Dictionary Johnson

Photograph

Samuel Johnson. Fragment of “The Grammar of the English Language”. [ca. 1755]. Manuscript. MS Hyde 50 (64)

Almost nothing survives of the manuscript of the Dictionary, but this single leaf from the introduction is one of the most substantial fragments extant. It is also an especially significant one, given that it concerns a subject so important to Johnson: versification, "the arrangement of a certain number of syllables according to certain laws."