Page:The plan of a dictionary of the English language - Samuel Johnson (1747).djvu/37

 when they wanted a syllable. And buxom, which means only obedient, is now made, in familiar phrases, to stand for wanton, because in an antient form of marriage, before the reformation, the bride promised complaisance and obedience in these terms, "I will be bonair and buxom in bed and at board."

well, my Lord, how trifling many of these remarks will appear separately considered, and how easily they may give occasion to the contemptuous merriment of sportive idleness, and the gloomy censures of arrogant stupidity; but dulness it is easy to despise, and laughter it is easy to repay. I shall not be solicitous what is thought of my work by such as know not the difficulty or importance of philological studies, nor shall think those that have done nothing qualified to condemn me for doing little. It may not, however, be improper to remind them, that no terrestrial greatness is more than an aggregate of little things, and to inculcate after the Arabian proverb, that drops added to drops constitute the ocean.

remains yet to be considered the of words into their proper classes, or that part of lexicography which is strictly critical.

popular part of the language, which includes all words not appropriated to particular sciences, admits of many distinctions and subdivisions; as, into Rh