of Dr. Johnson in definition and illustration;
so that popular dictionaries of the first half of the present century
commonly claimed to be abridgements of 'Johnson's Dictionary, with,
the Pronunciation on the basis of Walker.'

From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the lexicographical
supremacy of Johnson's Dictionary was undisputed, and eminent students
of the language busied themselves in trying, not to supersede it, but
to supplement and perfect it. Numerous supplements, containing
additional words, senses, and quotations, were published; in 1818 a
new edition, embracing many such accessions, was prepared by the
learned Archdeacon Todd, and 'Todd's Johnson' continues to be an
esteemed work to our own day. But only two independent contributions
to the development of lexicography were made in the earlier half of
the nineteenth century. These were the American work of Noah Webster,
and the English work of Dr. Charles Richardson.

Webster was a great man, a born definer of words; he was fired with
the idea that America ought to have a dictionary of its own form of
English, independent of British usage, and he produced a work of great
originality and value. Unfortunately, like many other clever men, he
had the notion that derivations can be elaborated from one's own
consciousness as well as definitions, and he included in his work
so-called 'etymologies' of this sort. But Etymology is simply
Word-history, and Word-history, like all other history, is a record of
the _facts_ which _did_ happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what
may have happened. In the later editions of Webster, these
'derivations' have been cleared out _en masse_, and the etymology
placed in the hands of men abreast of the science of the time; and the
last edition of Webster, the _International_, is perhaps the best of
one-volume dictionaries.

Richardson started on a new track altogether. Observing how much light
was shed on the meaning of words by Johnson's quotations, he was
impressed with the notion that, in a dictionary, definitions are
unnecessary, that quotations alone are sufficient; and he proceeded to
carry this into effect by making a dictionary without definitions or
explanations of meaning, or at least with the merest rudiments of
them, but illustrating each group of words by a large series of
quotations. In the collection of these he displayed immense research.
Going far beyond the limits of Dr. Johnson, he quoted from a