was a group of six such booksellers who got together in 1746 and identified the need for a\Ndefinitive Dictionary of the English language the dictionary was a\Nbooksellers idea a publisher's idea and it's no accident that all Johnson's\Ngreat projects and the dictionary was the first and the greatest we're actually first of all devised and\Nproposed by booksellers many of Johnson's most famous quotes are\Nquotes about the the desirability of commercial endeavor in the world of\Nliterature no man but a blockhead writes except for money the bookseller cell\Npatrons of literature the desire to have a good English dictionary fitted in with\Na lot of things that were going on at the time it was a period of codification anthologies and also the creation of\Nsort of national monuments you know at approximately this time you get things like the British Museum the Royal Academy of Arts the suddenly this idea\Nthat arts should be institutionalized and institutionalizing English is part\Nof that process Italy had a standard dictionary the Academy Frances had\Nproduced a dictionary for the French language and England had nothing so there was a perceived lack the English\Nfelt very different about their language they felt that they weren't keeping up with the competing nations in Europe so\Nwe needed an English dictionary to compete with other European nations we have to remember that Britain is a new\Nconcept at the time you know the active union had only happened in 1707 so Britain at the time when Johnson starts\Non the dictionary is about 40 years old and there's this sense that you have to have a sort of program of Britishness\Nand things an image of Britishness being projected the dictionary was a huge\Nproject and it's extraordinarily effective of this group of London\Nbooksellers that they picked Johnson I mean a lot of it was because of one man\Nin particular a very influential book seller called Robert Dodds Lee who was a\Nfriend of Johnson's had become a friend of his and had a sense of his\Nextraordinary talents and his extraordinary erudition a man born to\Ngrapple with libraries somebody said about Johnson Johnson signed a contract\Nwith the booksellers in June 1746 he would be paid fifteen hundred guineas\Nover a period of three years enough to pay Johnson a living wage to her a team of helpers and to rent a large\Nhouse off Fleet Street number 17 Goff square he'd been commissioned to write\Nthe dictionary of the English language and of course this was an enormous project and he knew that he'd need a\Nlarge workspace he saw the famous dictionary garret at the top of the house and this just\Ninspired him as somewhere that he could really spread out and work and of course\Nhave his assistants\Nhow long will the money lost by my reckoning three years three years they think I'm mad but three years it's 1500\NGanesa 500 here oh do have faith doctors\Ncan see working hard we have our methods working hard and I comforted them what\Nwe're doing will impress this will be a\Ndictionary like no other be preaching quotations full of the traces of the\Nfinest minds Durham's physical theology bronze\Nvulgaris all worthy of quotation all full of learning and words well mused\Nthis is great work but how can you possibly do this in three years you of course know that the French Academy with\N40 members took 40 years to compile ended well 40 times 40 is 1600 and as\Nthree is the 1600 so is the proportion of an Englishman to French\Nwe have on the table and the facsimile version of the first edition of the\Ndictionary you can see from from looking at the volumes we have on the table just\Nby looking at the size of the books what a massive project it must have been what\Nmakes Dobson's dictionary very idiosyncratic is that it contains illustrative quotations after many of\Nthe definitions that contain the word that that he's trying to define so you\Ncan actually see the word in action if you like collaborators on this no he had\Nwhat he called his amanuensis his his six copyists they helped with the actual\Ncopying out but it seems that these the brainwork came from johnson himself\Nit's a popular myth that Johnson's dictionary was the first Dictionary of the English language in fact there had\Nbeen several before but whereas earlier dictionaries had offered little more than simple synonyms Johnson wanted his\Ndictionary to go further he wanted to offer more elaborate definitions and to give examples of words as used by the\Nfinest authors one of the first things Johnson did was to have a look at pretty\Nmuch all the existing dictionaries and I think he initially considered the possibility of so drawing up a word list\Nby plundering what was already there but after a time he realized this wasn't a\Nvery effective methodology and instead he decided and this is a radical decision and an influential one that he\Nwould start with books rather than with the alphabet said what he does is he sets about what he calls the perusal of\NEnglish literature and he looks at about 2000 books by about 500 authors from\Napproximately the previous 200 years we can detect the records of other\Ndictionaries of the lexicographers