Excerpt from The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia: Edited, With Introduction and Notes It was in the year 1747 that he issued his plan or pro spectus of that which is perhaps the greatest'of all his works, his Dictionary of the English Language. It was not till the spring of 1755 that it was ready for publication. The plan he had addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield, 'who was at once, ' to quote the words of Lord Macaulay, the most dis tinguished orator in the Upper House, and the undisputed sovereign of wit and fashion By this great nobleman Johnson thought that he was slighted. Sir, ' said he, after making great professions he had for many years taken no notice of me but when my Dielionaiy was coming out, he fell a scribbling in le World about it.' Chesterfield's scribble was flippant and indecent. Johnson wrote to him that famous letter which is likely to be read as long as the English language is understood 1. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.