d impartial history of the origin and progressive
improvements of this art. And, as I have submitted the whole to the
inspection of accurate judges, whose approbation I am honoured with, I
most humbly crave leave to publish it to the world, under your grace's
patronage: not merely on account of your great dignity and high rank in
life, though these receive a lustre from your grace's humanity; but also
from a knowledge of your grace's disposition to encourage every useful
art, and favour all true promoters of science. That your grace may long
live the friend of learning, the guardian of liberty, and the patron of
virtue, and then transmit your name, with the highest honour and esteem,
to latest posterity, is the ardent wish of

Your grace's most humble, &c.[1]
[1] This is the dedication mentioned by Dr. Johnson himself in
Boswell's Life, vol. ii. 226. I should not else have suspected what
has so little of his manner.

Baretti's Dictionary of the English and Italian Languages. 2 vols. 4to.
1760.

To his excellency Don Felix, marquis of Abreu and Bertodano, ambassadour
extraordinary and plenipotentiary from his Catholick Majesty to the king
of Great Britain.

My Lord,

That acuteness of penetration into characters and designs, and that nice
discernment of human passions and practices, which have raised you to
your present height of station and dignity of employment, have long
shown you that dedicatory addresses are written for the sake of the
author more frequently than of the patron; and, though they profess only
reverence and zeal, are commonly dictated by interest or vanity. I
shall, therefore, not endeavour to conceal my motives, but confess, that
the Italian Dictionary is dedicated to your excellency, that I might
gratify my vanity, by making it known, that, in a country where I am a
stranger, I have been able, without any external recommendation, to
obtain the notice and countenance of a nobleman so eminent for knowledge
and ability, that, in his twenty-third year, he was sent as
plenipotentiary to superintend, at Aix la Chapelle, the interests of a
nation remarkable, above all others, for gravity and prudence; and who,
at an age when very few are admitted to publick trust, transacts the
most important affairs between two of the greatest monarchs of the
world.

If I could attribute to my own merits the favours which your excellency
every day confers upon me, I know not how much my pride might be
in