ACT I. SCENE II.

Oxford English Classics

* * * * *

DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.

* * * * *

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

IN NINE VOLUMES.

VOLUME THE FIFTH.

MDCCCXXV.

CONTENTS OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES.

The plan of an English dictionary

Preface to the English dictionary

Advertisement to the fourth edition of the English dictionary

Preface to the octavo edition of the English dictionary

Observations on the tragedy of Macbeth

Proposals for printing the works of Shakespeare

Preface to Shakespeare

General observations on the plays of Shakespeare

Account of the Harleian library

Essay on the importance of small tracts

Preface to the catalogue of the Harleian library, vol. iii

Controversy between Crousaz and Warburton

Preliminary discourse to the London Chronicle

Introduction to the World Displayed

Preface to the Preceptor, containing a general plan of education

----to Rolt's dictionary

----to the translation of father Lobo's voyage to Abyssinia

An essay on epitaphs

Preface to an Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his

Paradise Lost

Letter to the Rev. Mr. Douglas, occasioned by his vindication of Milton,

&c. By William Lauder, A.M.

Testimonies concerning Mr. Lauder

Account of an attempt to ascertain the longitude

Considerations on the plans offered for the construction of Blackfriars

bridge

Some thoughts on agriculture, both ancient and modern; with an account

of the honour due to an English farmer

Further thoughts on agriculture

Considerations on the corn laws

A complete vindication of the licensers of the stage from the malicious

and scandalous aspersions of Mr. Brooke

Preface to the Gentleman's Magazine, 1738

An appeal to the publick. From the Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1739

Letter on fire-works

Proposals for printing, by subscription, Essays in Verse and Prose, by

Anna Williams

A project for the employment of authors

Preface to the Literary Magazine, 1756

A dissertation upon the Greek comedy, translated from Brumoy

General conclusion to Brumoy's Greek theatre

DEDICATIONS

Preface to Payne's New Tables of Interest

Thoughts on the coronation of his majesty king George the third

Preface to the Artists' Catalogue for 1762

OPINIONS ON QUESTIONS OF LAW

Considerations on the case of Dr. T[rapp]'s [Transcriber's note: sic]

On school chastisement

On vitious intromission

On lay patronage in the church of Scotland

On pulpit censure

THE PLAN

OF AN

ENGLISH DICTIONARY.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

PHILIP DORMER, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD,

One of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State.

MY LORD,

When first I undertook to write an English Dictionary, I had no

expectation of any higher patronage than that of the proprietors of the

copy, nor prospect of any other advantage than the price of my labour. I

knew that the work in which I engaged is generally considered as

drudgery for the blind, as the proper toil of artless industry; a task

that requires neither the light of learning, nor the activity of genius,

but maybe successfully performed without any higher quality than that of

bearing burdens with dull patience, and beating the track of the

alphabet with sluggish resolution.

Whether this opinion, so long transmitted, and so widely propagated, had

its beginning from truth and nature, or from accident and prejudice;

whether it be decreed by the authority of reason or the tyranny of

ignorance, that, of all the candidates for literary praise, the unhappy

lexicographer holds the lowest place, neither vanity nor interest

incited me to inquire. It appeared that the province allotted me was, of

all the regions of learning, generally confessed to be the least

delightful, that it was believed to produce neither fruits nor flowers;

and that, after a long and laborious cultivation, not even the barren

laurel[1] had been found upon it.

Yet on this province, my Lord, I entered, with the pleasing hope, that,

as it was low, it likewise would be safe. I was drawn forward with the

prospect of employment, which, though not splendid, would be useful; and

which, though it could not make my life envied, would keep it innocent;

which would awaken no passion, engage me in no contention, nor throw in

my way any temptation to disturb the quiet of others by censure, or my

own by flattery.

I had read, indeed, of times, in which princes and statesmen thought it

part of their honour to promote the improvement of their native tongues;

and in which dictionaries were written under the protection of

greatness. To the patrons of such undertakings I willingly paid the

homage of believing that they, who were thus solicitous for the

perpetuity of their language, had reason to expect that their actions

would be celebrated by posterity, and that the eloquence which they

promoted would be employed in their praise. But I considered such acts

of beneficence as prodigies, recorded rather to raise wonder than

expectation; and, content with the terms that I had stipulated, had not

suffered my imagination to flatter me with any other encouragement, when

I found that my design had been thought by your Lordship of importance

sufficient to attract your favour.

How far this unexpected distinction can be rated among the happy

incidents of life, I am not yet able to determine. Its first effect has

been to make me anxious, lest it should fix the attention of the publick

too much upon me; and, as it once happened to an epick poet of France,

by raising the reputation of the attempt, obstruct the reception of the

work. I imagine what the world will expect from a scheme, prosecuted

under your Lordship's influence; and I know that expectation, when her

wings are once expanded, easily reaches heights which performance never

will attain; and when she has mounted the summit of perfection, derides

her follower, who dies in the pursuit.

Not, therefore, to raise expectation, but to repress it, I here lay

before your Lordship the plan of my undertaking, that more may not be

demanded than I intend; and that, before it is too far advanced to be

thrown into a new method, I may be advertised of its defects or

superfluities. Such informations I may justly hope, from the emulation

with which those, who desire the praise of elegance or discernment, must

contend in the promotion of a design that you, my Lord, have not thought

unworthy to share your attention with treaties and with wars.

In the first attempt to methodise my ideas I found a difficulty, which

extended itself to the whole work. It was not easy to determine by what

rule of distinction the words of this dictionary were to be chosen. The

chief intent of it is to preserve the purity, and ascertain the meaning

of our English idiom; and this seems to require nothing more than that

our language be considered, so far as it is our own; that the words and

phrases used in the general intercourse of life, or found in the works

of those whom we commonly style polite writers, be selected, without

including the terms of particular professions; since, with the arts to

which they relate, they are generally derived from other nations, and

are very often the same in all the languages of this part of the world.

This is, perhaps, the exact and pure idea of a grammatical dictionary;

but in lexicography, as in other arts, naked science is too delicate for

the purposes of life. The value of a work must be estimated by its use;

it is not enough that a dictionary delights the critick, unless, at the

same time, it instructs the learner; as it is to little purpose that an

engine amuses the philosopher by the subtilty of its mechanism, if it

requires so much knowledge in its application as to be of no advantage

to the common workman.

The title which I prefix to my work has long conveyed a very

miscellaneous idea, and they that take a dictionary into their hands,

have been accustomed to expect from it a solution of almost every

difficulty. If foreign words, therefore, were rejected, it could be

little regarded, except by criticks, or those who aspire to criticism;

and however it might enlighten those that write, would be all darkness

to them that only read. The unlearned much oftener consult their

dictionaries for the meaning of words, than for their structures or

formations; and the words that most want explanation are generally terms

of art; which, therefore, experience has taught my predecessors to

spread with a kind of pompous luxuriance over their productions.

The academicians of France, indeed, rejected terms of science in their

first essay, but found afterwards a necessity of relaxing the rigour of

their determination; and, though they would not naturalize them at once

by a single act, permitted them by degrees to settle themselves among

the natives, with little opposition; and it would surely be no proof of

judgment to imitate them in an errour which they have now retracted, and

deprive the book of its chief use, by scrupulous distinctions.

Of such words, however, all are not equally to be considered as parts of

our language; for some of them are naturalized and incorporated; but

others still continue aliens, and are rather auxiliaries than subjects.

This naturalization is produced either by an admission into common

speech, in some metaphorical signification, which is the acquisition of

a kind of property among us; as we say, the _zenith_ of advancement, the

_meridian_ of life, the _cynosure_[2] of neighbouring eyes; or it is the

consequence of long intermixture and frequent use, by which the ear is

accustomed to the sound of words, till their original is forgotten, as

in _equator, satellites_; or of the change of a foreign to an

English termination, and a conformity to the laws of the speech into

which they are adopted; as in _category, cachexy, peripneumony_.

Of those which still continue in the state of aliens, and have made no

approaches towards assimilation, some seem necessary to be retained,

because the purchasers of the Dictionary will expect to find them. Such

are many words in the common law, as _capias, habeas corpus,

praemunire, nisi prius_: such are some terms of controversial

divinity, as _hypostasis_; and of physick, as the names of

diseases; and, in general, all terms which can be found in books not

written professedly upon particular arts, or can be supposed necessary

to those who do not regularly study them. Thus, when a reader not

skilled in physick happens in Milton upon this line,

--pining atrophy,

Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,

he will, with equal expectation, look into his dictionary for the word

_marasmus_, as for _atrophy_, or _pestilence_; and will

have reason to complain if he does not find it.

It seems necessary to the completion of a dictionary, designed not

merely for criticks, but for popular use, that it should comprise, in

some degree, the peculiar words of every profession; that the terms of

war and navigation should be inserted, so far as they can be required by

readers of travels, and of history; and those of law, merchandise, and

mechanical trades, so far as they can be supposed useful in the

occurrences of common life.

But there ought, however, to be some distinction made between the

different classes of words; and, therefore, it will be proper to print

those which are incorporated into the language in the usual character,

and those which are still to be considered as foreign, in the Italick

letter.

Another question may arise with regard to appellatives, or the names of

species. It seems of no great use to set down the words _horse, dog,

cat, willow, alder, daisy, rose_, and a thousand others, of which it

will be hard to give an explanation, not more obscure than the word

itself. Yet it is to be considered, that, if the names of animals be

inserted, we must admit those which are more known, as well as those

with which we are, by accident, less acquainted; and if they are all

rejected, how will the reader be relieved from difficulties produced by

allusions to the crocodile, the chameleon, the ichneumon, and the

hyaena? If no plants are to be mentioned, the most pleasing part of

nature will be excluded, and many beautiful epithets be unexplained. If

only those which are less known are to be mentioned, who shall fix the

limits of the reader's learning? The importance of such explications

appears from the mistakes which the want of them has occasioned: had

Shakespeare had a dictionary of this kind, he had not made the

_woodbine_ entwine the _honeysuckle_; nor would Milton, with

such assistance, have disposed so improperly of his _ellops_ and

his _scorpion_.

Besides, as such words, like others, require that their accents should

be settled, their sounds ascertained, and their etymologies deduced,

they cannot be properly omitted in the Dictionary. And though the

explanations of some may be censured as trivial, because they are almost

universally understood, and those of others as unnecessary, because they

will seldom occur, yet it seems not proper to omit them; since it is

rather to be wished that many readers should find more than they expect,

than that one should miss what he might hope to find.

When all the words are selected and arranged, the first part of the work

to be considered is the orthography, which was long vague and uncertain;

which at last, when its fluctuation ceased, was in many cases settled

but by accident; and in which, according to your Lordship's observation,

there is still great uncertainty among the best criticks; nor is it easy

to state a rule by which we may decide between custom and reason, or

between the equiponderant authorities of writers alike eminent for

judgment and accuracy.

The great orthographical contest has long subsisted between etymology

and pronunciation. It has been demanded, on one hand, that men should

write as they speak; but, as it has been shown that this conformity

never was attained in any language, and that it is not more easy to

persuade men to agree exactly in speaking than in writing, it may be

asked, with equal propriety, why men do not rather speak as they write.

