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submissive deference with which he was treated nourished his self-con

sequence and positiveness to such a degree, that he became offensively dictatorial and impatient of contradiction. In conversation, he assumed a superiority which silenced all fair discussion; and when he condescended to argue, it was only for a victory made as humiliating as possible to his opponent. This disposition prevented him from making any progress in subduing that bigotry and intolerance of opinion with which he set out in life, and which in several respects adhered to him with more force than to any of his literary contemporaries. His arrogant rudeness often carried him not only beyond the bounds of politeness, but of humanity. Yet he had a fund of kindness and benevolence in his nature, which was continually displaying itself in acts of substantial generosity; and he was capable of a warmth of affection which did honour to his feelings. No man was more superior to artifice or disguise; if he was an enemy, he was an open one; and where he professed friendship, his sincerity might be relied upon. Though a rigid moralist in his writings, he was sufficiently indulgent to the failings of his acquaintance: indeed, his familiarities were sometimes formed with too little discrimination. Society of some kind was too necessary to his existence to admit of nice selection. He was sensual in his habits of living, but could occasionally exercise great self-denial. His extreme indolence and dilatoriness would have precluded him from any great exertion, had he not been capable of bringing all his powers to immediate action upon a call, and of pouring forth his collected stores with equal copiousness and accuracy. But he required a strong stimulus to set him in motion, and his great works were the product of necessitous circumstances.

As a writer, he was more remarkable for the manner in which he presented his thoughts than for the thoughts themselves. His style has formed a kind of era in English composition, having been the pattern of imitation to most of his contemporaries who have aimed at fine writing. It is distinguished by a preference of words of Latin etymology, by the frequent use of abstract terms, and by an ordonnance of clauses calculated to produce a sonorous rotundity of period. Johnson delivers moral maxims and dictatorial sentences with wonderful force, and lays down definitions with singular precision; he gives a keen point to sarcasm, and adds pomp to magnificent imagery. But he is utterly adverse to the easy and familiar, and occasionally falls into ridicule by loading petty matter with cumbrous ornament, and uttering trivial sentiments with

oracular dignity. Yet, as he well understood the true signification of words, and aimed rather at perfection than innovation, he may justly be reckoned a real improver of the English language, which he left more rich, accurate, and majestic, than he found it.

His works were published collectively, with a copious Life of the author, in eleven volumes octavo, by sir John Hawkins, 1787. A new edition, in twelve volumes, with a Life by Mr. Murphy, was given in 1792. Of the conversations and oral dictates of Johnson, which are almost equally curious displays of his mental powers, a most copious collection has been offered to the world in the very entertaining volumes of Mr. Boswell, who minuted down all his memorabilia with the reverential fidelity of a disciple. Mrs. Piozzi also, who, when the wife of Mr. Thrale, devoted much time and attention to her guest, has painted his domestic manners with a lively pencil.

TO THE BINDER.

Place the Portrait to face the Title of Vol. I. and the Statue to face

Page 12 of the Life.

PREFACE.

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 ex posed 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 tyi ny 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 clas ical 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 illus→ trate 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

YOL. I.

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 to 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 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 afterward 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 juvut 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.

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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 ma

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