Nov 19, 2008
A tattered copy of Johnson’s large Dictionary was a great delight to me, on account of the specimens of English versifications which I found in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so many poems. I used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; and I amused myself when I awoke in the morning by reciting its jingling contrasts of iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and thinking what a charming occupation it must be to “make up” verses.- Lucy Larcom Attribution: Lucy Larcom (1824–1893), U.S. poet and teacher. A New England Girlhood, ch. 6 (1889). The English literary scholar, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) published his monumental Dictionary of the English Language in 1755. It was the first comprehensive English-language lexicon.
Categories: Johnson, Samuel, Poet And Teacher, Poetry And Poets
©2000-2008
Enotes.com Inc.
All Rights Reserved