To the EDITOR of the POLITICAL REGISTER

SIR,

If the following obfervations on Dr. Johnfon's Dictionary of the English language come within the defign of the Political Register, they are much at your fervice.

DR. at different times, and on different occafi

R. Johnfon's explanation of feveral of the following

ons been held out to public view. His political principles have been marked with that contempt which they defcrve, by every true friend to the interefts of mankind.-His pedantry has been deservedly laughed at,-while his learning has indeed been admired.-How truly pitiable!-that learning fhould have made a facrifice at the altar of a deteftable party,or indulged in the weaknefles of ignorance ;-that the ambition of being approved, or even of being found confiftent with common fenfe, fhould not have got the better of fo low a paffion, as the affectation of fingularity.-What friend to liberty, can read his unjuft reflection on the Whigs, and his fulfome incense offered to the Tories, without certain emotions, unknown to the fawning fycophants to the doctrine of paffive obedience and non refiftance?-But let this doctor give in his evidence, before you pass your judgment on his testimony.

WHIG.

The name of a FACTION.

TORY.- One who adheres to the ancient constitution of the ftate, and the apoftolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a Whig.

REVOLUTION..

.

Change in the ftate of a government or country. It is used among us xal xv, for the change produced by the admiffion of king William and queen Mary,

How cool a representation is here of the great and glorious revolution of 1688, the very epocha of Liberty-an event : VOL. III.

E e

which

-

which fecured to us, every thing that is dear to us as English.. men,-as members of a free ftate.- The principles of our government have not fuffered alone from the pen of this writer, he is guilty of high treafon to the very language of his country. In vain, however (we may thank our ftars) hath he attempted to fupplant the ease and elegance of Addison, for the bombaft of the Rambler.*-Clio is admirable in every line, but Pompofo is unintelligible and pedantic. Had he confined his ftiff and myfterious expreffions to the Rambler, he would have been more pardonable, but furely it is the greatest affront to common fenfe (nay a contradiction in terms) to introduce a jargon of founds,-where he should have writ ten down (as the phrafe is) to the meanest capacity.—Justice, however, demands that he fhould be viewed as he appears to the naked eye, and not through the medium of any reprefentation,

Opiate. Soporiferous; fomniferous; narcotic, &c. Network. Any thing reticulated or decuffated, at equal diftances, with interftices between the interfections.

Shoeing-horn. i. e. Horn used to facilitate the admiffion of the foot into a narrow fhoe.

2. Any thing by which a tranfaction is facilitated; any thing ufed as a medium.

To Squeak.-To fet up a fudden dolorous cry, &c.

To Twift, v, a. To form by complication; to form by convolution.

To unite by intertexture of parts; &c.

+To Twist. v. n. To be contorted; to be convolved,

*Who, to increase his native strength,
Draws words fix fyllables in length,
With which, affifted with a frown
By way of club, he knocks us down,

+ Twister,-one who twists, a ropemaker,
plain and intelligible enough,

To Twitch.

Churchill,

very well,

but what a whimfical (that, is, according to our author, freakish; capricious &c.) quotation is annexed by way of explaining Twift, in all its fenfes. As the folio edition of this curious performance is not in every body's hands, I will give it at large.

---

When a twister a-twisting will twist him a twift,
For the twifting of his twift, he three twines doth intwist;
But if one of the twines of the twift do untwift,
The twine that untwisteth untwifteth the twist.

Untwirling

To Twitch. To vellicate, &c.

To Twitter. To make a fharp tremulous intermitted noife, &c. To Dodge. To use craft; to deal with tergiverfation, &c. Chink. A fmali aperture longwise, &c.

Correption.- Objurgation, &c.

Line. Longitudinal extenfion, &c.
Liable. Obnoxious, &c.

Perfpirable. Such as may be emitted by the cuticular

&c.

pores

Cough. A convulfion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp ferofity.

Burying-place. A place appointed for the fepulture of dead bodies.

To Breathe. To infpire, or inhale into one's own body, and eject or exhale out of it.

He is equally famous for his explanations of other certain words.But in these he has rather indulged his pride and fpleen,than fhewn forth either his principles or his pedantry, as

Excife. A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by thofe to whom excife is paid.

Favourite. A mean wretch whose whole business is by any means to please, &c.

Gazetteer. It was lately a term of the utmoft infamy, being ufually applied to wretches who were hired to vindicate the

.court.

