d, eking out
his means by reporting Parliamentary debates in terms which expressed the
drift of them, but in his own pompous language; in 1740 he published a
poem entitled the "Vanity of Human Wishes," and about the same time
commenced his world-famous Dictionary, which was Published in 1755, "a
great, solid, square-built edifice, finished, symmetrically complete, the
best of all dictionaries"; during the progress of the Dictionary Johnson
edited the _Rambler_, writing most of the contents himself, carrying it
on for two years; in 1758 he started the _Idler_; in 1762 the king
granted him a pension of L300, and by this he was raised above the
straitened circumstances which till then had all along weighed upon him,
and able to live in comparative affluence for the last 22 years of his
life; five years after he instituted the Literary Club, which consisted
of the most celebrated men of the time, his biographer, Boswell, having
by this time been introduced to him, as subsequently the family of Mr.
Thrale; in 1770 he began his "Lives of the English Poets," and in 1773 he
made a tour in the Highlands along with Boswell, of which journey he
shortly afterwards published an account; Johnson's writings are now dead,
as are many of his opinions, but the story of his life as written by
BOSWELL (q. v.) will last as long as men revere those qualities
of mind and heart that distinguish the English race, of which he is the
typical representative (1709-1783).

JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER KEITH, cartographer, born at Kirkhill,
Midlothian; was an engraver by trade, and devoted himself with singular
success to the preparation of atlases; the "National Atlas" was published
in 1843, and the "Royal Atlas of Geography" (1861) was the finest till
then produced; he also executed atlases physical, geological, and
astronomical, and constructed the first physical globe; honours were
showered upon him by home and foreign geographical societies; he died at
Ben Rhydding (1804-1871).

JOHNSTON, JAMES FINLAY WEIR, agricultural chemist, born at Paisley,
educated at Glasgow; acquired a fortune by his marriage in 1830, and
devoted himself to studying chemistry; after some years in Sweden he was
chosen lecturer in Durham University, but he resided in Edinburgh, and
wrote his "Catechism of Agricultural Chemistry," since translated into
most European languages, and his "Chemistry of Common Life"; he died at
Durham (1796-1855).

JOHNSTONE (10), a Renfrewshire