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