et of MS. copy delivered.
The copy was written upon quarto post, and in two columns each page.
Johnson wrote in his own hand the words and their explanation, and
generally two or three words in each column, leaving a space between
each for the authorities, which were pasted on as they were collected
by the different amanuenses employed: and in this mode the MS. was so
regular that the sheets of MS. which made a sheet of print could be
very exactly ascertained.' The same writer states that Stewart in a
night ramble in Edinburgh with some of his drinking companions 'met with
the mob conducting Captain Porteous to be hanged; they were next day
examined about it before the Town Council, when, as Stewart used to say,
"we were found to be too drunk to have any hand in the business." He
gave an accurate account of it in the Edinburgh Magazine of that time.'

V.

_A letter about Miss Williams, taxes due, and a journey; undated, but
perhaps written at Oxford in 1754_.[In the possession of Mr. Frederick
Barker.]

'SIR,

'I shall not be long here, but in the mean time if Miss Williams wants
any money pray speak to Mr. Millar and supply her, they write to me
about some taxes which I wish you would pay.

'My journey will come to very little beyond the satisfaction of knowing
that there is nothing to be done, and that I leave few advantages here
to those that shall come after me.

'I am Sir, &c.

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'My compliments to Mrs. Strahan.

To Mr. Strahan.'

Miss Williams came to live with Johnson after his wife's death in 1752
(_ante_, i. 232). The fact that Strahan is asked to supply her with
money after speaking to Mr. Millar seems to show that this letter was
written some time before the publication of the _Dictionary_ in April
1755. Millar 'took the principal charge of conducting its publication,'
and Johnson 'had received all the copy-money, by different drafts, a
considerable time before he had finished his task' (_ante_, i. 287).

His 'journey' may have been his visit to Oxford in the summer of 1754.
He went there, because, 'I cannot,' he said, 'finish my book [the
Dictionary] to my mind without visiting the libraries' (_ante_, i. 270).
According to Thomas Warton 'he collected nothing in the libraries for
his _Dictionary_' (_ib_ n. 5). It is perhaps to this failure that the
latter part of the letter refers, Johnson's visit, however, was one of
five weeks, while the first line of the letter shews that he