And Frenche she spake full fetously;
After the schole of Stratforde at Bowe,
For Frenche of Paris was to her unknowne.
Chaucer's Prologue to the Prioress' Tale.
[4] Dr. Johnson's Dictionary was published on the fifteenth day of
April 1755, in two vols. folio, price 4_l_. 10_s._ bound. The
booksellers who engaged in this national work were the Knaptons,
Longman, Hitch and Co. Millar, and Dodsley.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOURTH EDITION OF THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY[1].
Many are the works of human industry, which to begin and finish are hardly granted to the same man. He that undertakes to compile a dictionary, undertakes that, which, if it comprehends the full extent of his design, he knows himself unable to perform. Yet his labours, though deficient, may be useful, and with the hope of this inferiour praise, he must incite his activity, and solace his weariness.
Perfection is unattainable, but nearer and nearer approaches may be made; and, finding my Dictionary about to be reprinted, I have endeavoured, by a revisal, to make it less reprehensible. I will not deny that I found many parts requiring emendation, and many more capable of improvement. Many faults I have corrected, some superfluities I have taken away, and some deficiencies I have supplied. I have methodised some parts that were disordered, and illuminated some that were obscure. 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, or necessary to the common business of life: these know not any other use of a dictionary than that of adjusting orthography, or explaining terms of science, or words of infrequent occurrence or remote derivation.