In France, where this controversy was at its greatest height, neither

party, however ardent, durst adhere steadily to their own rule; the

etymologist was often forced to spell with the people; and the advocate

for the authority of pronunciation found it sometimes deviating so

capriciously from the received use of writing, that he was constrained

to comply with the rule of his adversaries, lest he should lose the end

by the means, and be left alone by following the crowd.

When a question of orthography is dubious, that practice has, in my

opinion, a claim to preference which preserves the greatest number of

radical letters, or seems most to comply with the general custom of our

language. But the chief rule which I propose to follow is, to make no

innovation without a reason sufficient to balance the inconvenience of

change; and such reasons I do not expect often to find. All change is of

itself an evil, which ought not to be hazarded but for evident

advantage; and as inconstancy is in every case a mark of weakness, it

will add nothing to the reputation of our tongue. There are, indeed,

some who despise the inconveniencies of confusion, who seem to take

pleasure in departing from custom, and to think alteration desirable for

its own sake; and the reformation of our orthography, which these

writers have attempted, should not pass without its due honours, but

that I suppose they hold singularity its own reward, or may dread the

fascination of lavish praise.

The present usage of spelling, where the present usage can be

distinguished, will, therefore, in this work, be generally followed; yet

there will be often occasion to observe, that it is in itself

inaccurate, and tolerated rather than chosen; particularly when, by the

change of one letter or more, the meaning of a word is obscured, as in

_farrier_ for _ferrier_, as it was formerly written, from

_ferrum_, or _fer_; in _gibberish_ for _gebrish_, the jargon of Geber,

and his chymical followers, understood by none but their own tribe. It

will be likewise sometimes proper to trace back the orthography of

different ages, and show by what gradations the word departed from its

original.

Closely connected with orthography is pronunciation, the stability of

which is of great importance to the duration of a language, because the

first change will naturally begin by corruptions in the living speech.

The want of certain rules for the pronunciation of former ages, has made

us wholly ignorant of the metrical art of our ancient poets; and since

those who study their sentiments regret the loss of their numbers, it is

surely time to provide that the harmony of the moderns may be more

permanent.

A new pronunciation will make almost a new speech; and, therefore, since

one great end of this undertaking is to fix the English language, care

will be taken to determine the accentuation of all polysyllables by

proper authorities, as it is one of those capricious phaenomena which

cannot be easily reduced to rules. Thus there is no antecedent reason

for difference of accent in the two words _dolorous_ and

_sonorous_; yet of the one Milton gives the sound in this line,

He pass'd o'er many a region _dolorous_;

and that of the other in this,

_Sonorous_ metal blowing martial sounds.

It may be likewise proper to remark metrical licenses, such as

contractions, _generous, gen'rous; reverend, rev'rend_; and

coalitions, as _region, question_.

But still it is more necessary to fix the pronunciation of

monosyllables, by placing with them words of correspondent sound, that

one may guard the other against the danger of that variation, which, to

some of the most common, has already happened; so that the words

_wound_ and _wind_, as they are now frequently pronounced,

will not rhyme to _sound_ and _mind_. It is to be remarked,

that many words written alike are differently pronounced, as

_flow_, and _brow_: which may be thus registered, _flow,

woe; brow, now_; or of which the exemplification may be generally

given by a distich: thus the words _tear_, or lacerate and

_tear_, the water of the eye, have the same letters, but may be

distinguished thus, _tear, dare; tear, peer_.

Some words have two sounds, which may be equally admitted, as being

equally defensible by authority. Thus _great_ is differently used:

For Swift and him despised the farce of state,

The sober follies of the wise and _great_. POPE.

As if misfortune made the throne her seat,

And none could be unhappy but the _great_. ROWE.

The care of such minute particulars may be censured as trifling; but

these particulars have not been thought unworthy of attention in more

polished languages.

The accuracy of the French, in stating the sounds of their letters, is

well known; and, among the Italians, Crescembeni has not thought it

unnecessary to inform his countrymen of the words which, in compliance

with different rhymes, are allowed to be differently spelt, and of which

the number is now so fixed, that no modern poet is suffered to increase

it.

When the orthography and pronunciation are adjusted, the etymology or

derivation is next to be considered, and the words are to be

distinguished according to the different classes, whether simple, as

_day, light_, or compound, as _day-light_; whether primitive,

as, to _act_, or derivative, as _action, actionable; active,

activity_. This will much facilitate the attainment of our language,

which now stands in our dictionaries a confused heap of words without

dependence, and without relation.

When this part of the work is performed, it will be necessary to inquire

how our primitives are to be deduced from foreign languages, which may

be often very successfully performed by the assistance of our own

etymologists. This search will give occasion to many curious

disquisitions, and sometimes, perhaps, to conjectures, which to readers

unacquainted with this kind of study, cannot but appear improbable and

capricious. But it may be reasonably imagined, that what is so much in

the power of men as language, will very often be capriciously conducted.

Nor are these disquisitions and conjectures to be considered altogether

as wanton sports of wit, or vain shows of learning; our language is well

known not to be primitive or self-originated, but to have adopted words

of every generation, and, either for the supply of its necessities, or

the increase of its copiousness, to have received additions from very

distant regions; so that in search of the progenitors of our speech, we

may wander from the tropick to the frozen zone, and find some in the

valleys of Palestine, and some upon the rocks of Norway.

Beside the derivation of particular words, there is likewise an

etymology of phrases. Expressions are often taken from other languages;

some apparently, as to _run a risk, courir un risque_; and some even

when we do not seem to borrow their words; thus, to _bring about_, or

accomplish, appears an English phrase, but in reality our native word

_about_ has no such import, and is only a French expression, of which we

have an example in the common phrase _venir à bout d'une affaire_.

In exhibiting the descent of our language, our etymologists seem to have

been too lavish of their learning, having traced almost every word

through various tongues, only to show what was shown sufficiently by the

first derivation. This practice is of great use in synoptical lexicons,

where mutilated and doubtful languages are explained by their affinity

to others more certain and extensive, but is generally superfluous in

English etymologies. When the word is easily deduced from a Saxon

original, I shall not often inquire further, since we know not the

parent of the Saxon dialect; but when it is borrowed from the French, I

shall show whence the French is apparently derived. Where a Saxon root

cannot be found, the defect may be supplied from kindred languages,

which will be generally furnished with much liberality by the writers of

our glossaries; writers who deserve often the highest praise, both of

judgment and industry, and may expect at least to be mentioned with

honour by me, whom they have freed from the greatest part of a very

laborious work, and on whom they have imposed, at worst, only the easy

task of rejecting superfluities.

By tracing in this manner every word to its original, and not admitting,

but with great caution, any of which no original can be found, we shall

secure our language from being overrun with _cant_, from being crowded

with low terms, the spawn of folly or affectation, which arise from no

just principles of speech, and of which, therefore, no legitimate

derivation can be shown.

When the etymology is thus adjusted, the analogy of our language is next

to be considered; when we have discovered whence our words are derived,

we are to examine by what rules they are governed, and how they are

inflected through their various terminations. The terminations of the

English are few, but those few have hitherto remained unregarded by the

writers of our dictionaries. Our substantives are declined only by the

plural termination, our adjectives admit no variation but in the degrees

of comparison, and our verbs are conjugated by auxiliary words, and are

only changed in the preter tense.

To our language may be, with great justness, applied the observation of

Quintilian, that speech was not formed by an analogy sent from heaven.

It did not descend to us in a state of uniformity and perfection, but

was produced by necessity, and enlarged by accident, and is, therefore,

composed of dissimilar parts, thrown together by negligence, by

affectation, by learning or by ignorance.

Our inflections, therefore, are by no means constant, but admit of

numberless irregularities, which in this Dictionary will be diligently

noted. Thus _fox_ makes in the plural _foxes_, but _ox_ makes _oxen_.

_Sheep_ is the same in both numbers. Adjectives are sometimes compared

by changing the last syllable, as _proud, prouder, proudest_; and

sometimes by particles prefixed, as _ambitious, more_ ambitious, _most_

ambitious. The forms of our verbs are subject to great variety; some end

their preter tense in _ed_, as I _love_, I _loved_, I have _loved_;

which may be called the regular form, and is followed by most of our

verbs of southern original. But many depart from this rule, without

agreeing in any other, as I _shake_, I _shook_, I have _shaken_ or

_shook_, as it is sometimes written in poetry; I _make_, I _made_, I

have _made_; I _bring_, I _brought_; I _wring_, I _wrung_; and many

others, which, as they cannot be reduced to rules, must be learned from

the dictionary rather than the grammar.

The verbs are likewise to be distinguished according to their qualities,

as actives from neuters; the neglect of which has already introduced

some barbarities in our conversation, which, if not obviated by just

animadversions, may in time creep into our writings.

Thus, my Lord, will our language be laid down, distinct in its minutest

subdivisions, and resolved into its elemental principles. And who upon

this survey can forbear to wish, that these fundamental atoms of our

speech might obtain the firmness and immutability of the primogenial and

constituent particles of matter, that they might retain their substance

while they alter their appearance, and be varied and compounded, yet not

destroyed?

But this is a privilege which words are scarcely to expect: for, like

their author, when they are not gaining strength, they are generally

losing it. Though art may sometimes prolong their duration, it will

rarely give them perpetuity; and their changes will be almost always

informing us, that language is the work of man, of a being from whom

permanence and stability cannot be derived.

Words having been hitherto considered as separate and unconnected, are

now to be likewise examined as they are ranged in their various

relations to others by the rules of syntax or construction, to which I

do not know that any regard has been yet shown in English dictionaries,

and in which the grammarians can give little assistance. The syntax of

this language is too inconstant to be reduced to rules, and can be only

learned by the distinct consideration of particular words as they are

used by the best authors. Thus, we say, according to the present modes

of speech, The soldier died _of_ his wounds, and the sailor perished

_with_ hunger; and every man acquainted with our language would be

offended with a change of these particles, which yet seem originally

assigned by chance, there being no reason to be drawn from grammar why a

man may not, with equal propriety, be said to die _with_ a wound or

perish _of_ hunger.

Our syntax, therefore, is not to be taught by general rules, but by

special precedents; and in examining whether Addison has been with

justice accused of a solecism in this passage,

The poor inhabitant--

Starves in the midst of nature's bounty curst,

And in the loaden vineyard _dies for thirst_--.

it is not in our power to have recourse to any established laws of

speech; but we must remark how the writers of former ages have used the

same word, and consider whether he can be acquitted of impropriety, upon

the testimony of Davies, given in his favour by a similar passage:

She loaths the wat'ry glass wherein she gaz'd,

And shuns it still, although for thirst she dye.

When the construction of a word is explained, it is necessary to pursue

it through its train of phraseology, through those forms where it is

used in a manner peculiar to our language, or in senses not to be

comprised in the general explanations; as from the verb _make_ arise

these phrases, to _make love_, to _make an end_, to _make way_; as, he

_made way_ for his followers, the ship _made way_ before the wind; to

_make a bed_, to _make merry_, to _make a mock_, to _make presents_, to

_make a doubt_, to _make out an assertion_, to _make good_ a breach, to

_make good_ a cause, to _make nothing_ of an attempt, to _make

lamentation_, to _make a merit_, and many others which will occur in

reading with that view, and which only their frequency hinders from

being generally remarked.

