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256

Johnson not a coiner of words.

[A. D. 1750.

liberal indulgence of that licence which Horace claims in another place:

'——————————Si fortè necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis
Continget, dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter:
Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem si
Græco fonte cadant, parce detorta. Quid autem
Cæcilio Plaittoque dabit Romanus, ademptum
Virgilio Varioque? Ego cur, acquirere pauca
Si possum, invideor; cum lingua Catonis et Enni
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum
Nomina protulerit? Licuit semperque licebit
Signatum præsente notâ producere nomen^[1].'

Yet Johnson assured me, that he had not taken upon him to add more than four or five words to the English language, of his own formation^[2]; and he was very much offended at the general licence, by no means 'modestly taken' in his time, not only to coin new words, but to use many words in senses quite different from their established meaning, and those frequently very fantastical^[3].

Sir Thomas Brown^[4], whose life Johnson wrote, was

↑ Horat. De Arte Poettca. [I. 48.] Boswell.
↑ See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 29, 1773, where Boswell says that up to that date he had twice heard Johnson coin words, per [[wikt:Peregrinity|]] and depeditation.
↑ 'The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of the natives. . . . Our language for almost a century has, by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style. . . . From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance.' Johnson's Works, V. pp. 31, 39. See. Post. May 12, 1778.
↑ If Johnson sometimes indulged his Brownism (see Post, beginning

remarkablv

[1] Horat. De Arte Poettca. [I. 48.] Boswell.

[2] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 29, 1773, where Boswell says that up to that date he had twice heard Johnson coin words, per [[wikt:Peregrinity|]] and depeditation.

[3] 'The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of the natives. . . . Our language for almost a century has, by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style. . . . From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance.' Johnson's Works, V. pp. 31, 39. See. Post. May 12, 1778.

[p290-4] If Johnson sometimes indulged his Brownism (see Post, beginning

[1]

[2]

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