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T is the fate of thoe who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the propect of good; to be expoed to cenure, without hope of praie; to be digraced by micarriage, or punched for neglect, where ucces would have been without applaue, and diligence without reward.

Among thee unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have conidered, not as the pupil, but the lave of cience, the pionier of literature, doomed only to remove rubbih and clear obtructions from the paths of Learning and Genius, who pres forward to conquet and glory, without betowing a mile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progres. Every other authour may apire to praie; the lexicographer can only hope to ecape reproach, and even this negative recompene has been yet granted to very few.

I have, notwithtanding this dicouragement, attempted a dictionary of the Englih language which, while it was employed in the cultivation of every pecies of literature, has itelf been hitherto neglected, uffered to pread, under the direction of chance, into wild exuberance, reigned to the tyranny of time and fahion, and expoed to the corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innovation.

When I took the firt urvey of my undertakings I found our peech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be dientangled, and confuion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundles variety; without any etablihed principle of election; adulterations were to be detected, without a ettled tet of purity; and modes of expreion to be rejected or received, without the uffrages of any writers of claical reputation or acknowledged authority.

Having therefore no aitance but from general grammar, I applied myelf to the perual of our writers; and noting whatever might be of ue to acertain or illutrate any word or phrae, accumulated in time the materials of a dictionary, which, by degrees, I reduced to method, etablihing to myelf, in the progres of the work, uch rules as experience and analogy uggeted to me; experience, which practice and obervation were continually increaing; and analogy, which, though in ome words obcure, was evident in others.

In adjuting the, which has been to this time unettled and fortuitous, I found it neceary to ditinguih thoe irregularities that are inherent in our tongue, and perhaps coeval with it, from others which the ignorance or negligence of later writers has produced. Every language has its anomalies, which, though inconvenient, and in themelves once unneceary, mut be tolerated among the imperfections of human things, and which require only to be regitred; that they may not be increaed, and acertained, that they may not be confounded: but every language has likewie its improprieties and aburdities, which it is the duty of the lexicographer to correct or procribe.

As language was at its beginning merely oral, all words of neceary or common ue were poken before they were written; and while they were unfixed by any viible igns, mut have been poken with great diverity, as we now oberve thoe who cannot read to catch ounds imperfectly, and utter them negligently. When this wild and barbarous jargon was firt reduced to an alphabet, every penman endeavoured to expres, as he could, the ounds which he was accutomed to pronounce or to receive, and vitiated in writing uch words as were already vitiated in peech. The powers of the letters, when they were applied to a new language, mut have been vague and unettled, and therefore different hands would exhibit the ame ound by different combinations.

From this uncertain pronunciation arie in a great part the various dialects of the ame country, which will always be oberved to grow fewer, and les different, as books are multiplied; and from this arbitrary repreentation of ounds by letters, proceeds that diverity of pelling obervable in the Saxon remains, and I uppoe in the irt books of every nation, which perplexes or detroys analogy, and produces anomalous formations, which, being once incorporated, can never be afterward dimied or reformed.

Of this kind are the derivatives length from long, trength from trong, darling from dear, breadth from broad, from dry, drought, and from high, height, which Milton, in zeal for analogy, writes highth; Quid te exempta juvat pinis de pluribus una; to change all would be too much, and to change one is nothing.