In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of malignant criticism to observe, that if our language is not here fully displayed, I have only failed in an attempt, which no human powers have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of ancient tongues, now immutably fixed, and comprised in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of successive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence of the Italian academicians, did not secure them from the censure of Beni; if the embodied criticks of France, when fifty years had been spent upon their work, were obliged to change its economy, and give their second edition another form, I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those, whom I wished to please, have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I, therefore, dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise[4].
FOOTNOTES:
[1] That I may not appear to have spoken too irreverently of Junius, I have here subjoined a few specimens of his etymological extravagance.
BANISH, religare, ex banno vel territorio exigere, in exitium agere. Gal. bannir. It. bandire, bandeggiare. H. bandir. B. bannen. Aevi medii scriptores bannire dicebant. V. Spelm. in Bannum & in Banleuga. Quoniam vero regionum urbiumq; limites arduis plerumq; montibus, altis fluminibus, longis deniq; flexuosisq; angustissimarum viarum anfractibus includebantur, fieri potest id genus limites ban dici ab eo quod [Greek: Bannatai] et [Greek: Bannatroi] Tarentinis olim, sicuti tradit Hesychius, vocabantur [Greek: ahi loxoi kai mae ithuteneis hodoi], "obliquae ac minime in rectum tendentes viae." Ac fortasse quoque huc facit quod [Greek: Banous], eodem Hesychio teste, dicebant [Greek: horae strangulae], montes arduos.
EMPTY, emtie, vacuus, inanis. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon: Aemtig]. Nescio an sint ab [Greek: emeo] vel [Greek: emetuio]. Vomo, evomo, vomitu evacue. Videtur interim etymologiam hanc non obscure firmare codex Rush. Mat. xii. 22. ubi antique scriptum invenimus [Anglo-Saxon: gemoeted hit emetig]. "Invenit eam vacantem."
HILL, mons, collis. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon: hyll]. Quod videri potest abscissum ex [Greek: kolonae] vel [Greek: kolonos]. Collis, tumulus, locus in plano editior. Hom. II. B. v. 811. [Greek: esti de tis proparoithe poleos aipeia kolonae]. Ubi authori brevium scholiorum [Greek: kolonae] exp. [Greek: topos eis hupsos anaekon geolofos exochae].
NAP, to take a nap. Dormire, condormiscere. Cym. heppian. A.S.
[Anglo-Saxon: hnaeppan]. Quod postremum videri potest desumptum ex
[Greek: knephas], obscuritas, tenebrae: nihil enim aeque solet
conciliare somnum, quam caliginosa profundae noctis obscuritas.
STAMMERER, Balbus, blaesus. Goth. [Gothic: STAMMS]. A.S. [Anglo-Saxon: stamer, stamur]. D. stam. B. stameler. Su. stamma. Isl. stamr. Sunt a [Greek: stomulein] vel [Greek: stomullein], nimia loquacitate alios offendere; quod impedite loquentes libentissime garrire soleant; vel quod aliis nimii semper videantur, etiam parcissime loquentes.
[2] The structure of Hume's sentences is French. For Johnson's opinion of it, see Boswell, i. 420. Edit. 1816.
[3] Blackstone very frequently denounces the use of Norman French in our law proceedings, and in Parliament as a badge of slavery, which he could have wished to see "fall into total oblivion, unless it be reserved as a solemn memento to remind us that our liberties are mortal, having once been destroyed by a foreign force." Much amusing and interesting research on the once prevalent use of French in England, is exhibited in Barrington's Observations on the more Antient Statutes.