within Johnson's dictionary but Johnson's making it very much his own dictionary and a lot of it is stopp'd\Nfrom Johnson's extraordinary memory because he had this amazingly retentive\Nmemory that many of the quotations that appear in the dictionaries are ones that he\Nself-promote they're not always entirely accurate because they are the product of memory and the writers Johnson Johnson\Nadmired are the ones located in the past although this is a Dictionary of the English language of 1755\Nthe massive evidence within this dictionary comes from the past the kind of legitimizing heritage if you want\Nso there's writers the writers who dominate on Shakespeare Milton Dryden\NHobe the canonical greats of the past and their usage is often used to\Nexemplify a state of language which is quite different to that of the mid 18th\Ncentury for three years Johnson made\Nrapid progress selecting the very best quotations to bolster his definitions\Nshowing language in action bed presser a\Nheavy lazy fellow this sanguine coward this bed presser this horse backbreaker\Nthis huge hill of flesh Shakespeare by dental having two teeth ill management\Nof forks is not to be helped when they are only by dental Swift\N[ __ ] doodle a fool and insignificant wretch where study butchers broke your\Nnovel and handled you like a fob doodle Judy Brock science certainty grounded on\Ndemonstration science perfects genius and moderates that fury of the fancy\Nwhich cannot contain itself within the bounds of Reason Dryden Oates a grain\Nwhich in England is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people the oats have eaten the horses\NShakespeare Dixie whimsy a made word in ridicule or\Ndisdain of a waif abaca Darion he that\Nteachers or learns the alphabet or first rudiments of literature dull not\Nexhilarating not delightful as to make dictionaries is dull work we have a few\Nexamples that are survived at the books Johnson used when he was making the dictionary and completely ruined some of\Nthese books he borrowed from friends and he went through he found a word used in\Na way that he liked in a quotation he admired or sometimes expressing a\Nsentiment he thought worth expressing and he would underline that word mark\Noff with vertical lines the whole passage he wanted quoted right the initial letter of the word in the margin\Nfor his his help her hacks his ax men UNC's and they would go through the\Nbusiness of transcribing a whole quotation cutting them out and slits and arranging them in alphabetical order but\NJohnson was kind of he was getting books really\Nbut Johnson wanted his dictionary to be far more than just an anthology of English literature in an age where\Nscience industry and knowledge were all expanding rapidly what Johnson had in mind was something closer to an Internet\Nfor the 18th century the way a modern\Ninternet search engine works is it automatically seeks out knowledge from all over the world and pulls it together\Ninto a gigantic database Johnson worked in much the same way when he put together his dictionary he sat down and\Nread literally thousands books and marked out quotations trying to find the\Nmost interesting passages trying to put together a systematic and synoptic view\Nof the knowledge of the 18th century and he assembled more than a hundred thousand of these quotations to serve as\Na kind of database or information bank of everything that was known everything\Nthat was worth knowing entries on history and politics and biology tables\Nof logarithms for people interested in mathematics one entry on the mating habits of elephants another on the\Nmedicinal value of opium he said he wanted them that all of the quotations\Nwould do more than simply illustrate the meaning of one of them to teach things Johnson\Nprovided a book that was in some ways the search engine of the 18th century\Nbut Johnson's great ambition was not easily achieved he prepared the dictionary as far as the letter U when\Nthe printers returned the proofs for a and B reading them Johnson was massively disappointed as he\Nrealized that he'd completely underestimated the complexity of language well I think when Johnson\Nstarts on the evidence of the plan of the dictionary that he he publishes in\N1746 he thinks that the dictionary is going to legislate that it's going to be\Na prescriptive dictionary it's going to guard the language against corruption\Nand innovation and Johnson seems to think of himself as a controller of\Nwords when he starts by the time he's finished he's completely changed his\Nmind and indeed ruefully characterizes his earlier ambitions he's like trying\Nto sort of stand against the way it's trying to lash the winds he says you\Ncan't do this the language has a life which you can at best try to record but\Nyou can't as it were make decisions about which words should or should not be used one of the things that we need\Nto understand is that Johnson started out with a slightly restrictive sense of\Nhow many different applications any given word might have he thought that really a word could have at most about\Nabout seven well not about seven applications but in the course of