The great labour is yet to come, the labour of interpreting these words

and phrases with brevity, fulness, and perspicuity; a task of which the

extent and intricacy is sufficiently shown by the miscarriage of those

who have generally attempted it. This difficulty is increased by the

necessity of explaining the words in the same language; for there is

often only one word for one idea; and though it be easy to translate the

words _bright, sweet, salt, bitter_, into another language, it is not

easy to explain them.

With regard to the interpretation, many other questions have required

consideration. It was some time doubted whether it be necessary to

explain the things implied by particular words; as under the term

_baronet_, whether, instead of this explanation, _a title of honour next

in degree to that of baron_, it would be better to mention more

particularly the creation, privileges, and rank of baronets; and

whether, under the word _barometer_, instead of being satisfied with

observing that it is _an instrument to discover the weight of the air_,

it would be fit to spend a few lines upon its invention, construction,

and principles. It is not to be expected, that with the explanation of

the one the herald should be satisfied, or the philosopher with that of

the other; but since it will be required by common readers, that the

explications should be sufficient for common use; and since, without

some attention to such demands, the Dictionary cannot become generally

valuable, I have determined to consult the best writers for explanations

real as well as verbal; and, perhaps, I may at last have reason to say,

after one of the augmenters of Furetier, that my book is more learned

than its author.

In explaining the general and popular language, it seems necessary to

sort the several senses of each word, and to exhibit first its natural

and primitive signification; as,

To _arrive_, to reach the shore in a voyage: he _arrived_ at a safe

harbour.

Then to give its consequential meaning, to _arrive_, to reach any place,

whether by land or sea; as, he _arrived_ at his country-seat.

Then its metaphorical sense, to obtain any thing desired; as, he

_arrived_ at a peerage.

Then to mention any observation that arises from the comparison of one

meaning with another; as, it may be remarked of the word _arrive_, that,

in consequence of its original and etymological sense, it cannot be

properly applied but to words signifying something desirable; thus we

say, a man _arrived_ at happiness; but cannot say, without a mixture of

irony, he _arrived_ at misery.

_Ground_, the earth, generally as opposed to the air or water. He swam

till he reached _ground_. The bird fell to the _ground_.

Then follows the accidental or consequential signification in which

_ground_ implies any thing that lies under another; as, he laid colours

upon a rough _ground_. The silk had blue flowers on a red _ground_.

Then the remoter or metaphorical signification; as, the _ground_ of his

opinion was a false computation. The _ground_ of his work was his

father's manuscript.

After having gone through the natural and figurative senses, it will be

proper to subjoin the poetical sense of each word, where it differs from

that which is in common use; as _wanton_, applied to any thing of which

the motion is irregular without terrour; as,

In _wanton_ ringlets curl'd her hair.

To the poetical sense may succeed the familiar; as of _toast_, used to

imply the person whose health is drunk; as,

The wise man's passion, and the vain man's _toast_. POPE.

The familiar may be followed by the burlesque; as of _mellow_, applied

to good fellowship:

In all thy humours, whether grave or _mellow_. ADDISON.

Or of _bite_, used for _cheat_:

--More a dupe than wit,

Sappho can tell you how this man was _bit_. POPE.

And, lastly, may be produced the peculiar sense, in which a word is

found in any great author: as _faculties_, in Shakespeare, signifies the

powers of authority:

--This Duncan

Has borne his _faculties_ so meek, has been

So clear in his great office, that, &c.

The signification of adjectives may be often ascertained by uniting them

to substantives; as, _simple swain, simple sheep_. Sometimes the sense

of a substantive may be elucidated by the epithets annexed to it in good

authors; as, the _boundless ocean_, the _open lawns_: and where such

advantage can be gained by a short quotation, it is not to be omitted.

The difference of signification in words generally accounted synonymous,

ought to be carefully observed; as in _pride, haughtiness, arrogance_:

and the strict and critical meaning ought to be distinguished from that

which is loose and popular; as in the word _perfection_, which, though

in its philosophical and exact sense it can be of little use among human

beings, is often so much degraded from its original signification, that

the academicians have inserted in their work, _the perfection of a

language_, and, with a little more licentiousness, might have prevailed

on themselves to have added the _perfection of a dictionary_.

There are many other characters of words which it will be of use to

mention. Some have both an active and passive signification; as

_fearful_, that which gives or which feels terrour; a _fearful prodigy_,

a _fearful hare_. Some have a personal, some a real meaning; as, in

opposition to _old_, we use the adjective _young_ of animated beings,

and new of other things. Some are restrained to the sense of praise, and

others to that of disapprobation; so commonly, though not always, we

_exhort_ to good actions, we _instigate_ to ill; we _animate, incite_

and _encourage_ indifferently to good or bad. So we usually _ascribe_

good, but _impute_ evil; yet neither the use of these words, nor,

perhaps, of any other in our licentious language, is so established as

not to be often reversed by the correctest writers. I shall, therefore,

since the rules of style, like those of law, arise from precedents often

repeated, collect the testimonies on both sides, and endeavour to

discover and promulgate the decrees of custom, who has so long

possessed, whether by right or by usurpation, the sovereignty of words.

It is necessary, likewise, to explain many words by their opposition to

others; for contraries are best seen when they stand together. Thus the

verb _stand_ has one sense, as opposed to _fall_, and another, as

opposed to _fly_; for want of attending to which distinction, obvious as

it is, the learned Dr. Bentley has squandered his criticism to no

purpose, on these lines of Paradise Lost:

--In heaps

Chariot and charioteer lay overturn'd,

And fiery foaming steeds. What _stood, recoil'd_

O'erwearied, through the faint Satanic host,

Defensive scarce, or with pale fear surpris'd,

_Fled_ ignominious.--

"Here," says the critick, "as the sentence is now read, we find that

what _stood, fled_:" and, therefore, he proposes an alteration, which he

might have spared, if he had consulted a dictionary, and found that

nothing more was affirmed than, that those _fled_ who did not _fall_.

In explaining such meanings as seem accidental and adventitious, I shall

endeavour to give an account of the means by which they were introduced.

Thus, to _eke out_ any thing, signifies to lengthen it beyond its just

dimensions, by some low artifice; because the word _eke_ was the usual

refuge of our old writers, when they wanted a syllable. And _buxom_,

which means only _obedient_, is now made, in familiar phrases, to stand

for _wanton_; because in an ancient 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."

I know 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.

There remains yet to be considered the distribution of words into their

proper classes, or that part of lexicography which is strictly critical.

The popular part of the language, which includes all words not

appropriated to particular sciences, admits of many distinctions and

subdivisions; as, into words of general use; words employed chiefly in

poetry; words obsolete; words which are admitted only by particular

writers, yet not in themselves improper; words used only in burlesque

writing; and words impure and barbarous.

Words of general use will be known by having no sign of particularity,

and their various senses will be supported by authorities of all ages.

The words appropriated to poetry will be distinguished by some mark

prefixed, or will be known by having no authorities but those of poets.

Of antiquated or obsolete words, none will be inserted, but such as are

to be found in authors, who wrote since the accession of Elizabeth, from

which we date the golden age of our language; and of these many might be

omitted, but that the reader may require, with an appearance of reason,

that no difficulty should be left unresolved in books which he finds

himself invited to read, as confessed and established models of style.

These will be likewise pointed out by some note of exclusion, but not of

disgrace.

The words which are found only in particular books, will be known by the

single name of him that has used them; but such will be omitted, unless

either their propriety, elegance or force, or the reputation of their

authors, affords some extraordinary reason for their reception.

Words used in burlesque and familiar compositions, will be likewise

mentioned with their proper authorities; such as _dudgeon_, from Butler,

and _leasing_, from Prior; and will be diligently characterised by marks

of distinction. Barbarous, or impure, words and expressions, may be

branded with some note of infamy, as they are carefully to be eradicated

wherever they are found; and they occur too frequently, even in the best

writers: as in Pope,

--_in_ endless error _hurl'd_.

'_Tis these_ that early taint the female soul.

In Addison:

Attend to what a _lesser_ muse indites.

And in Dryden:

A dreadful quiet felt, and _worser_ far

Than arms.--

If this part of the work can be well performed, it will be equivalent to

the proposal made by Boileau to the academicians, that they should

review all their polite writers, and correct such impurities as might be

found in them, that their authority might not contribute, at any distant

time, to the depravation of the language.

With regard to questions of purity or propriety, I was once in doubt

whether I should not attribute too much to myself, in attempting to

decide them, and whether my province was to extend beyond the

proposition of the question, and the display of the suffrages on each

side; but I have been since determined, by your Lordship's opinion, to

interpose my own judgment, and shall, therefore, endeavour to support

what appears to me most consonant to grammar and reason. Ausonius

thought that modesty forbad him to plead inability for a task to which

Cæsar had judged him equal:

Cur me posse negem posse quod ille putat?

And I may hope, my Lord, that since you, whose authority in our language

is so generally acknowledged, have commissioned me to declare my own

opinion, I shall be considered as exercising a kind of vicarious

jurisdiction, and that the power which might have been denied to my own

claim, will be readily allowed me as the delegate of your Lordship.

In citing authorities, on which the credit of every part of this work

must depend, it will be proper to observe some obvious rules; such as of

preferring writers of the first reputation to those of an inferiour

rank; of noting the quotations with accuracy; and of selecting, when it

can be conveniently done, such sentences, as, besides their immediate

use, may give pleasure or instruction, by conveying some elegance of

language, or some precept of prudence or piety.

It has been asked, on some occasions, who shall judge the judges? And

since, with regard to this design, a question may arise by what

authority the authorities are selected, it is necessary to obviate it,

by declaring that many of the writers whose testimonies will be alleged,

were selected by Mr. Pope; of whom I may be justified in affirming, that

were he still alive, solicitous as he was for the success of this work,

he would not be displeased that I have undertaken it.

It will be proper that the quotations be ranged according to the ages of

their authors; and it will afford an agreeable amusement, if to the

words and phrases which are not of our own growth, the name of the

writer who first introduced them can be affixed; and if, to words which

are now antiquated, the authority be subjoined of him who last admitted

them. Thus, for _scathe_ and _buxom_, now obsolete, Milton may be cited:

--The mountain oak

Stands _scath'd_ to heaven.--

--He with broad sails

Winnow'd the _buxom_ air.--

By this method every word will have its history, and the reader will be

informed of the gradual changes of the language, and have before his

eyes the rise of some words, and the fall of others. But observations so

minute and accurate are to be desired, rather than expected; and if use

be carefully supplied, curiosity must sometimes bear its

disappointments.

This, my Lord, is my idea of an English dictionary; a dictionary by

which the pronunciation of our language may be fixed, and its attainment

facilitated; by which its purity may be preserved, its use ascertained,

and its duration lengthened. And though, perhaps, to correct the

language of nations by books of grammar, and amend their manners by

discourses of morality, may be tasks equally difficult, yet, as it is

unavoidable to wish, it is natural likewise to hope, that your

Lordship's patronage may not be wholly lost; that it may contribute to

the preservation of ancient, and the improvement of modern writers; that

it may promote the reformation of those translators, who, for want of

understanding the characteristical difference of tongues, have formed a

chaotick dialect of heterogeneous phrases; and awaken to the care of

purer diction some men of genius, whose attention to argument makes them

negligent of style, or whose rapid imagination, like the Peruvian

torrents, when it brings down gold, mingles it with sand.

