I will try to take some more care but can promise
nothing; when I am told there is a sheet or two I order it away. You
will find it sometimes close; when I make up any myself, which never
happens but when I have nobody with me, I generally clip it close, but
one cannot always be on the watch.
'I am Sir, Your most, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
These letters refer to the printing of the _Dictionary_, of which
Dodsley and Millar were two among the proprietors, and Strahan the
printer. Francis Stuart or Stewart was one of Johnson's amanuenses
(_ante_, i. 187). In 1779 Johnson paid his sister a guinea for an old
pocket-book of her brother's (_ante_, iii. 418), and wrote on April
8,1780 (_ante_, iii. 421):--'The memory of her brother is yet fresh
in my mind; he was an ingenious and worthy man.' In February 1784 he
gave her another guinea for a letter relating to himself that he had
found in the pocket-book (_ante_, iv. 262). A writer in the _Gent. Mag._
for 1799, p. 1171, who had been employed in Strahan's printing-works,
says that 'Stewart was useful to Johnson in the explanation of low cant
phrases; all words relating to gambling and card-playing, such as
_All-Fours_, _Catch-honours_ [not in Johnson's Dictionary], _Cribbage_
[merely defined as _A game at cards_], were said to be Stewart's
corrected by the Doctor.' He adds that after the printing had gone
on some time 'the proprietors of the _Dictionary_ paid Johnson through
Mr.
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