In
1747 Samuel Johnson wrote a
grant proposal to the
Earl of Chesterfield looking for some
funding for his new
dictionary.
TO THE RIGHT
HONOURABLE PHILIP DORMER, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD, One
of his Majesty's principal
Secretaries of
State.
MY LORD,
WHEN first I undertook to write an English Dictionary, I had no
expectation of any higher patronage than that of the proprietors
of the copy, nor prospect of any other advantage than the price
of my labour. I knew that the work in which I engaged is
generally considered as drudgery for the blind, as the proper
toil of artless industry; a task that requires neither the light
of learning, nor the activity of genius, but may be successfully
performed without any higher quality than that of bearing burdens
with dull patience, and beating the track of the alphabet with
sluggish resolution.
Whether this opinion, so long transmitted, and so widely
propagated, had its beginning from truth and nature, or from
accident and prejudice; whether it be decreed by the authority of
reason or the tyranny of ignorance, that, of all the candidates
for literary praise, the unhappy lexicographer holds the lowest
place, neither vanity nor interest incited me to inquire. It
appeared that the province allotted me was, of all the regions of
learning, generally confessed to be the least delightful, that it
was believed to produce neither fruits nor flowers; and that,
after a long and laborious cultivation, not even the barren
laurel had been found upon it.
Yet on this province, my Lord, I entered, with the pleasing hope,
that, as it was low, it likewise would be safe. I was drawn
forward with the prospect of employment, which, though not
splendid, would be useful; and which, though it could not make my
life envied, would keep it innocent; which would awaken no
passion, engage me in no contention, nor throw in my way any
temptation to disturb the quiet of others by censure, or my own
by flattery.
I had read, indeed, of times, in which princes and statesmen
thought it part of their honour to promote the improvement of
their native tongues; and in which dictionaries were written
under the protection of greatness. To the patrons of such
undertakings I willingly paid the homage of believing that they,
who were thus solicitous for the perpetuity of their language,
had reason to expect that their actions would be celebrated by
posterity, and that the eloquence which they promoted would be
employed in their praise. But I considered such acts of
beneficence as prodigies, recorded rather to raise wonder than
expectation; and, content with the terms that I had stipulated,
had not suffered my imagination to flatter me with any other
encouragement, when I found that my design had been thought by
your Lordship of importance sufficient to attract your favour.
How far this unexpected distinction can be rated among the happy
incidents of life, I am not yet able to determine. Its first
effect has been to make me anxious, lest it should fix the
attention of the publick too much upon me; and, as it once
happened to an epic poet of France, by raising the reputation of
the attempt, obstruct the reception of the work. I imagine what
the world will expect from a scheme, prosecuted under your
Lordship's influence; and I know that expectation, when her wings
are once expanded, easily reaches heights which performance never
will attain; and when she has mounted the summit of perfection,
derides her follower, who dies in the pursuit.
Not, therefore, to raise expectation, but to repress it, I here
lay before your Lordship the plan of my undertaking, that more
may not be demanded than I intend; and that, before it is too far
advanced to be thrown into a new method, I may be advertised of
its defects or superfluities. Such informations I may justly
hope, from the emulation with which those, who desire the praise
of elegance or discernment, must contend in the promotion of a
design that you, my Lord, have not thought unworthy to share your
attention with treaties and with wars.
In the first attempt to methodise my ideas I found a difficulty,
which extended itself to the whole work. It was not easy to
determine by what rule of distinction the words of this
dictionary were to be chosen. The chief intent of it is to
preserve the purity, and ascertain the meaning of our English
idiom; and this seems to require nothing more than that our
language be considered, so far as it is our own; that the words
and phrases used in the general intercourse of life, or found in
the works of those whom we commonly style polite writers, be
selected, without including the terms of particular professions;
since, with the arts to which they relate, they are generally
derived from other nations, and are very often the same in all
the languages of this part of the world. This is, perhaps, the
exact and pure idea of a grammatical dictionary; but in
lexicography, as in other arts, naked science is too delicate for
the purposes of life. The value of a work must be estimated by
its use; it is not enough that a dictionary delights the critick,
unless, at the same time, it instructs the learner; as it is to
little purpose that an engine amuses the philosopher by the
subtilty of its mechanism, if it requires so much knowledge in
its application as to be of no advantage to the common
workman.
