Re: Re Ink-stained wretch

[Bill Troop billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

>  Is there any searchable compendium of Dr. Johnson anyplace? It
> sounds


Regarding Dr. J. online I find the page of some dissertation student:

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/ which also contains links to
some e-texts which, however, it seems, you would have to download and then
search through individually (at least XyWrite would make that task as fast
as possible); however, if these are already indexed on the web and you
didn't find them from Google, then the phrase isn't there anyway -- the
question is whether they are so indexed?


I did a full-text OED search and only came up with these two quotations:

1959 Spectator 25 Sept. 408/2 All the kudos goes to the campaign-scarred,
ink-stained veteran: none to the new bug in his sissy clean blazer.


and

1857 Eadie J. Kitto xii. (1861) 418 An *inkstained recluse.

[I don't know what the asterisk signifies.]

Irene, I would send a note to Bill Safire (safire@xxxxxxxx); I think
it's the sort of thing he would be interested in. Perhaps also the
Lexicographer columnist at the Spectator (very entertaining!! under its
present editor--with Taki's outrageous columns for example -- full text
available at www.spectator.co.uk).