When I survey the Plan which I have laid before you, I cannot, my Lord,

but confess, that I am frighted at its extent, and, like the soldiers of

Cæsar, look on Britain as a new world, which it is almost madness to

invade. But I hope, that though I should not complete the conquest, I

shall, at least, discover the coast, civilize part of the inhabitants,

and make it easy for some other adventurer to proceed further, to reduce

them wholly to subjection, and settle them under laws.

We are taught by the great Roman orator, that every man should propose

to himself the highest degree of excellence, but that he may stop with

honour at the second or third: though, therefore, my performance should

fall below the excellence of other dictionaries, I may obtain, at least,

the praise of having endeavoured well; nor shall I think it any reproach

to my diligence, that I have retired without a triumph, from a contest

with united academies, and long successions of learned compilers. I

cannot hope, in the warmest moments, to preserve so much caution through

so long a work, as not often to sink into negligence, or to obtain so

much knowledge of all its parts, as not frequently to fail by ignorance.

I expect that sometimes the desire of accuracy will urge me to

superfluities, and sometimes the fear of prolixity betray me to

omissions; that in the extent of such variety, I shall be often

bewildered, and, in the mazes of such intricacy, be frequently

entangled; that in one part refinement will be subtilized beyond

exactness, and evidence dilated in another beyond perspicuity. Yet I do

not despair of approbation from those who, knowing the uncertainty of

conjecture, the scantiness of knowledge, the fallibility of memory, and

the unsteadiness of attention, can compare the causes of errour with the

means of avoiding it, and the extent of art with the capacity of man:

and whatever be the event of my endeavours, I shall not easily regret an

attempt, which has procured me the honour of appearing thus publickly,

MY LORD,

Your Lordship's most obedient,

and most humble servant,

SAM. JOHNSON.[3]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lord Orrery, in a letter to Dr. Birch, mentions this as one of the

very few inaccuracies in this admirable address, the _laurel_ not

being _barren_ in any sense, but bearing fruits and flowers.

Boswell's Life, vol. i. p. 160. EDIT. 1804.

[2] Milton.

[3] Written in the year 1747.

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY.

It is the fate of those, who toil at the lower employments of life, to

be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of

good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced

by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been

without applause, and diligence without reward.

Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind

have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer

of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from

the paths, through which Learning and Genius press forward to conquest

and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that

facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the

lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative

recompense has been yet granted to very few.

I have, notwithstanding this discouragement, attempted a Dictionary of

the English language, which, while it was employed in the cultivation of

every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected;

suffered to spread, under the direction of chance, into wild exuberance;

resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion; and exposed to the

corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innovation.

When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech

copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned

my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be

regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any

established principle of selection; adulterations were to be detected,

without a settled test of purity; and modes of expression to be rejected

or received, without the suffrages of any writers of classical

reputation or acknowledged authority.

Having, therefore, no assistance but from general grammar, I applied

myself to the perusal of our writers; and, noting whatever might be of

use to ascertain or illustrate any word or phrase, accumulated in time

the materials of a dictionary, which, by degrees, I reduced to method,

establishing to myself, in the progress of the work, such rules as

experience and analogy suggested to me: experience, which practice and

observation were continually increasing; and analogy, which, though in

some words obscure, was evident in others.

In adjusting the ORTHOGRAPHY, which has been to this time unsettled and

fortuitous, I found it necessary to distinguish those 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

themselves once unnecessary, must be tolerated among the imperfections

of human things; and which require only to be registered, that they may

not be increased, and ascertained, that they may not be confounded: but

every language has likewise its improprieties and absurdities, which it

is the duty of the lexicographer to correct or proscribe.

As language was at its beginning merely oral, all words of necessary or

common use were spoken, before they were written; and while they were

unfixed by any visible signs, must have been spoken with great

diversity, as we now observe those, who cannot read, catch sounds

imperfectly, and utter them negligently. When this wild and barbarous

jargon was first reduced to an alphabet, every penman endeavoured to

express, as he could, the sounds which he was accustomed to pronounce or

to receive, and vitiated in writing such words as were already vitiated

in speech. The powers of the letters, when they were applied to a new

language, must have been vague and unsettled, and, therefore, different

hands would exhibit the same sound by different combinations.

From this uncertain pronunciation arise, in a great part, the various

dialects of the same country, which will always be observed to grow

fewer and less different, as books are multiplied; and from this

arbitrary representation of sounds by letters proceeds that diversity of

spelling, observable in the Saxon remains, and, I suppose, in the first

books of every nation, which perplexes or destroys analogy, and produces

anomalous formations, that being once incorporated, can never be

afterwards dismissed or reformed.

Of this kind are the derivatives _length_ from _long_, _strength_ from

_strong_, _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 spinis de pluribus una?" to

change all would be too much, and to change one is nothing.

This uncertainty is most frequent in the vowels, which are so

capriciously pronounced, and so differently modified, by accident or

affectation, not only in every province, but in every mouth, that to

them, as is well known to etymologists, little regard is to be shown in

the deduction of one language from another.

Such defects are not errours in orthography, but spots of barbarity

impressed so deep in the English language, that criticism can never wash

them away: these, therefore, must be permitted to remain untouched: but

many words have likewise been altered by accident, or depraved by

ignorance, as the pronunciation of the vulgar has been weakly followed;

and some still continue to be variously written, as authors differ in

their care or skill: of these it was proper to inquire the true

orthography, which I have always considered as depending on their

derivation, and have, therefore, referred them to their original

languages: thus I write _enchant_, _enchantment_, _enchanter_, after the

French, and _incantation_ after the Latin; thus _entire_ is chosen

rather than _intire_, because it passed to us not from the Latin

_integer_, but from the French _entier_.

Of many words it is difficult to say, whether they were immediately

received from the Latin or the French, since at the time when we had

dominions in France, we had Latin service in our churches. It is,

however, my opinion, that the French generally supplied us; for we have

few Latin words, among the terms of domestick use, which are not French;

but many French, which are very remote from Latin.

Even in words of which the derivation is apparent, I have been often

obliged to sacrifice uniformity to custom; thus I write, in compliance

with a numberless majority, _convey_ and _inveigh_, _deceit_ and

_receipt_, _fancy_ and _phantom_; sometimes the derivative varies from

the primitive, as _explain_ and _explanation_, _repeat_ and

_repetition_.

Some combinations of letters, having the same power, are used

indifferently without any discoverable reason of choice, as in _choak_,

_choke_; _soap_, _sape_; _fewel_, _fuel_, and many others; which I have

sometimes inserted twice, that those, who search for them under either

form, may not search in vain.

In examining the orthography of any doubtful word, the mode of spelling

by which it is inserted in the series of the Dictionary, is to be

considered as that to which I give, perhaps, not often rashly, the

preference. I have left, in the examples, to every author his own

practice unmolested, that the reader may balance suffrages, and judge

between us: but this question is not always to be determined by reputed

or by real learning: some men, intent upon greater things, have thought

little on sounds and derivations; some, knowing in the ancient tongues,

have neglected those in which our words are commonly to be sought. Thus

Hammond writes _fecibleness_ for _feasibleness_, because, I suppose, he

imagined it derived immediately from the Latin; and some words, such as

_dependant, dependent, dependance, dependence_, vary their final

syllable, as one or another language is present to the writer.

In this part of the work, where caprice has long wantoned without

control, and vanity sought praise by petty reformation, I have

endeavoured to proceed with a scholar's reverence for antiquity, and a

grammarian's regard to the genius of our tongue. I have attempted few

alterations, and among those few, perhaps, the greater part is from the

modern to the ancient practice; and, I hope, I may be allowed to

recommend to those, whose thoughts have been, perhaps, employed too

anxiously on verbal singularities, not to disturb, upon narrow views, or

for minute propriety, the orthography of their fathers. It has been

asserted, that for the law to be _known_, is of more importance than to

be _right_. "Change," says Hooker, "is not made without inconvenience,

even from worse to better." There is in constancy and stability a

general and lasting advantage, which will always overbalance the slow

improvements of gradual correction. Much less ought our written language

to comply with the corruptions of oral utterance, or copy that which

every variation of time or place makes different from itself, and

imitate those changes which will again be changed, while imitation is

employed in observing them.

This recommendation of steadiness and uniformity does not proceed from

an opinion, that particular combinations of letters have much influence

on human happiness; or that truth may not be successfully taught by

modes of spelling fanciful and erroneous: I am not yet so lost in

lexicography, as to forget that _words are the daughters of earth, and

that things are the sons of heaven_. Language is only the instrument of

science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the

instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be

permanent, like the things which they denote.

In settling the orthography, I have not wholly neglected the

pronunciation, which I have directed, by printing an accent upon the

acute or elevated syllable. It will sometimes be found, that the accent

is placed, by the author quoted, on a different syllable from that

marked in the alphabetical series; it is then to be understood, that

custom has varied, or that the author has, in my opinion, pronounced

wrong. Short directions are sometimes given, where the sound of letters

is irregular; and if they are sometimes omitted, defect in such minute

observations will be more easily excused, than superfluity.

In the investigation both of the orthography and signification of words,

their ETYMOLOGY was necessarily to be considered, and they were,

therefore, to be divided into primitives and derivatives. A primitive

word is that which can be traced no further to any English root; thus

_circumspect, circumvent, circumstance, delude, concave_, and

_complicate_, though compounds in the Latin, are to us primitives.

Derivatives are all those that can be referred to any word in English of

greater simplicity.

The derivatives I have referred to their primitives, with an accuracy

sometimes needless; for who does not see that _remoteness_ comes from

_remote, lovely_ from _love, concavity_ from _concave_, and

_demonstrative_ from _demonstrate_? But this grammatical exuberance the

scheme of my work did not allow me to repress. It is of great

importance, in examining the general fabrick of a language, to trace one

word from another, by noting the usual modes of derivation and

inflection; and uniformity must be preserved in systematical works,

though sometimes at the expense of particular propriety.

Among other derivatives, I have been careful to insert and elucidate the

anomalous plurals of nouns and preterites of verbs, which in the

Teutonick dialects are very frequent, and, though familiar to those who

have always used them, interrupt and embarrass the learners of our

language.

The two languages from which our primitives have been derived are the

Roman and Teutonick: under the Roman I comprehend the French and

provincial tongues; and under the Teutonick range the Saxon, German, and

all their kindred dialects. Most of our polysyllables are Roman, and our

words of one syllable are very often Teutonick.

In assigning the Roman original, it has, perhaps, sometimes happened

that I have mentioned only the Latin, when the word was borrowed from

the French; and, considering myself as employed only in the illustration

of my own language, I have not been very careful to observe whether the

Latin word be pure or barbarous, or the French elegant or obsolete.

For the Teutonick etymologies, I am commonly indebted to Junius and

Skinner, the only names which I have forborne to quote when I copied

their books; not that I might appropriate their labours or usurp their

honours, but that I might spare a perpetual repetition by one general

acknowledgment. Of these, whom I ought not to mention but with the

reverence due to instructers and benefactors, Junius appears to have

excelled in extent of learning, and Skinner in rectitude of

understanding. Junius was accurately skilled in all the northern

languages; Skinner probably examined the ancient and remoter dialects

only by occasional inspection into dictionaries; but the learning of

Junius is often of no other use than to show him a track, by which he

may deviate from his purpose, to which Skinner always presses forward by

the shortest way. Skinner is often ignorant, but never ridiculous:

Junius is always full of knowledge, but his variety distracts his

judgment, and his learning is very frequently disgraced by his

absurdities.

