d itself to the whole work. It was not easy to determine by what
rule of distinction the words of this dictionary were to be chosen. The
chief intent of it is to preserve the purity, and ascertain the meaning
of our English idiom; and this seems to require nothing more than that
our language be considered, so far as it is our own; that the words and
phrases used in the general intercourse of life, or found in the works
of those whom we commonly style polite writers, be selected, without
including the terms of particular professions; since, with the arts to
which they relate, they are generally derived from other nations, and
are very often the same in all the languages of this part of the world.
This is, perhaps, the exact and pure idea of a grammatical dictionary;
but in lexicography, as in other arts, naked science is too delicate for
the purposes of life. The value of a work must be estimated by its use;
it is not enough that a dictionary delights the critick, unless, at the
same time, it instructs the learner; as it is to little purpose that an
engine amuses the philosopher by the subtilty of its mechanism, if it
requires so much knowledge in its application as to be of no advantage
to the common workman.

The title which I prefix to my work has long conveyed a very
miscellaneous idea, and they that take a dictionary into their hands,
have been accustomed to expect from it a solution of almost every
difficulty. If foreign words, therefore, were rejected, it could be
little regarded, except by criticks, or those who aspire to criticism;
and however it might enlighten those that write, would be all darkness
to them that only read. The unlearned much oftener consult their
dictionaries for the meaning of words, than for their structures or
formations; and the words that most want explanation are generally terms
of art; which, therefore, experience has taught my predecessors to
spread with a kind of pompous luxuriance over their productions.

The academicians of France, indeed, rejected terms of science in their
first essay, but found afterwards a necessity of relaxing the rigour of
their determination; and, though they would not naturalize them at once
by a single act, permitted them by degrees to settle themselves among
the natives, with little opposition; and it would surely be no proof of
judgment to imitate them in an errour which they have now retracted, and
deprive the book of its chief use, by scrupulous distinct