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most place; whether we consider the amazing sagacity with which he investigates every hidden spring and wheel of human Action; or his happy manner of communicating this knowledge, in the just and living paintings which he has given us of all our Passions, Appetites, and Pursuits. These afford a lesson which can never be too often repeated, or too constantly inculcated; And, to engage the Reader's due attention to it, hath been one of the principal objects of this Edition. As this Science (whatever profound Philosophers may think) is, to the rest, _in Things_; so, _in Words_ (whatever supercilious Pedants may talk), every one's mother tongue is to all other Languages. This hath still been the Sentiment of Nature and true Wisdom. Hence, the greatest men of Antiquity never thought themselves better employed than in cultivating their own country idiom. So _Lycurgus_ did honour to _Sparta_, in giving the first compleat Edition of _Homer_; and _Cicero_, to _Rome_, in correcting the Works of _Lucretius_. Nor do we want Examples of the same good sense in modern Times, even amidst the cruel inrodes that Art and Fashion have made upon Nature and the simplicity of Wisdom. _Menage_, the greatest name in _France_ for all kind of philologic Learning, prided himself in writing critical Notes on their best lyric Poet, _Malherbe_: And our greater _Selden_, when he thought it might reflect credit on his Country, did not disdain even to comment a very ordinary Poet, one _Michael Drayton_. But the _English_ tongue, at this Juncture, deserves and demands our particular regard. It hath, by means of the many excellent Works of different kinds composed in it, engaged the notice, and become the study, of almost every curious and learned Foreigner, so as to be thought even a part of literary accomplishment. This must needs make it deserving of a critical attention: And its being yet destitute of a Test or Standard to apply to, in cases of doubt or difficulty, shews how much it wants that attention. For we have neither GRAMMAR nor DICTIONARY, neither Chart nor Compass, to guide us through this wide sea of Words. And indeed how should we? since both are to be composed and finished on the Authority of our best established Writers. But their Authority can be of little use till the Text hath been correctly settled, and the Phraseology critically examined. As, then, by these aids, a _Grammar_ and _Dictionary_, planned upon the best rules of Logic and P
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