The title which I prefix to my work has long conveyed a very
miscellaneous idea, and they that take a dictionary into their
hands, have been accustomed to expect from it a solution of
almost every difficulty. If foreign words, therefore, were
rejected, it could be little regarded, except by criticks, or
those who aspire to criticism; and however it might enlighten
those that write, would be all darkness to them that only read.
The unlearned much oftener consult their dictionaries for the
meaning of words, than for their structures or formations; and
the words that most want explanation are generally terms of art;
which, therefore, experience has taught my predecessors to spread
with a kind of pompous luxuriance over their productions.
The academicians of France, indeed, rejected terms of science in
their first essay, but found afterwards a necessity of relaxing
the rigour of their determination; and, though they would not
naturalize them at once by a single act, permitted them by
degrees to settle themselves among the natives, with little
opposition; and it would surely be no proof of judgment to
imitate them in an errour which they have now retracted, and
deprive the book of its chief use, by scrupulous distinctions.
Of such words, however, all are not equally to be considered as
parts of our language; for some of them are naturalized and
incorporated; but others still continue aliens, and are rather
auxiliaries than subjects. This naturalization is produced either
by an admission into common speech, in some metaphorical
signification, which is the acquisition of a kind of property
among us; as we say, the zenith of advancement, the
meridian of life, the cynosure of neighbouring
eyes; or it is the consequence of long intermixture and frequent
use, by which the ear is accustomed to the sound of words, till
their original is forgotten, as in equator,
satellites; or of the change of a foreign to an English
termination, and a conformity to the laws of the speech into
which they are adopted; as in category, cachexy,
peripneumony.
Of those which still continue in the state of aliens, and have
made no approaches towards assimilation, some seem necessary to
be retained, because the purchasers of the Dictionary will expect
to find them. Such are many words in the common law, as
capias, habeas corpus, præmunire,
nisi prius: such are some terms of controversial divinity,
as hypostasis; and of physick, as the names of diseases;
and, in general, all terms which can be found in books not
written professedly upon particular arts, or can be supposed
necessary to those who do not regularly study them. Thus, when a
reader not skilled in physick happens in Milton upon this line,
---- pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,
he will, with equal
expectation, look into his dictionary for the
word
marasmus, as for
atrophy, or
pestilence; and will have reason to
complain if he does
not find it.
It seems necessary to the completion of a dictionary, designed
not merely for criticks, but for popular use, that it should
comprise, in some degree, the peculiar words of every profession;
that the terms of war and navigation should be inserted, so far
as they can be required by readers of travels, and of history;
and those of law, merchandise, and mechanical trades, so far as
they can be supposed useful in the occurrences of common life.
But there ought, however, to be some distinction made between the
different classes of words; and, therefore, it will be proper to
print those which are incorporated into the language in the usual
character, and those which are still to be considered as foreign,
in the Italick letter.
Another question may arise with regard to appellatives, or the
names of species. It seems of no great use to set down the words
horse, dog, cat, willow,
alder, daisy, rose, and a thousand others,
of which it will be hard to give an explanation, not more obscure
than the word itself. Yet it is to be considered, that, if the
names of animals be inserted, we must admit those which are more
known, as well as those with which we are, by accident, less
acquainted; and if they are all rejected, how will the reader be
relieved from difficulties produced by allusions to the
crocodile, the chameleon, the ichneumon, and the hyena? If
no plants are to be mentioned, the most pleasing part of nature
will be excluded, and many beautiful epithets be unexplained. If
only those which are less known are to be mentioned, who shall
fix the limits of the reader's learning? The importance of such
explications appears from the mistakes which the want of them has
occasioned: had Shakespeare had a dictionary of this kind, he had
not made the woodbine entwine the honeysuckle; nor
would Milton, with such assistance, have disposed so improperly
of his elops and his scorpion.
