The booksellers who contracted with Johnson, single and unaided, for the execution of a work, which in other countries has not been effected but by the co-operating exertions of many, were Mr. Robert Dodsley, Mr. Charles Hitch, Mr. Andrew Millar, the two Messieurs Longman, and the two Messieurs Knapton.  The price stipulated was fifteen hundred and seventy-five pounds.

The Plan, was addressed to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, then one of his Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State; a nobleman who was very ambitious of literary distinction, and who, upon being informed of the design, had expressed himself in terms very favourable to its success.  There is, perhaps in every thing of any consequence, a secret history which it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated.  Johnson told me, ’Sir, the way in which the Plan of my Dictionary came to be inscribed to Lord Chesterfield, was this:  I had neglected to write it by the time appointed.  Dodsley suggested a desire to have it addressed to Lord Chesterfield.  I laid hold of this as a pretext for delay, that it might be better done, and let Dodsley have his desire.  I said to my friend, Dr. Bathurst, “Now if any good comes of my addressing to Lord Chesterfield, it will be ascribed to deep policy, when, in fact, it was only a casual excuse for laziness."’

Dr. Adams found him one day busy at his Dictionary, when the following dialogue ensued.  ’Adams. This is a great work, Sir.  How are you to get all the etymologies?  Johnson.  Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welch gentleman who has published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch.  Adams. But, Sir, how can you do this in three years?  Johnson.  Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years.  Adams. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary.  Johnson.  Sir, thus it is.  This is the proportion.  Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred.  As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.’  With so much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he had undertaken to execute.

For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and let it be remembered by the natives of North-Britain, to whom he is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of that country.  There were two Messieurs Macbean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote the Lives of the Poets to which the name of Cibber is affixed; Mr. Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edinburgh; and a Mr. Maitland.  The sixth of these humble assistants was Mr. Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, and published some elementary tracts.