The votaries of the northern muses will not, perhaps, easily restrain

their indignation, when they find the name of Junius thus degraded by a

disadvantageous comparison; but whatever reverence is due to his

diligence, or his attainments, it can be no criminal degree of

censoriousness to charge that etymologist with want of judgment, who can

seriously derive _dream_ from _drama_, because _life is a drama, and a

drama is a dream_; and who declares with a tone of defiance, that no man

can fail to derive _moan_ from [Greek: monos], (monos,) _single_ or

_solitary_, who considers that grief naturally loves to be alone[1].

Our knowledge of the northern literature is so scanty, that of words

undoubtedly Teutonick, the original is not always to be found in any

ancient language; and I have, therefore, inserted Dutch or German

substitutes, which I consider not as radical, but parallel, not as the

parents, but sisters of the English.

The words, which are represented as thus related by descent or

cognation, do not always agree in sense; for it is incident to words, as

to their authors, to degenerate from their ancestors, and to change

their manners when they change their country. It is sufficient, in

etymological inquiries, if the senses of kindred words be found such as

may easily pass into each other, or such as may both be referred to one

general idea.

The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the

volumes, where it is particularly and professedly delivered; and, by

proper attention to the rules of derivation, the orthography was soon

adjusted. But to COLLECT the WORDS of our language was a task of greater

difficulty: the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and

when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by

fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry

should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of a

living speech. My search, however, has been either skilful or lucky; for

I have much augmented the vocabulary.

As my design was a dictionary, common or appellative, I have omitted all

words which have relation to proper names; such as _Arian, Socinian,

Calvinist, Benedictine, Mahometan_; but have retained those-of a more

general nature, as _Heathen, Pagan_.

Of the terms of art I have received such as could be

found either in books of science or technical dictionaries; and have

often inserted, from philosophical writers, words which are supported,

perhaps, only by a single authority, and which, being not admitted into

general use, stand yet as candidates or probationers, and must depend

for their adoption on the suffrage of futurity.

The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of

foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness,

by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as

they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others

against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of

the natives.

I have not rejected any by design, merely because they were unnecessary

or exuberant; but have received those which by different writers have

been differently formed, as _viscid_, and _viscidity, viscous_, and

_viscosity_. Compounded or double words I have seldom noted, except when

they obtain a signification different from that which the components

have in their simple state. Thus _highwayman, woodman_, and

_horsecourser_, require an explanation; but of _thieflike_ or

_coachdriver_, no notice was needed, because the primitives contain the

meaning of the compounds.

Words arbitrarily formed by a constant and settled analogy, like

diminutive adjectives in _ish_, as _greenish, bluish_; adverbs in _ly_,

as _dully, openly_; substantives in _ness_, as _vileness, faultiness_;

were less diligently sought, and sometimes have been omitted, when I had

no authority that invited me to insert them; not that they are not

genuine and regular offsprings of English roots, but, because their

relation to the primitive being always the same, their significations

cannot be mistaken.

The verbal nouns in _ing_, such as the _keeping_ of the _castle_, the

_leading_ of the _army_, are always neglected, or placed only to

illustrate the sense of the verb, except when they signify things as

well as actions, and have, therefore, a plural number, as _dwelling,

living_; or have an absolute and abstract signification, as _colouring,

painting, learning_.

The participles are likewise omitted, unless, by signifying rather habit

or quality than action, they take the nature of adjectives; as a

_thinking_ man, a man of prudence; a _pacing_ horse, a horse that can

pace: these I have ventured to call _participial adjectives_. But

neither are these always inserted, because they are commonly to be

understood without any danger of mistake, by consulting the verb.

Obsolete words are admitted, when they are found in authors not

obsolete, or when they have any force or beauty that may deserve

revival.

As composition is one of the chief characteristicks of a language, I

have endeavoured to make some reparation for the universal negligence of

my predecessors, by inserting great numbers of compounded words, as may

be found under _after, fore, new, night, fair_, and many more. These,

numerous as they are, might be multiplied, but that use and curiosity

are here satisfied, and the frame of our language and modes of our

combination amply discovered.

Of some forms of composition, such as that by which _re_ is prefixed to

note _repetition_, and _un_ to signify _contrariety_ or _privation_, all

the examples cannot be accumulated, because the use of these particles,

if not wholly arbitrary, is so little limited, that they are hourly

affixed to new words, as occasion requires, or is imagined to require

them.

There is another kind of composition more frequent in our language than,

perhaps, in any other, from which arises to foreigners the greatest

difficulty. We modify the signification of many verbs by a particle

subjoined; as to _come off_, to escape by a fetch; to _fall on_, to

attack; to _fall off_, to apostatize; to _break off_, to stop abruptly;

to _bear out_, to justify; to _fall in_, to comply; to _give over_, to

cease; to _set off_, to embellish; to _set in_, to begin a continual

tenour; to _set out_, to begin a course or journey; to _take off_, to

copy; with innumerable expressions of the same kind, of which some

appear wildly irregular, being so far distant from the sense of the

simple words, that no sagacity will be able to trace the steps by which

they arrived at the present use. These I have noted with great care; and

though I cannot flatter myself that the collection is complete, I

believe I have so far assisted the students of our language, that this

kind of phraseology will be no longer insuperable; and the combinations

of verbs and particles, by chance omitted, will be easily explained by

comparison with those that may be found.

Many words yet stand supported only by the name of Bailey, Ainsworth,

Philips, or the contracted Dict, for _Dictionaries_ subjoined; of these

I am not always certain, that they are read in any book but the works of

lexicographers. Of such I have omitted many, because I had never read

them; and many I have inserted, because they may, perhaps, exist, though

they have escaped my notice: they are, however, to be yet considered as

resting only upon the credit of former dictionaries. Others, which I

considered as useful, or know to be proper, though I could not at

present support them by authorities, I have suffered to stand upon my

own attestation, claiming the same privilege with my predecessors, of

being sometimes credited without proof.

The words, thus selected and disposed, are grammatically considered;

they are referred to the different parts of speech; traced, when they

are irregularly inflected, through their various terminations; and

illustrated by observations, not, indeed, of great or striking

importance, separately considered, but necessary to the elucidation of

our language, and hitherto neglected or forgotten by English

grammarians.

That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequently to

fasten is, the _Explanation_; in which I cannot hope to satisfy those,

who are, perhaps, not inclined to be pleased, since I have not always

been able to satisfy myself. To interpret a language by itself is very

difficult; many words cannot be explained by synonymes, because the idea

signified by them has not more than one appellation; nor by paraphrase,

because simple ideas cannot be described. When the nature of things is

unknown, or the notion unsettled and indefinite, and various in various

minds, the words by which such notions are conveyed, or such things

denoted, will be ambiguous and perplexed. And such is the fate of

hapless lexicography, that not only darkness, but light, impedes and

distresses it; things may be not only too little, but too much known, to

be happily illustrated. To explain, requires the use of terms less

abstruse than that which is to be explained, and such terms cannot

always be found; for as nothing can be proved but by supposing something

intuitively known, and evident without proof, so nothing can be defined

but by the use of words too plain to admit a definition.

Other words there are, of which the sense is too subtile and evanescent

to be fixed in a paraphrase; such are all those which are by the

grammarians termed expletives, and, in dead languages, are suffered to

pass for empty sounds, of no other use than to fill a verse, or to

modulate a period, but which are easily perceived in living tongues to

have power and emphasis, though it be sometimes such as no other form of

expression can convey.

My labour has likewise been much increased by a class of verbs too

frequent in the English language, of which the signification is so loose

and general, the use so vague and indeterminate, and the senses detorted

so widely from the first idea, that it is hard to trace them through the

maze of variation, to catch them on the brink of utter inanity, to

circumscribe them by any limitations, or interpret them by any words of

distinct and settled meaning; such are _bear, break, come, cast, fall,

get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn, throw_. If of these

the whole power is not accurately delivered, it must be remembered, that

while our language is yet living, and variable by the caprice of every

one that speaks it, these words are hourly shifting their relations, and

can no more be ascertained in a dictionary, than a grove, in the

agitation of a storm, can be accurately delineated from its picture in

the water. The particles are among all nations applied with so great

latitude, that they are not easily reducible under any regular scheme of

explication: this difficulty is not less, nor, perhaps, greater, in

English, than in other languages. I have laboured them with diligence, I

hope with success; such at least as can be expected in a task, which no

man, however learned or sagacious, has yet been able to perform.

Some words there are which I cannot explain, because I do not understand

them; these might have been omitted very often with little

inconvenience, but I would not so far indulge my vanity, as to decline

this confession; for when Tully owns himself ignorant whether _lessus_,

in the twelve tables, means a _funeral song_, or _mourning garment_; and

Aristotle doubts whether [Greek: oureus] in the Iliad, signifies a

_mule_, or _muleteer_, I may surely, without shame, leave some

obscurities to happier industry, or future information.

The rigour of interpretative lexicography requires that _the

explanation_, and _the word explained, should be always reciprocal_;

this I have always endeavoured, but could not always attain. Words are

seldom exactly synonymous; a new term was not introduced, but because

the former was thought inadequate: names, therefore, have often many

ideas, but few ideas have many names. It was then necessary to use the

proximate word, for the deficiency of single terms can very seldom be

supplied by circumlocution; nor is the inconvenience great of such

mutilated interpretations, because the sense may easily be collected

entire from the examples.

In every word of extensive use, it was requisite to mark the progress of

its meaning, and show by what gradations of intermediate sense it has

passed from its primitive to its remote and accidental signification; so

that every foregoing explanation should tend to that which follows, and

the series be regularly concatenated from the first notion to the last.

This is specious, but not always practicable; kindred senses may be so

interwoven, that the perplexity cannot be disentangled, nor any reason

be assigned why one should be ranged before the other. When the radical

idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a consecutive

series be formed of senses in their nature collateral? The shades of

meaning sometimes pass imperceptibly into each other, so that though on

one side they apparently differ, yet it is impossible to mark the point

of contact. Ideas of the same race, though not exactly alike, are

sometimes so little different, that no words can express the

dissimilitude, though the mind easily perceives it, when they are

exhibited together; and sometimes there is such a confusion of

acceptations, that discernment is wearied and distinction puzzled, and

perseverance herself hurries to an end, by crowding together what she

cannot separate.

These complaints of difficulty will, by those that have never considered

words beyond their popular use, be thought only the jargon of a man

willing to magnify his labours, and procure veneration to his studies by

involution and obscurity. But every art is obscure to those that have

not learned it: this uncertainty of terms, and commixture of ideas, is

well known to those who have joined philosophy with grammar; and, if I

have not expressed them very clearly, it must be remembered that I am

speaking of that which words are insufficient to explain.

The original sense of words is often driven out of use by their

metaphorical acceptations, yet must be inserted for the sake of a

regular origination. Thus I know not whether _ardour_ is used for

_material heat_, or whether _flagrant_, in English, ever signifies the

same with _burning_; yet such are the primitive ideas of these words,

which are, therefore, set first, though without examples, that the

figurative senses may be commodiously deduced.

