Lake Serbonis in Egypt.  Sand being blown over it by the winds gave it the appearance of solid ground, whereas it was a bog.

    “A gulf profound as the Serbonian bog. . . . 
    Where armies whole have sunk.” —­ MILTON.

“Such are the colours in which Marvel paints his adventures.  He has accustomed himself to sounding words and hyperbolical images, till he has lost the power of true description.  In a road, through which the heaviest carriages pass without difficulty, and the post-boy every day and night goes and returns, he meets with hardships like those which are endured in Siberian deserts, and missed nothing of romantic danger but a giant and a dragon.  When his dreadful story is told in proper terms, it is only that the way was dirty in winter, and that he experienced the common vicissitudes of rain and sunshine.”

I am afraid you will find a good many “too big” words in that.  But if I changed them to others more simple you would get no idea of the way in which Johnson wrote, and I hope those you do not understand you will look up in the dictionary.  It will not be Johnson’s own dictionary, however, for that has grown old-fashioned, and its place has been taken by later ones.  For some of Johnson’s meanings were not correct, and when these mistakes were pointed out to him he was not in the least ashamed.  Once a lady asked him how he came to say that the pastern was the knee of a horse, and he calmly replied, “Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.”  “Dictionaries are like watches,” he said, “the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.”

With some words, instead of giving the original meaning, he gave a personal meaning, that is he allowed his own sense of humor, feelings or politics, to color the meaning.  For instance, he disliked the Scots, so for the meaning of Oats he gave, “A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”  He disliked the Excise duty, so he called it “A hateful tax levied by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.”  For this last meaning he came very near being punished for libel.

When Johnson thought of beginning the dictionary he wrote about it to Lord Chesterfield, a great man and fine gentleman of the day.  As the fashion was, Johnson had chosen this great man for his patron.  But Lord Chesterfield, although his vanity was flattered at the idea of having a book dedicated to him, was too delicate a fine gentleman to wish to have anything to do with a man he considered poor.  “He throws anywhere but down his throat,” he said, “whatever he means to drink, and mangles what he means to carve. . . .  The utmost I can do for him is to consider him a respectable Hottentot.”  So, when Johnson had called several times and been told that his lordship was not at home, or had been kept waiting for hours before he was received, he grew angry, and marched away never to return, vowing that he had done with patrons for ever.