ignity of soul which
encounters danger and trouble with tranquillity and firmness, which
raises the possessor above revenge, and makes him delight in acts of
benevolence,--which makes him disdain injustice and meanness, and
prompts him to sacrifice personal ease, interest, and safety for the
accomplishment of useful and noble objects;" in the latest Webster the
same terms are used but with a judicious compression. Johnson's account
reads, "Greatness of mind; bravery; elevation of soul." Webster was
disposed also to mingle rather more encyclopaedic information with his
definitions than a severer judgment of the limits of a dictionary now
permits. Thus under the word _bishop_, besides illustrative passages, he
gives at length the mode of election in the English Church, and also
that used in the Episcopal Church in America. But this fullness of
description was often a positive addition. Here again a comparison may
be made with Johnson. Under the word _telescope_, Johnson simply says:
"A long glass by which distant objects are viewed." Webster: "An optical
instrument employed in viewing distant objects, as the heavenly bodies.
It assists the eye chiefly in two ways: first, by enlarging the visual
angle under which a distant object is seen, and thus magnifying that
object; and secondly, by collecting and conveying to the eye a larger
beam of light than would enter the naked organ, and thus rendering
objects distinct and visible which would otherwise be indistinct and
invisible. Its essential parts are the _object-glass_, which collects
the beams of light and forms an image of the object, and the _eyeglass_,
which is a microscope by which the image is magnified." The latest
editors have found nothing to change in this definition and nothing to
add, except a long account of the several kinds of telescopes. In the
introduction and the definition of words employed in science Webster was
for the time in advance of Johnson, as the present Webster is far in
advance of the first from the natural increase in the importance and
number of these terms. But Webster did not merely use his advantages; he
had a keener sense than Johnson of the relative weight of such words.
Johnson harbored them as unliterary, but Webster welcomed them as a part
of the growing vocabulary of the people.

Webster claimed to have nearly doubled the number of words given in
Johnson, even after he had excluded a number which found their place in
Johnson. He swel