Untwirling the twine that untwisteth between,
He twirls with his twister the two in a twine;
Then twice having twifted the twines of the twine,
He twitcheth the twine he had twined in twain.
The twine that in twining before in the twine,
As twins were intwisted, he now doth untwine,
"Twixt the twain intertwisting a twine more between
He, twirling his twifler, makes a twift of the twine.
*Pompofo, with Arong fenfe fupplied,
Supported, and confirm'd by pride,
His comrades terrors to beguile,
Grinn'd horribly a ghaftly fmile:
Features fo horrid, were it light,
Would put the devil himself to flight.

Oats. A grain in England, is generally given to horses, but in Scotland fupports the people.

*

Penfioner. 1. One who is fupported by an allowance paid at the will of another; a dependant.

2. A slave of state, hired by a ftipend to obey his master. † Alias. Otherwife, as Simpfon, alias Smith, alias Baker ; (in the fo. edit.)-as Mallet, alias Mallock. (in the 8vo edit.) -what bafe paffion occafioned this alteration?-revenge, or envy. Why would he expofe his private piques to the public view?-fie upon him to let fuch groveling paffions ftain his page.

Many additions might be made to the words, I have here pointed out as exceptionable;-but let thefe fuffice.-Sufficient evidence is collected to prove his partiality and his pedantry. The literary abilities of the author, untainted by those mean paffions and low interefts which appear in fo glaring a manner through almost every page, were equal to the

*It is fomewhat hard upon our northern neighbours, that our Dictionary writers give fuch unfavourable accounts of them. -Why is not Tobias Smollet, or fome fuch univerfal genius fet to work, to clear up their characters in fome publication of the kind, exprefsly defigned for the benefit of the ignorant, to prevent the English from receiving fuch falfe impreffions?Johnfon hath levelled them with our horfes.-Thomas Cooper in his Thefaurus Linguæ Romanæ and Britannica, printed 1578,

thus defcribeth them

Scoti, Scottes, or Scottishe men, of whom Saint Hierome writeth in this wife: "Quid loquar de cæteris nationibus, quum ipfe "adolefcentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos, gentem Britanni"cam humanis vefci carnibus, & quum per fylvas porcorum 66 greges, armentorum, pecudumque; reperiant paftorum "nates, & fæminarum papillas folere abfcindere, & has folas ❝ ciborum delitias arbitrari ?"-What shall I fpeake of other nations, fince that when I was a boy, I fawe in Fraunce, Scottes, a people of Britayne eate mens fleshe, and when they founde in the forreftes hierdes of fwine, beaftes, and cattaile, they would cutte of the buttockes of the boyes, which kept them, and alfo women's pappes, and took that to be the most deyntie and delicate meate.

+ To all principles untrue,

Not fixed to old friends, nor to new,
He damns the penfion which he takes,
And loves the Stuart he forfakes.

Churchill.

great

great work he had fet himself about ;-but fince it has received fo deep a tincture of the oppofite ingredients;-let it rife or fall in every man's estimation, according as he thinks it merits the encomiums generally beftowed upon it.

For the POLITICAL REGISTER.

INTERROGATORIES, Exhibited to a certain LITTLE great man, &c. A fragment-never before made public,-and, now, offered to any and all parties.

B.

Queft.

Anf. W

-gh intereft.

HO made you Pe Mr?
Some little affurance, and a great deal of

Quest. First let me know what kind of affurance is neceffary that I may follow your righteous example;-and secondly, what you mean by B- -gh intereft?

Anf. A full confidence of abilities you are an entire stranger to is a part, though a small one, of those which are called the proper requifites to figure in any public department, but the fureft is blacking the Boot of a certain invisible agent, and, with the right German ball, for that of the English compofition will fail, and not give the right polifh; and, now, as to what I mean by B-gh intereft, turn over any leaf of memoirs, and you hear my opinion in Folio.

Queft. I never heard of that book-is it in print, or M. S.? Anf. In neither-'tis all a blank, and never, perhaps, will be wrote upon,-but 'tis gilded and lettered, well bound, and opens eafily at any place.

Queft. What did your patron promise for you?

Anf. He promifed and vowed four, or five, things in my name,—first, that I fhould believe every article in the treaty of Fontainbleau ;-fecondly, that I fhould rail at all G-n connexions in public-however in private, I might fet my hand to them;-thirdly, that I should with all my might and main-right or wrong, run down conftitutional measures, and, in fhort, as to the reft, fhould do every thing becoming a man. in my station.

Queft. And do you truly, and veritably, believe all the promifes of your invifible agent of a patron will be fulfilled? Anf. Yea! verily and truly I did; but I, now, find myfelf in a kind of quag-mire, thanks be to his mif-guiding hand

and