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,