ining with sparks of
imagination, and some replete with treasures of wisdom.

The orthography and etymology, though imperfect, are not imperfect for
want of care, but because care will not always be successful, and
recollection or information come too late for use.

That many terms of art and manufacture are omitted, must be frankly
acknowledged; but for this defect I may boldly allege that it was
unavoidable: I could not visit caverns to learn the miner's language,
nor take a voyage to perfect my skill in the dialect of navigation, nor
visit the warehouses of merchants, and shops of artificers, to gain the
names of wares, tools, and operations, of which no mention is found in
books; what favourable accident or easy inquiry brought within my reach,
has not been neglected; but it had been a hopeless labour to glean up
words, by courting living information, and contesting with the
sullenness of one, and the roughness of another.

To furnish the academicians _della Crusca_ with words of this kind, a
series of comedies called _la Fiera_, or the Fair, was professedly
written by Buonarotti; but I had no such assistant, and, therefore, was
content to want what they must have wanted likewise, had they not
luckily been so supplied.

Nor are all words, which are not found in the vocabulary, to be lamented
as omissions. Of the laborious and mercantile part of the people, the
diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many of their terms
are formed for some temporary or local convenience, and though current
at certain times and places, are in others utterly unknown. This
fugitive cant, which is always in a state of increase or decay, cannot
be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language, and,
therefore, must be suffered to perish with other things unworthy of
preservation.

Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He that is
catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to pass by
unregarded, which he expects hourly to return; he that is searching for
rare and remote things, will neglect those that are obvious and
familiar: thus many of the most common and cursory words have been
inserted with little illustration, because in gathering the authorities,
I forbore to copy those which I thought likely to occur, whenever they
were wanted. It is remarkable that, in reviewing my collection, I found
the word SEA unexemplified.

Thus it happens, that in things difficult there i