Besides, as such words, like others, require that their accents
should be settled, their sounds ascertained, and their
etymologies deduced, they cannot be properly omitted in the
Dictionary. And though the explanations of some may be censured
as trivial, because they are almost universally understood, and
those of others as unnecessary, because they will seldom occur,
yet it seems not proper to omit them; since it is rather to be
wished that many readers should find more than they expect, than
that one should miss what he might hope to find.
When all the words are selected and arranged, the first part of
the work to be considered is the orthography, which was long
vague and uncertain; which at last, when its fluctuation ceased,
was in many cases settled but by accident; and in which,
according to your Lordship's observation, there is still great
uncertainty among the best criticks: nor is it easy to state a
rule by which we may decide between custom and reason, or between
the equiponderant authorities of writers alike eminent for
judgment and accuracy.
The great orthographical contest has long subsisted between
etymology and pronunciation. It has been demanded, on one hand,
that men should write as they speak; but, as it has been shown
that this conformity never was attained in any language, and that
it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in speaking
than in writing, it may be asked, with equal propriety, why men
do not rather speak as they write. In France, where this
controversy was at its greatest height, neither party, however
ardent, durst adhere steadily to their own rule; the etymologist
was often forced to spell with the people; and the advocate for
the authority of pronunciation found it sometimes deviating
capriciously from the received use of writing, that he was
constrained to comply with the rule of his adversaries, lest he
should lose the end by the means, and be left alone by following
the crowd.
When a question of orthography is dubious, that practice has, in
my opinion, a claim to preference which preserves the greatest
number of radical letters, or seems most to comply with the
general custom of our language. But the chief rule which I
propose to follow is, to make no innovation without a reason
sufficient to balance the inconvenience of change; and such
reasons I do not expect often to find. All change is of itself an
evil, which ought not to be hazarded but for evident advantage;
and as inconstancy is in every case a mark of weakness, it will
add nothing to the reputation of our tongue. There are, indeed,
some who despise the inconveniences of confusion, who seem to
take pleasure in departing from custom, and to think alteration
desirable for its own sake; and the reformation of our
orthography, which these writers have attempted, should not pass
without its due honours, but that I suppose they hold singularity
its own reward, or may dread the fascination of lavish praise.
The present usage of spelling, where the present usage can be
distinguished, will, therefore, in this work, be generally
followed; yet there will be often occasion to observe, that it is
in itself inaccurate, and tolerated rather than chosen;
particularly when, by the change of one letter or more, the
meaning of a word is obscured, as in farrier for
ferrier, as it was formerly written, from ferrum,
or fer; in gibberish for gebrish, the jargon
of Geber, and his chymical followers, understood by none
but their own tribe. It will be likewise sometimes proper to
trace back the orthography of different ages, and show by what
gradations the word departed from its original.
Closely connected with orthography is pronunciation, the
stability of which is of great importance to the duration of a
language, because the first change will naturally begin by
corruptions in the living speech. The want of certain rules for
the pronunciation of former ages, has made us wholly ignorant of
the metrical art of our ancient poets; and since those who study
their sentiments regret the loss of their numbers, it is surely
time to provide that the harmony of the moderns may be more
permanent.
A new pronunciation will make almost a new speech; and,
therefore, since one great end of this undertaking is to fix the
English language, care will be taken to determine the
accentuation of all polysyllables by proper authorities, as it is
one of those capricious phenomena which cannot be easily
reduced to rules. Thus there is no antecedent reason for
difference of accent in the two words dolorous and
sonorous; yet of the one Milton gives the sound in this
line,
He pass'd o'er many a region dolorous;
and that of the other in this,
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds.
It may be likewise proper to remark
metrical licenses, such as
contractions,
generous,
gen'rous;
reverend,
rev'rend, and
coalitions, as
region,
question.
But still it is more necessary to fix the pronunciation of
monosyllables, by placing with them words of correspondent sound,
that one may guard the other against the danger of that
variation, which, to some of the most common, has already
happened; so that the words wound and wind, as they
are now frequently pronounced, will not rhyme to sound and
mind. It is to be remarked, that many words written alike
are differently pronounced, as flow, and brow:
which may be thus registered, flow, woe;
brow, now; or of which the exemplification may be
generally given by a distich: thus the words tear, or
lacerate and tear, the water of the eye, have the same
letters, but may be distinguished thus, tear, dare;
tear, peer.
