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 There is another caue of alteration more prevalent than any other, which yet in the preent tate of the world cannot be obviated. A mixture of two languages will produce a third ditinct from both, and they will always be mixed, where the chief part of education, and the mot conpicuous accomplihment, is kill in ancient or in foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find its words and combinations croud upon his memory; and hate and negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed terms and exotick expreions.

The great pet of peech is frequency of tranlation. No book was ever turned from one language into another, without imparting omething of its native idiom; this is the mot michievous and comprehenive innovation; ingle words may enter by thouands, and the fabrick of the tongue continue the ame, but new phraeology changes much at once; it alters not the ingle tones of the building, but the order of the columns. If an academy hould be etablihed for the cultivation of our tile, which I, who can never wih to ee dependance multiplied, hope the pirit of Englih liberty will hinder or detroy, let them, intead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour, with all their influence, to top the licence of tranlatours, whoe idlenes and ignorance, if it be uffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France.

If the changes that we fear be thus irreitible, what remains but to acquiece with ilence, as in the other inurmountable ditrees of humanity? it remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preerved our contitution, let us make ome truggles for our language.

In hope of giving longevity to that which its own nature forbids to be immortal, I have devoted this book, the labour of years, to the honour of my country, that we may no longer yield the palm of philology to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of every people aries from its authours: whether I hall add any thing by my own writings to the reputation of Englih literature, mut be left to time: much of my life has been lot under the preures of dieae; much has been trifled away and much has always been pent in proviion for the day that was paing over me; but I hall not think my employment ueles or ignoble, if by my aitance foreign nations, and ditant ages, gain acces to the propagators of knowledge, and undertand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repoitories of cience, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.

When I am animated by this wih, I look with pleaure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the pirit of a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become popular I have not promied to myelf: a few wild blunders, and riible aburdities, from which no work of uch multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnih folly with laughter, and harden ignorance in contempt; but ueful diligence will at lat prevail, and there never can be wanting ome who ditinguih deert; who will confider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, ince while it is hatening to publication, ome words are budding, and ome falling away; that a whole life cannot be pent upon yntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be diident; that he, whoe deign includes whatever language can expres, mut often peak of what he does not undertand; that a writer will ometimes be hurried by eagernes to the end, and ometimes faint with wearines under a talk, which Scaliger compares to the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always preent; that udden fits of inadvertency will urprize vigilance, light avocations will educe attention, and caual eclipes of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer hall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need, for that which yeterday he knew with intuitive readines, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.

In this work, when it hall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewie is performed; and though no book was ever pared out of tendernes to the authour, and the world is little felicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curioity to inform it, that the Englih Dictionary was written with little aitance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the oft obcurities of retirement, or under the flicker of academick bowers, but amidt inconvenience and ditraction, in icknes and in orrow: and it may repres the triumph of malignant criticim to oberve, that if our language is not here fully diplayed, I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and compried in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of ucceive ages, inadequate and deluive; if the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not ecure them from the cenure of Beni; if the embodied criticks of France, when fifty years had been pent upon their work, were obliged to change its oeconomy, and give their econd edition another form, I may urely be contented without the praie of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this gloom of olitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till mot of thoe whom I wihed to pleae, have unk into the grave, and ucces and micarriage are empty ounds: I therefore dimis it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from cenure or from praie.