Such is the exuberance of signification which many words have obtained,

that it was scarcely possible to collect all their senses; sometimes the

meaning of derivatives must be sought in the mother term, and sometimes

deficient explanations of the primitive may be supplied in the train of

derivation. In any case of doubt or difficulty, it will be always proper

to examine all the words of the same race; for some words are slightly

passed over to avoid repetition; some admitted easier and clearer

explanation than others; and all will be better understood, as they are

considered in greater variety of structures and relations.

All the interpretations of words are not written with the same skill, or

the same happiness: things, equally easy in themselves, are not all

equally easy to any single mind. Every writer of a long work commits

errours, where there appears neither ambiguity to mislead, nor obscurity

to confound him: and, in a search like this, many felicities of

expression will be casually overlooked, many convenient parallels will

be forgotten, and many particulars will admit improvement from a mind

utterly unequal to the whole performance.

But many seeming faults are to be imputed rather to the nature of the

undertaking, than the negligence of the performer. Thus some

explanations are unavoidably reciprocal or circular, as _hind, the

female of the stag_; _stag, the male of the hind_: sometimes easier

words are changed into harder, as _burial_ into _sepulture_, or

_interment_, _drier_ into _desiccative_, _dryness_ into _siccity_ or

_aridity_, _fit_ into _paroxysm_; for the easiest word, whatever it be,

can never be translated into one more easy. But easiness and difficulty

are merely relative; and, if the present prevalence of our language

should invite foreigners to this Dictionary, many will be assisted by

those words, which now seem only to increase or produce obscurity. For

this reason I have endeavoured frequently to join a Teutonick and Roman

interpretation, as to _cheer_, to _gladden_ or _exhilarate_, that every

learner of English may be assisted by his own tongue.

The solution of all difficulties, and the supply of all defects, must be

sought in the examples, subjoined to the various senses of each word,

and ranged according to the time of their authors.

When I first collected these authorities, I was desirous that every

quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration of a

word; I, therefore, extracted from philosophers principles of science;

from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete processes; from

divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful descriptions.

Such is design, while it is yet at a distance from execution. When the

time called upon me to range this accumulation of elegance and wisdom

into an alphabetical series, I soon discovered that the bulk of my

volumes would fright away the student, and was forced to depart from my

scheme of including all that was pleasing or useful in English

literature, and reduce my transcripts very often to clusters of words,

in which scarcely any meaning is retained: thus to the weariness of

copying, I was condemned to add the vexation of expunging. Some passages

I have yet spared, which may relieve the labour of verbal searches, and

intersperse with verdure and flowers the dusty deserts of barren

philology.

The examples, thus mutilated, are no longer to be con sidered as

conveying the sentiments or doctrine of their authors; the word, for the

sake of which they are inserted, with all its appendant clauses, has

been carefully preserved; but it may sometimes happen, by hasty

detruncation, that the general tendency of the sentence may be changed:

the divine may desert his tenets, or the philosopher his system.

Some of the examples have been taken from writers who were never

mentioned as masters of elegance, or models of style; but words must be

sought where they are used; and in what pages, eminent for purity, can

terms of manufacture or agriculture be found? Many quotations serve no

other purpose, than that of proving the bare existence of words, and

are, therefore, selected with less scrupulousness than those which are

to teach their structures and relations.

My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I might not

be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries might have

reason to complain; nor have I departed from this resolution, but when

some performance of uncommon excellence excited my veneration, when my

memory supplied me from late books with an example that was wanting, or

when my heart, in the tenderness of friendship, solicited admission for

a favourite name.

So far have I been from any care to grace my pages with modern

decorations, that I have studiously endeavoured to collect examples and

authorities from the writers before the Restoration, whose works I

regard as _the wells of English undefiled_, as the pure sources of

genuine diction. Our language, for almost a century, has, by the

concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original

Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and

phraseology[2], from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by

making our ancient volumes the ground-work of style, admitting among the

additions of later times only such as may supply real deficiencies, such

as are readily adopted by the genius of our tongue, and incorporate

easily with our native idioms.

But as every language has a time of rudeness antecedent to perfection,

as well as of false refinement and declension, I have been cautious lest

my zeal for antiquity might drive me into times too remote, and crowd my

book with words now no longer understood. I have fixed Sidney's work for

the boundary, beyond which I make few excursions. From the authors which

rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all

the purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were

extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of

natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation

from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney;

and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost

to mankind, for want of English words, in which they might be expressed.

It is not sufficient that a word is found, unless it be so combined as

that its meaning is apparently determined by the tract and tenour of the

sentence; such passages I have, therefore, chosen, and when it happened

that any author gave a definition of a term, or such an explanation as

is equivalent to a definition, I have placed his authority as a

supplement to my own, without regard to the chronological order, that is

otherwise observed.

Some words, indeed, stand unsupported by any authority, but they are

commonly derivative nouns or adverbs, formed from their primitives by

regular and constant analogy, or names of things seldom occurring in

books, or words of which I have reason to doubt the existence.

There is more danger of censure from the multiplicity than paucity of

examples; authorities will sometimes seem to have been accumulated

without necessity or use, and, perhaps, some will be found, which might,

without loss, have been omitted. But a work of this kind is not hastily

to be charged with superfluities: those quotations, which to careless or

unskilful perusers appear only to repeat the same sense, will often

exhibit, to a more accurate examiner, diversities of significations, or,

at least, afford different shades of the same meaning: one will show the

word applied to persons, another to things; one will express an ill,

another a good, and a third a neutral sense; one will prove the

expression genuine from an ancient author; another will show it elegant

from a modern: a doubtful authority is corroborated by another of more

credit; an ambiguous sentence is ascertained by a passage clear and

determinate: the word, how often soever repeated, appears with new

associates, and in different combinations, and every quotation

contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

When words are used equivocally, I receive them in either sense; when

they are metaphorical, I adopt them in their primitive acceptation.

I have sometimes, though rarely, yielded to the temptation of exhibiting

a genealogy of sentiments, by showing how one author copied the thoughts

and diction of another: such quotations are, indeed, little more than

repetitions, which might justly be censured, did they not gratify the

mind, by affording a kind of intellectual history.

The various syntactical structures occurring in the examples have been

carefully noted; the license or negligence, with which many words have

been hitherto used, has made our style capricious and indeterminate;

when the different combinations of the same word are exhibited together,

the preference is readily given to propriety, and I have often

endeavoured to direct the choice.

Thus I have laboured, by settling the orthography, displaying the

analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the signification

of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer:

but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own

expectations. The work, whatever proofs of diligence and attention it

may exhibit, is yet capable of many improvements: the orthography which

I recommend is still controvertible; the etymology which I adopt is

uncertain, and, perhaps, frequently erroneous; the explanations are

sometimes too much contracted, and sometimes too much diffused; the

significations are distinguished rather with subtilty than skill, and

the attention is harassed with unnecessary minuteness.

The examples are too often injudiciously truncated, and perhaps

sometimes, I hope very rarely, alleged in a mistaken sense; for in

making this collection I trusted more to memory, than, in a state of

disquiet and embarrassment, memory can contain, and purposed to supply,

at the review, what was left incomplete in the first transcription.

Many terms, appropriated to particular occupations, though necessary and

significant, are undoubtedly omitted; and, of the words most studiously

considered and exemplified, many senses have escaped observation.

Yet these failures, however frequent, may admit extenuation and apology.

To have attempted much is always laudable, even when the enterprise is

above the strength that undertakes it: To rest below his own aim is

incident to every one whose fancy is active, and whose views are

comprehensive; nor is any man satisfied with himself, because he has

done much, but because he can conceive little. When first I engaged in

this work, I resolved to leave neither words nor things unexamined, and

pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I should revel away in

feasts of literature, with the obscure recesses of northern learning

which I should enter and ransack, the treasures with which I expected

every search into those neglected mines to reward my labour, and the

triumph with which I should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I

had thus inquired into the original of words, I resolved to show

likewise my attention to things; to pierce deep into every science, to

inquire the nature of every substance of which I inserted the name, to

limit every idea by a definition strictly logical, and exhibit every

production of art or nature in an accurate description, that my book

might be in place of all other dictionaries, whether appellative or

technical. But these were the dreams of a poet, doomed at last to wake a

lexicographer. I soon found that it is too late to look for instruments,

when the work calls for execution, and that whatever abilities I had

brought to my task, with those I must finally perform it. To deliberate

whenever I doubted, to inquire whenever I was ignorant, would have

protracted the undertaking without end, and, perhaps, without much

improvement; for I did not find by my first experiments, that what I had

not of my own was easily to be obtained: I saw that one inquiry only

gave occasion to another, that book referred to book, that to search was

not always to find, and to find was not always to be informed; and that

thus to pursue perfection, was, like the first inhabitants of Arcadia,

to chase the sun, which, when they had reached the hill where he seemed

to rest, was still beheld at the same distance from them.

I then contracted my design, determining to confide in myself, and no

longer to solicit auxiliaries, which produced more incumbrance than

assistance; by this I obtained at least one advantage, that I set limits

to my work, which would in time be ended, though not completed.

Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negligence;

some faults will at last appear to be the effects of anxious diligence

and persevering activity. The nice and subtile ramifications of meaning

were not easily avoided by a mind intent upon accuracy, and convinced of

the necessity of disentangling combinations, and separating similitudes.

Many of the distinctions which to common readers appear useless and

idle, will be found real and important by men versed in the school

philosophy, without which no dictionary can ever be accurately compiled,

or skilfully examined.

Some senses however there are, which, though not the same, are yet so

nearly allied, that they are often confounded. Most men think

indistinctly, and, therefore, cannot speak with exactness; and,

consequently, some examples might be indifferently put to either

signification: this uncertainty is not to be imputed to me, who do not

form, but register the language; who do not teach men how they should

think, but relate how they have hitherto expressed their thoughts.

The imperfect sense of some examples I lamented, but could not remedy,

and hope they will be compensated by innumerable passages selected with

propriety, and preserved with exactness; some shining with sparks of

imagination, and some replete with treasures of wisdom.

The orthography and etymology, though imperfect, are not imperfect for

want of care, but because care will not always be successful, and

recollection or information come too late for use.

That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be frankly

acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that it was

unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner's language,

nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of navigation, nor

visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of artificers, to gain the

names of wares, tools, and operations, of which no mention is found in

books; what favourable accident or easy inquiry brought within my reach,

has not been neglected; but it had been a hopeless labour to glean up

words, by courting living information, and contesting with the

sullenness of one, and the roughness of another.

To furnish the academicians _della Crusca_ with words of this kind, a

series of comedies called _la Fiera_, or the Fair, was professedly

written by Buonarotti; but I had no such assistant, and, therefore, was

content to want what they must have wanted likewise, had they not

luckily been so supplied.

Nor are all words, which are not found in the vocabulary, to be lamented

as omissions. Of the laborious and mercantile part of the people, the

diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many of their terms

are formed for some temporary or local convenience, and though current

at certain times and places, are in others utterly unknown. This

fugitive cant, which is always in a state of increase or decay, cannot

be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language, and,

therefore, must be suffered to perish with other things unworthy of

preservation.

Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He that is

catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to pass by

unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is searching for

rare and remote things, will neglect those that are obvious and

familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory words have been

inserted with little illustration, because in gathering the authorities,

I forbore to copy those which I thought likely to occur, whenever they

were wanted. It is remarkable that, in reviewing my collection, I found

the word SEA unexemplified.

