We shall do better to choose one or two of the passages which should move us even now, when we picture to ourselves the years of industry and poverty in the gloomy Gough Square house: "The chief glory of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature must be left to time." "I deliver my book to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well.... In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet 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." The Dictionary itself is not, of course, to be compared in fulness or accuracy with the latest monument of lexicography which we find on library shelves to-day--any more than Marlborough's artillery can be compared with a modern howitzer. "The definitions" says Boswell "have always appeared to me such astonishing proofs of acuteness of intellect and precision of language, as indicate a genius of the highest rank. This it is which marks the superiour excellence of Johnson's _Dictionary_ over others." But even Boswell has to admit, as Johnson did, that there are errors and obscurities, "inconsiderable specks" though they be. "Thus _Windward_ and _Leeward_, though directly of opposite meaning, are defined identically the same way." "A lady once asked him how he came to define _Pastern_ the _knee_ of a horse; instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, 'Ignorance, Madam,--pure ignorance.'" "His definition of _Network_ has been often quoted with sportive malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself very plain." Boswell tantalises us by omitting this definition. But, to set curiosity at rest, here it is: "Anything reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections." A man of strong prejudices like Johnson could not refrain from letting his own views appear here and there throughout the work and it is these human touches which have most attraction for us to-day. We can imagine the grim smile which came over his scarred and rugged face when he defined: _Oats_ as "A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people[4]." _Whig_ as "The name of a faction." _Grub-street_ as "the name of a street in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, _dictionaries_, and temporary poems." _Lexicographer_ as "a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge."