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