his\Nreading he found that you know somewhere to twenty or thirty or a hundred different applications I think he says that the the verb to take has a hundred\Nand thirty four different applications and he ends up expending about eight thousand words on explaining all of\Nthose I think what must have caused the\Nproblems for him was when he reached the verbs and in the letter a as it happens\Nthere aren't really very complicated verbs in the English language but there are plenty in the letter B so it must\Nhave been when he got to the letter B and the ink adverbs like the verb to bear for example he must have realized that not\Nonly are there lots of lots of different meanings of the verb to bear there are also phrasal verbs including\Nthe verb to bear to bear up to bear down to bear away and so on and he wouldn't\Nhave realized that before he started because previous dictionaries didn't have phrasal verbs Johnson decided that\Nall that he had done so far needed revision it was too expensive to reprint the entries for a and B but he was\Ndetermined that everything else should be rethought the text just didn't match\Nhis expectations it wasn't the kind of dictionary he wanted to write so he\Nrefused to send the rest to the printer we do know that Johnson must have got a\Nletter from the proprietors because we've got his reply to the letter and the reply to the letter is a very strong\Nrejection of what seemed to have been threats from the proprietors the proprietors seemed to have threatened\Nthat they would storm his house and take away the material that he had in it and\Nprint the dictionary whether he wanted them to or not to give him\Nthey want us to keep in pink\Nwhat we've done is good it's what you said we do what you told us and then I don't care what I told you\Nit's poor we need more space we need more time we need more definitions we need more\Nexamples languages which I will not be\Nboys oh not me bleed I will not be\Nbullied but the printers continued to\Nhound Johnson he set aside the dictionary and feeling wretched and\Nguilty he now entered one of the many periods of depression that dogged his life here we have Johnson's prayers and\Nmeditations which were left in the manuscripts of which were left to the college what we can see here is a kind\Nof Johnson's own accounting actually of his life to himself\Nthey often record his sense of penance for not having achieved what he hoped to\Nachieve as a very transparent sense of guilt often and his prayers this is one very early one here from 1749 where we\Ncan see his sense of religion and his devoutness but also this prayer for strength to sustain him and any for him\Nto improve their often quite depressing reading actually meaning a a ritual\Ntortured sense of Johnson Ramon actually oddly never very witty never very pithy\NNova very epic erratic it's much more somebody searching their own conscience\Nor what they should have done and what they have not done and what they hope to do and improve in the future\NJohnson says that when he started on the dictionary he had imagined what he would\Ndo was wander amongst the the groves of Posie that he would delightedly sample\Nfrom all the kind of great literary works but also the works of learning and\Nscience and that this would be a rather delicious an instructive thing but then\Nhe says these were the dreams of a poet doomed to awake a lexicographer\Nhe was in many ways what we would call a depressive a person in particular possessed by some religious terrors he\Napparently kept a padlock and chained at the house of his great friends mr. and\Nmrs. trail who lived in Stratham and this padlock and chain which he\Npresented to mrs. Trail were there if you should ever go mad he was to be restrained and locked up and he feared\Nmadness as a kind of constant presence\Nflash quick a tremor of the body I know\NI watched him walking through the street yesterday where was he going till the\Nladies on the miter no doubt sure who could blame by 1750 Johnson could no\Nlonger afford to pay for the amanuensis and they had to be laid off but he still\Nhad other bills to pay his sick wife needed constant medical care and a wage\Nhad to be found for her companion stimulants my husband yes\Nhe's resting there's not another man works as hard Johnson chose to try to\Nsolve his financial problems by starting a magazine the Rambler a collection of\Nessays often characterized like so much of his writing by a model in sense of disappointment in his own failings he\Nwould not deny me a place among the most faithful voters of idleness how often\Nhave I sittin down to write and rejoice this interruption and how often I have\Npraised the dignity of resolution determined at night to write in the morning and deferred it in the morning\Nto the quiet hours of the night it was\Nalmost two years before Johnson returned to the dictionary and faced up to the\Npublishers they had paid for a dictionary and he hadn't completed it he'd reneged on his contract and he knew\Nit and he must have felt remorseful about that and he must have known that they were right so I think that probably\Nwas a kickstart for him to start the project