Thus it happens, that in things difficult there is danger from

ignorance, and in things easy from confidence; the mind, afraid of

greatness, and disdainful of littleness, hastily withdraws herself from

painful searches, and passes with scornful rapidity over tasks not

adequate to her powers; sometimes too secure for caution, and again too

anxious for vigorous effort; sometimes idle in a plain path, and

sometimes distracted in labyrinths, and dissipated by different

intentions.

A large work is difficult, because it is large, even though all its

parts might singly be performed with facility; where there are many

things to be done, each must be allowed its share of time and labour, in

the proportion only which it bears to the whole; nor can it be expected,

that the stones which form the dome of a temple, should be squared and

polished like the diamond of a ring.

Of the event of this work, for which, having laboured it with so much

application, I cannot but have some degree of parental fondness, it is

natural to form conjectures. Those who have been persuaded to think well

of my design, will require that it should fix our language, and put a

stop to those alterations which time and chance have hitherto been

suffered to make in it without opposition. With this consequence I will

confess that I flattered myself for a while; but now begin to fear, that

I have indulged expectation which neither reason nor experience can

justify. When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after

another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises

to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the

lexicographer be derided, who being able to produce no example of a

nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall

imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from

corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary

nature, and clear the world at once from folly, vanity and affectation.

With this hope, however, academies have been instituted, to guard the

avenues of their languages, to retain fugitives, and repulse intruders;

but their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain; sounds are too

volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables, and to

lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to

measure its desires by its strength. The French language has visibly

changed under the inspection of the academy; the style of Amelot's

translation of father Paul is observed by Le Courayer to be _un pen

passé_; and no Italian will maintain, that the diction of any modern

writer is not perceptibly different from that of Boccace, Machiavel, or

Caro.

Total and sudden transformations of a language seldom happen; conquests

and migrations are now very rare; but there are other causes of change,

which, though slow in their operation, and invisible in their progress,

are, perhaps, as much superiour to human resistance, as the revolutions

of the sky, or intumescence of the tide. Commerce, however necessary,

however lucrative, as it depraves the manners, corrupts the language;

they that have frequent intercourse with strangers, to whom they

endeavour to accommodate themselves, must in time learn a mingled

dialect, like the jargon which serves the traffickers on the

Mediterranean and Indian coasts. This will not always be confined to the

exchange, the warehouse, or the port, but will be communicated by

degrees to other ranks of the people, and be at last incorporated with

the current speech.

There are likewise internal causes equally forcible. The language most

likely to continue long without alteration, would be that of a nation

raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity, secluded from

strangers, and totally employed in procuring the conveniencies of life;

either without books, or, like some of the Mahometan countries, with

very few: men thus busied and unlearned, having only such words as

common use requires, would, perhaps, long continue to express the same

notions by the same signs. But no such constancy can be expected in a

people polished by arts, and classed by subordination, where one part of

the community is sustained and accommodated by the labour of the other.

Those who have much leisure to think, will always be enlarging the stock

of ideas; and every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will

produce new words, or combinations of words. When the mind is unchained

from necessity, it will range after convenience; when it is left at

large in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as any

custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it; as

any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same

proportion as it alters practice.

As by the cultivation of various sciences, a language is amplified, it

will be more furnished with words deflected from their original sense;

the geometrician will talk of a "courtier's zenith, or the eccentrick

virtue of a wild hero;" and the physician of "sanguine expectations and

phlegmatick delays." Copiousness of speech will give opportunities to

capricious choice, by which some words will be preferred, and others

degraded; vicissitudes of fashion will enforce the use of new, or extend

the signification of known terms. The tropes of poetry will make hourly

encroachments, and the metaphorical will become the current sense:

pronunciation will be varied by levity or ignorance, and the pen must at

length comply with the tongue; illiterate writers will, at one time or

other, by publick infatuation, rise into renown, who, not knowing the

original import of words, will use them with colloquial licentiousness,

confound distinction, and forget propriety. As politeness increases,

some expressions will be considered as too gross and vulgar for the

delicate, others as too formal and ceremonious for the gay and airy; new

phrases are, therefore, adopted, which must, for the same reasons, be in

time dismissed. Swift, in his petty treatise on the English language,

allows that new words must sometimes be introduced, but proposes that

none should be suffered to become obsolete. But what makes a word

obsolete, more than general agreement to forbear it? and how shall it be

continued, when it conveys an offensive idea, or recalled again into the

mouths of mankind, when it has once become unfamiliar by disuse, and

unpleasing by unfamiliarity?

There is another cause of alteration more prevalent than any other,

which yet in the present state of the world cannot be obviated. A

mixture of two languages will produce a third distinct from both; and

they will always be mixed, where the chief part of education, and the

most conspicuous accomplishment, is skill in ancient or in foreign

tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find its

words and combinations crowd upon his memory; and haste and negligence,

refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed terms and exotick

expressions.

The great pest of speech is frequency of translation. No book was ever

turned from one language into another, without imparting something of

its native idiom; this is the most mischievous and comprehensive

innovation; single words may enter by thousands, and the fabrick of the

tongue continue the same; but new phraseology changes much at once; it

alters not the single stones of the building, but the order of the

columns. If an academy should be established for the cultivation of our

style; which I, who can never wish to see dependance multiplied, hope

the spirit of English liberty will hinder or destroy, let them, instead

of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour, with all their

influence, to stop the license of translators, whose idleness and

ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a

dialect of France.

If the changes, that we fear, be thus irresistible, what remains but to

acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses 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 preserved our

constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.[3]

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,

without a contest, to the nations of the continent. The chief glory of

every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add any thing by

my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to

time: much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much

has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for

the day that was passing over me; but I shall not think my employment

useless or ignoble, if, by my assistance, foreign nations, and distant

ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the

teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of

science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.

When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book,

however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man

that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become popular I

have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders, and risible

absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may,

for a time, furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance into

contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail, and there never can

be wanting some who distinguish desert; who will consider that no

dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is

hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away;

that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that

even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design

includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does

not understand; that a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to

the end, and sometimes faint with weariness under a task, 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 present; that

sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations

will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken

learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory, at

the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive

readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.

In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be

forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever

spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little

solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it

condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English

Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and

without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of

retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst

inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress

the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is

not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt, which no

human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient

tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet,

after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the

aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the Italian

academicians, did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the

embodied criticks of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their

work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition

another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of

perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude, what

would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those, whom I

wished to please, have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage

are empty sounds: I, therefore, dismiss it with frigid tranquillity,

having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise[4].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] That I may not appear to have spoken too irreverently of Junius, I

have here subjoined a few specimens of his etymological

extravagance.

BANISH, _religare, ex banno vel territorio exigere, in exitium agere_.

Gal. _bannir_. It. _bandire, bandeggiare_. H. _bandir_. B. _bannen_.

Aevi medii scriptores bannire dicebant. V. Spelm. in Bannum & in

Banleuga. Quoniam vero regionum urbiumq; limites arduis plerumq;

montibus, altis fluminibus, longis deniq; flexuosisq; angustissimarum

viarum anfractibus includebantur, fieri potest id genus limites _ban_

dici ab eo quod [Greek: Bannatai] et [Greek: Bannatroi] Tarentinis

olim, sicuti tradit Hesychius, vocabantur [Greek: ahi loxoi kai mae

ithuteneis hodoi], "obliquae ac minime in rectum tendentes viae." Ac

fortasse quoque huc facit quod [Greek: Banous], eodem Hesychio teste,

dicebant [Greek: horae strangulae], montes arduos.

EMPTY, emtie, _vacuus, inanis_. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon: Aemtig]. Nescio an

sint ab [Greek: emeo] vel [Greek: emetuio]. Vomo, evomo, vomitu evacue.

Videtur interim etymologiam hanc non obscure firmare codex Rush. Mat.

xii. 22. ubi antique scriptum invenimus [Anglo-Saxon: gemoeted hit

emetig]. "Invenit eam vacantem."

HILL, _mons, collis_. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon: hyll]. Quod videri potest

abscissum ex [Greek: kolonae] vel [Greek: kolonos]. Collis, tumulus,

locus in plano editior. Hom. II. B. v. 811. [Greek: esti de tis

proparoithe poleos aipeia kolonae]. Ubi authori brevium scholiorum

[Greek: kolonae] exp. [Greek: topos eis hupsos anaekon geolofos

exochae].

NAP, _to take a nap. Dormire, condormiscere_. Cym. _heppian_. A.S.

[Anglo-Saxon: hnaeppan]. Quod postremum videri potest desumptum ex

[Greek: knephas], obscuritas, tenebrae: nihil enim aeque solet

conciliare somnum, quam caliginosa profundae noctis obscuritas.

STAMMERER, Balbus, blaesus. Goth. [Gothic: STAMMS]. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon:

stamer, stamur]. D. _stam_. B. _stameler_. Su. _stamma_. Isl. _stamr_.

Sunt a [Greek: stomulein] vel [Greek: stomullein], nimia loquacitate

alios offendere; quod impedite loquentes libentissime garrire soleant;

vel quod aliis nimii semper videantur, etiam parcissime loquentes.

[2] The structure of Hume's sentences is French. For Johnson's opinion

of it, see Boswell, i. 420. Edit. 1816.

[3] Blackstone very frequently denounces the use of Norman French in

our law proceedings, and in Parliament as a badge of slavery, which

he could have wished to see "fall into total oblivion, unless it be

reserved as a solemn memento to remind us that our liberties are

mortal, having once been destroyed by a foreign force." Much amusing

and interesting research on the once prevalent use of French in

England, is exhibited in Barrington's Observations on the more

Antient Statutes.

And Frenche she spake full fetously;

After the schole of _Stratforde at Bowe_,

For Frenche of Paris was to her unknowne.

Chaucer's Prologue to the Prioress' Tale.

[4] Dr. Johnson's Dictionary was published on the fifteenth day of

April 1755, in two vols. folio, price 4_l_. 10_s._ bound. The

booksellers who engaged in this national work were the Knaptons,

Longman, Hitch and Co. Millar, and Dodsley.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE

FOURTH EDITION

OF THE

ENGLISH DICTIONARY[1].

Many are the works of human industry, which to begin and finish are

hardly granted to the same man. He that undertakes to compile a

dictionary, undertakes that, which, if it comprehends the full extent of

his design, he knows himself unable to perform. Yet his labours, though

deficient, may be useful, and with the hope of this inferiour praise, he

must incite his activity, and solace his weariness.

Perfection is unattainable, but nearer and nearer approaches may be

made; and, finding my Dictionary about to be reprinted, I have

endeavoured, by a revisal, to make it less reprehensible. I will not

deny that I found many parts requiring emendation, and many more capable

of improvement. Many faults I have corrected, some superfluities I have

taken away, and some deficiencies I have supplied. I have methodised

some parts that were disordered, and illuminated some that were obscure.

Yet the changes or additions bear a very small proportion to the whole.

The critick will now have less to object, but the student who has bought

any of the former copies needs not repent; he will not, without nice

collation, perceive how they differ; and usefulness seldom depends upon

little things.

For negligence or deficience, I have, perhaps, not need of more apology

than the nature of the work will furnish: I have left that inaccurate

which never was made exact, and that imperfect which never was

completed.

