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,