again and he must have gone back to it at that point and tried to\Nresurrect it and tried to complete it but this time of course he's got very little money and he he gets a new\Ncontract with the publishers they agree to pub to give him a guinea per sheet\Nper printed sheet so he's getting some more money but it's not a great deal of\Nmoney so he can only employ two amanuensis to help him\Nafter a period of inertia in 1751 Johnson really plunged himself back into\Nhis world of work he was Eames kind of galvanized he was excited by the task in hand again and at the same time that he\Nwas working very zealously he also started socializing a lot more and it was too little little taverns like this\Nthat he would come little places tucked away and kind of nooks and crannies of London and he would throw himself back\Ninto that intimate social life not necessarily drinking very much but enjoying social pleasures went well for\Nhim until March of 1752 when his wife Teti died that was crushing that was\Ndisabling he suddenly became incredibly introspective introverted he stopped socializing he was he was really\Ndisabled with grief with a return of the black dog of melancholy he stopped\Ncoming to places like this he stopped doing anything he certainly stopped work on the dictionary and there was a period\Nthen a kind of hiatus where he was just blank but he pulled himself out of this\Nand the way this seems to have happened really is that his house in golf Square began to fill up with people like\NFrancis barber the young Jamaican servant boy who came to live with him\Nand new friends his house became a sort of menagerie of eccentrics strange people on the fringe of literary society\Ncoming to his household and invigorate him and fill him with not exactly shuara de vivre but some kind of appetite for\Nlife and ultimately for work amongst the new arrivals at Johnson's house was a\Ntwelve year old recently liberated slave Frank barber barber became a surrogate\Nson to Johnson and lived with him until Johnson's death when barber was left the sum of 750 pounds and Teddy's wedding\Nring there was Robert Levitt a somewhat disreputable self-appointed doctor who\Npicked up much of what he knew about medicine from conversations overheard in a cafe near a medical school in Paris\Nthere was a blind poet s Anna Williams who claimed to have taken part in the\Nfirst experiments leading to the discovery of electricity and mrs. de Mulan Tati's companion who later told\NBoswell that she'd received numerous amorous advances from Johnson who even groped her on occasions I mean it must\Nhave been a chaotic household with all these different people living in it Johnson does say that there were frequent arguments the inhabitants\Ndidn't get on with one another so they're out with each other frequently so it can't have been an easy household to live in but Johnson doesn't seem to\Nhave minded that he didn't mind people round with one of it what he hated was being alone he really feared being left alone he\Ndelayed and delayed he didn't do the job because he couldn't face up to it he didn't know how to do it he had these problems on it and he\Ndidn't know how to solve the problems but then once he stirred into action he\Nreally gets going and he produces 80-percent of the dictionary in less than two years with the help of just two\Namanuensis\Nif Johnson had done this in a university setting it would have been a different dictionary it probably would have been\Nmuch better organized he probably would have had easier access to materials that\Nwould have given him for example better etymological and information but I'm not\Nsure it would have been a better dictionary after 9 years\NJohnson's Labor's were complete but before he would allow the dictionary to be printed Johnson wanted to be sure of\None last detail even after all his Labor's on the dictionary there was one\Nthing that Johnson had to do before he was prepared to set it before the general public and we can actually see\Nevidence of what that one thing was on the title page these letters after his name a and today we would say ma we may\Nrecall that Johnson left Oxford almost 30 years before without a degree this\Nwas something that had rankled during the intervening years he felt that he needed some kind of badge of his\Nacademic credentials his authenticity as a scholar to put on the title page to\Nlend credibility really to his publication and so he badgered some of his Oxford contacts to make this happen\Nand until they did make it happen he wasn't prepared for the dictionary to be released and those letters were were\Nvital to his realization as a fully fledged man of a khadeem finally on\NApril the 15th 1755 the dictionary was published 2,000 copies were printed\Ninitially selling for a costly four pounds and ten shillings each but swiftly followed by cheaper editions see\Nrealizations and abridgements it made him a kind of national figure\Nand then as now it's simply struck observers as an extraordinary thing for\None man to do yet focus several years\Nafterwards though he was now unknown author a great man dr. Johnson he was\Nstill quite hard up he had