[1] Published in folio, 1773.

PREFACE

TO THE

OCTAVO EDITION

OF THE

ENGLISH DICTIONARY[1].

Having been long employed in the study and cultivation of the English

language, I lately published a dictionary, like those compiled by the

academies of Italy and France, for the use of such as aspire to

exactness of criticism or elegance of style.

But it has been since considered that works of that kind are by no means

necessary to the greater number of readers, who, seldom intending to

write or presuming to judge, turn over books only to amuse their

leisure, and to gain degrees of knowledge suitable to lower characters,

or necessary to the common business of life: these know not any other

use of a dictionary than that of adjusting orthography, or explaining

terms of science, or words of infrequent occurrence or remote

derivation.

For these purposes many dictionaries have been written by different

authors, and with different degrees of skill; but none of them have yet

fallen into my hands by which even the lowest expectations could be

satisfied. Some of their authors wanted industry, and others literature:

some knew not their own defects, and others were too idle to supply

them.

For this reason a small dictionary appeared yet to be wanting to common

readers; and, as I may without arrogance claim to myself a longer

acquaintance with the lexicography of our language than any other writer

has had, I shall hope to be considered as having more experience at

least than most of my predecessors, and as more likely to accommodate

the nation with a vocabulary of daily use. I, therefore, offer to the

publick an abstract or epitome of my former work.

In comparing this with other dictionaries of the same kind, it will be

found to have several advantages.

1. It contains many words not to be found in any other.

2. Many barbarous terms and phrases, by which other dictionaries may

vitiate the style, are rejected from this.

3. The words are more correctly spelled, partly by attention to their

etymology, and partly by observation of the practice of the best

authors.

4. The etymologies and derivations, whether from foreign languages or

from native roots, are more diligently traced, and more distinctly

noted.

5. The senses of each word are more copiously enumerated, and more

clearly explained.

6. Many words occurring in the elder authors, such as Spenser,

Shakespeare, and Milton, which had been hitherto omitted, are here

carefully inserted; so that this book may serve as a glossary or

expository index to the poetical writers.

7. To the words, and to the different senses of each word, are subjoined

from the large dictionary the names of those writers by whom they have

been used; so that the reader who knows the different periods of the

language, and the time of its authors, may judge of the elegance or

prevalence of any word, or meaning of a word; and without recurring to

other books, may know what are antiquated, what are unusual, and what

are recommended by the best authority.

The words of this Dictionary, as opposed to others, are more diligently

collected, more accurately spelled, more faithfully explained, and more

authentically ascertained. Of an abstract it is not necessary to say

more; and I hope, it will not be found that truth requires me to say

less.

[1] Published in 2 vols. 1756.

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

TRAGEDY OF MACBETH:

WITH REMARKS ON SIR T. HANMER'S EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE.

FIRST PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1745.

[Transcriber's note: There are two footnote systems in use in this

section. The numbered footnotes in square brackets, [1], [2], etc, are

those of the editor, and are to be found at the end of the section.

The lettered footnotes in round brackets, (a), (b), etc, are Johnson's,

and are to be found at the end of each Note.]

NOTE I.

ACT I. SCENE I.

_Enter three Witches._

In order to make a true estimate of the abilities and merit of a writer,

it is always necessary to examine the genius of his age, and the

opinions of his contemporaries. A poet, who should now make the whole

action of his tragedy depend upon enchantment, and produce the chief

events by the assistance of supernatural agents, would be censured as

transgressing the bounds of probability; he would be banished from the

theatre to the nursery, and condemned to write fairy tales instead of

tragedies; but a survey of the notions, that prevailed at the time when

this play was written, will prove, that Shakespeare was in no danger of

such censures, since he only turned the system that was then universally

admitted to his advantage, and was far from over-burdening the credulity

of his audience.

The reality of witchcraft or enchantment, which, though not strictly the

same, are confounded in this play, has in all ages and countries been

credited by the common people, and in most by the learned themselves[1].

These phantoms have indeed appeared more frequently, in proportion as

the darkness of ignorance has been more gross; but it cannot be shown,

that the brightest gleams of knowledge have at any time been sufficient

to drive them out of the world. The time, in which this kind of

credulity was at its height, seems to have been that of the holy war, in

which the Christians imputed all their defeats to enchantment or

diabolical opposition, as they ascribe their success to the assistance

of their military saints; and the learned Dr. Warburton appears to

believe (Supplement to the Introduction to Don Quixote) that the first

accounts of enchantments were brought into this part of the world by

those who returned from their eastern expeditions. But there is always

some distance between the birth and maturity of folly, as of wickedness:

this opinion had long existed, though, perhaps, the application of it

had in no foregoing age been so frequent, nor the reception so general.

Olympiodorus, in Photius's Extracts, tells us of one Libanius, who

practised this kind of military magick, and having promised [Greek:

choris hopliton kata barbaron energein], _to perform great things

against the barbarians without soldiers_, was, at the instances of the

emperess Placidia, put to death, when he was about to have given proofs

of his abilities. The emperess showed some kindness in her anger by

cutting him off at a time so convenient for his reputation.

But a more remarkable proof of the antiquity of this notion may be found

in St. Chrysostom's book de Sacerdotio, which exhibits a scene of

enchantments, not exceeded by any romance of the middle age; he supposes

a spectator, overlooking a field of battle, attended by one that points

out all the various objects of horrour, the engines of destruction, and

the arts of slaughter. [Greek: Deiknuto de eti para tois enantiois kai

petomenous hippous dia tinos manganeias kai hoplitas di aeros

pheromenous, kai pasaen goaeteias dunamin kai hidean.]_Let him then

proceed to show him in the opposite armies horses flying by enchantment,

armed men transported through the air, and every power and form of

magick_. Whether St. Chrysostom believed that such performances were

really to be seen in a day of battle, or only endeavoured to enliven his

description, by adopting the notions of the vulgar, it is equally

certain, that such notions were in his time received, and that,

therefore, they were not imported from the Saracens in a later age; the

wars with the Saracens, however, gave occasion to their propagation, not

only as bigotry naturally discovers prodigies, but as the scene of

action was removed to a greater distance, and distance, either of time

or place, is sufficient to reconcile weak minds to wonderful relations.

The reformation did not immediately arrive at its meridian, and though

day was gradually increasing upon us, the goblins of witchcraft still

continued to hover in the twilight. In the time of queen Elizabeth was

the remarkable trial of the witches of Warbois, whose conviction is

still commemorated in an annual sermon at Huntingdon. But in the reign

of king James, in which this tragedy was written, many circumstances

concurred to propagate and confirm this opinion. The king, who was much

celebrated for his knowledge, had, before his arrival in England, not

only examined in person a woman accused of witchcraft, but had given a

very formal account of the practices and illusions of evil spirits, the

compacts of witches, the ceremonies used by them, the manner of

detecting them, and the justice of punishing them, in his dialogues of

_Daemonologie_, written in the Scottish dialect, and published at

Edinburgh. This book was, soon after his accession, reprinted at London;

and, as the ready way to gain king James's favour was to flatter his

speculations, the system of _Daemonologie_ was immediately adopted by

all who desired either to gain preferment or not to lose it. Thus the

doctrine of witchcraft was very powerfully inculcated; and as the

greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than

that they are in fashion, it cannot be doubted but this persuasion made

a rapid progress, since vanity and credulity co-operated in its favour,

and it had a tendency to free cowardice from reproach. The infection

soon reached the parliament, who, in the first year of king James, made

a law, by which it was enacted, chap. xii. That, "if any person shall

use any invocation or conjuration of any evil or wicked spirit; 2. or

shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil

or cursed spirit to or for any intent or purpose; 3. or take up any dead

man, woman or child out of the grave,--or the skin, bone or any part of

the dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft,

sorcery, charm or enchantment; 4. or shall use, practise or exercise any

sort of witchcraft, sorcery, charm or enchantment; 5. whereby any person

shall be destroyed, killed, wasted, consumed, pined or lamed in any part

of the body; 6. That every such person, being convicted, shall suffer

death." This law was repealed in our time.

Thus, in the time of Shakespeare, was the doctrine of witchcraft at once

established by law and by the fashion, and it became not only unpolite,

but criminal, to doubt it; and as prodigies are always seen in

proportion as they are expected, witches were every day discovered, and

multiplied so fast in some places, that bishop Hall mentions a village

in Lancashire, where their number was greater than that of the

houses[2]. The Jesuits and Sectaries took advantage of this universal

errour, and endeavoured to promote the interest of their parties by

pretended cures of persons afflicted by evil spirits; but they were

detected and exposed by the clergy of the established church.

Upon this general infatuation Shakespeare might be easily allowed to

found a play, especially since he has followed with great exactness such

histories as were then thought true; nor can it be doubted that the

scenes of enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed, were both by

himself and his audience thought awful and affecting[3].

NOTE III. [Transcriber's note: sic]

ACT I. SCENE II.

--The merciless Macdonal,--from the western isles

Of _Kernes_ and _Gallowglasses_ was supply'd;

And fortune on his damned _quarry_ smiling,

Shew'd like a rebel's whore.--

_Kernes_ are light-armed, and _Gallowglasses_ heavy-armed soldiers. The

word _quarry_ has no sense that is properly applicable in this place,

and, therefore, it is necessary to read,

And fortune on his damned _quarrel_ smiling.

_Quarrel_ was formerly used for _cause_, or for _the occasion of a

quarrel_, and is to be found in that sense in Hollingshed's account of

the story of Macbeth, who, upon the creation of the prince of

Cumberland, thought, says the historian, that he had _a just quarrel_ to

endeavour after the crown. The sense, therefore, is, _fortune smiling on

his execrable cause, &c_.

NOTE III.

If I say sooth, I must report, they were

As cannons overcharg'd with double cracks.

So they redoubled strokes upon the foe.

Mr. Theobald has endeavoured to improve the sense of this passage by

altering the punctuation thus:

--They were

As cannons overcharg'd; with double cracks

So they redoubled strokes.--

He declares, with some degree of exultation, that he has no idea of _a

cannon charged with double cracks_; but, surely, the great author will

not gain much by an alteration which makes him say of a hero, that he

_redoubles strokes with double cracks_, an expression not more loudly to

be applauded, or more easily pardoned, than that which is rejected in

its favour. That a _cannon is charged with thunder_ or _with double

thunders_ may be written, not only without nonsense, but with elegance:

and nothing else is here meant by _cracks_, which in the time of this

writer was a word of such emphasis and dignity, that in this play he

terms the general dissolution of nature the _crack of doom_.

There are among Mr. Theobald's alterations others which I do not

approve, though I do not always censure them; for some of his amendments

are so excellent, that, even when he has failed, he ought to be treated

with indulgence and respect.

NOTE IV.

_King_. But who comes here?

_Mal_. The worthy Thane of Rosse.

_Len_. What haste looks through his eyes?

So should he look, that _seems_ to speak things strange.

The meaning of this passage, as it now stands, is, _so should he look,

that looks as if he told things strange_. But Rosse neither yet told

strange things, nor could look as if he told them; Lenox only

conjectured from his air that he had strange things to tell, and,

therefore, undoubtedly said,

--What haste looks through his eyes?

So should he look, that _teems_ to speak things strange.

He looks like one that _is big_ with something of importance; a metaphor

so natural, that it is every day used in common discourse.

NOTE V.