to give up the house at Gough square probably because he couldn't afford the rent anymore indeed actually the year after\Nit was published he was being arrested for debt and bailed out by his his acquaintances the novelist Samuel\NRichardson and it was only rarely in 1762 seven years later when Georgia\Nthird the young Georgia third gave him a pension a generous pension that he\Nescaped financial need for the first time in his life Johnson continued to\Nwrite for the rest of his life including a novel Restless an edition of the works of Shakespeare and a number of essays on\Nthe lives of Britain's greatest poets his reputation made he was the king of\Nliterary London he held court in various sours and coffee houses and of course\Nthere was always Boswell noting down his every word for posterity\Ndictionaries are like watches the worst is better than non but the best can't be\Nexpected to go quite true much of my life being lost to the pressure of\Ndisease much I confess has been trifle away but it will all have been worthwhile if by my efforts foreign\Nnations and distant ages can gain access to the propagators of knowledge and\Nunderstand that teachers of truth whether by my writing have added\Neverything to English literature time alone will be my judge but if the\Ndictionaries fails to do justice to our language that I only failed in something which no human powers that his are too\Ncompleted I believe I knew very well what I was undertaking I believe I knew\Nvery well how to do it and I believe I did it very well\NJohnson never stopped working on revised editions of his dictionary four of which\Nwere published before his death in 1784\Nin the 82 nineteenth century people very shortly after death often had these\Nsometimes wax sometimes plaster casts made of their faces and the upper part\Nof their bodies Johnson's death mask was I believe commissioned by Johnson's\Nfriend and executor Sir Joshua Reynolds\Nit's extraordinary um as you look at as you look at the death mask you have this\Nincredible sense of of really seeing Johnson as a person much more than in\Nthe paintings which present this kind of sanitized vision of what he was like to\Nme this feels even though it's you know ironically it's something that's been done after Johnson's death it's\Nsomething which has this incredible life about it you're really able to read\Nsomething about Johnson's personality to see what the living breathing talking\NJohnson must have been like but it's a very large head and you get the\Nimpression that these would have been very expressive features but the default the expressions wouldn't necessarily\Nhave been you know a broad smile I mean the mouth he sort of twisted in a\Nstrange kind of rictus I know that that might just be death but there is a sense\Nthat it's not a happy mouth there's something about this face which suggests I think unhappiness\Nscrofula a deprivation of the humors of the body\NLitchfield city of the dead flesh quake\Na tremor of the body grub Street a street in London much\Ninhabited by writers of small histories dictionaries contemporary poems pension\Npay given to a state filing for treason to his country\Nlexicographer a writer of dictionaries a harmless Drudge over 250 years after its\Npublication the legacy of Johnson's dictionary endures it still sets the\Nstandard for dictionaries today the Oxford English Dictionary began life as\Na revision to Johnson's and there are still some 1700 of his original definitions in the current edition don't\Nsome must have been enormous ly proud of his dictionary after he'd finished because he always referred to it as his\Nbook he doesn't refer to any of his other publications as his book just the\Ndictionary and he became known as dictionary Johnson and was very proud of that nickname though clearly he thought\Nthat was his central achievement of his life some people criticized his favoring\Nsome quite unusual words and not including words that perhaps ought to have been in there so for example he\Ndoesn't have the word blonde he doesn't have port as a drink even though he was certainly familiar with it he doesn't\Nhave the word banknote but he does have the word the retro minjin C which means\Npissing backwards which is apparently something that has do and you might think well it is that strictly necessary\Nit's actually very good that Johnson included that word but the were things he left out in the preface to the\Ndictionary he says as if it were a self-evident truth the chief glory of\Nevery people arises from its authors and the dictionary is a proof of that as far\Nas he's concerned and if you were to say in one sentence what is Johnson's importance what's the\Nimportance of his career I think you would say is he is the person more than any other who invents English literature\Nso some repository of cultural values as a place to go to and\Nas a some educational tool as well and that's what the dictionary really does\Nstay with us as Robbie Coltrane plays Samuel Johnson joined by John sessions\Nas James Boswell to recreate the pair's trip to the Hebrides in 1773 that's next
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