Some words have two sounds, which may be equally admitted, as
being equally defensible by authority. Thus great is
differently used:
For Swift and him despised the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great. POPE.
As if misfortune made the throne her seat,
And none could be unhappy but the great. ROWE.
The care of such
minute particulars may be censured as
trifling;
but these particulars have not been thought unworthy of
attention
in more
polished languages.
The accuracy of the French, in stating the sounds of their
letters, is well known; and, among the Italians, Crescembeni has
not thought it unnecessary to inform his countrymen of the words
which, in compliance with different rhymes, are allowed to be
differently spelt, and of which the number is now so fixed, that
no modern poet is suffered to increase it.
When the orthography and pronunciation are adjusted, the
etymology or derivation is next to be considered, and the words
are to be distinguished according to the different classes,
whether simple, as day, light, or compound, as
day-light; whether primitive, as, to act, or
derivative, as action, actionable; active,
activity. This will much facilitate the attainment of our
language, which now stands in our dictionaries a confused heap of
words without dependence, and without relation.
When this part of the work is performed, it will be necessary to
inquire how our primitives are to be deduced from foreign
languages, which may be often very successfully performed by the
assistance of our own etymologists. This search will give
occasion to many curious disquisitions, and sometimes, perhaps,
to conjectures, which to readers unacquainted with this kind of
study, cannot but appear improbable and capricious. But it may be
reasonably imagined, that what is so much in the power of men as
language, will very often be capriciously conducted. Nor are
these disquisitions and conjectures to be considered altogether
as wanton sports of wit, or vain shows of learning; our language
is well known not to be primitive or self-originated, but to have
adopted words of every generation, and, either for the supply of
its necessities, or the increase of its copiousness, to have
received additions from very distant regions; so that in search
of the progenitors of our speech, we may wander from the tropick
to the frozen zone, and find some in the valleys of Palestine,
and some upon the rocks of Norway.
Beside the derivation of particular words, there is likewise an
etymology of phrases. Expressions are often taken from other
languages; some apparently, as to run a risk, courir un
risque; and some even when we do not seem to borrow their
words; thus, to bring about, or accomplish, appears an
English phrase, but in reality our native word about has
no such import, and is only a French expression, of which we have
an example in the common phrase venir a bout d'une
affaire.
In exhibiting the descent of our language, our etymologists seem
to have been too lavish of their learning, having traced almost
every word through various tongues, only to show what was shown
sufficiently by the first derivation. This practice is of great
use in synoptical lexicons, where mutilated and doubtful
languages are explained by their affinity to others more certain
and extensive, but is generally superfluous in English
etymologies. When the word is easily deduced from a Saxon
original, I shall not often inquire further, since we know not
the parent of the Saxon dialect; but when it is borrowed from the
French, I shall show whence the French is apparently derived.
Where a Saxon root cannot be found, the defect may be supplied
from kindred languages, which will be generally furnished with
much liberality by the writers of our glossaries; writers who
deserve often the highest praise, both of judgment and industry,
and may expect at least to be mentioned with honour by me, whom
they have freed from the greatest part of a very laborious work,
and on whom they have imposed, at worst, only the easy task of
rejecting superfluities.
By tracing in this manner every word to its original, and not
admitting, but with great caution, any of which no original can
be found, we shall secure our language from being overrun with
cant, from being crowded with low terms, the spawn of
folly or affectation, which arise from no just principles of
speech, and of which, therefore, no legitimate derivation can be
shown.
When the etymology is thus adjusted, the analogy of our language
is next to be considered; when we have discovered whence our
words are derived, we are to examine by what rules they are
governed, and how they are inflected through their various
terminations. The terminations of the English are few, but those
few have hitherto remained unregarded by the writers of our
dictionaries. Our substantives are declined only by the plural
termination, our adjectives admit no variation but in the degrees
of comparison, and our verbs are conjugated by auxiliary words,
and are only changed in the preterit tense.
To our language may be, with great justness, applied the
observation of Quintilian, that speech was not formed by an
analogy sent from heaven. It did not descend to us in a state of
uniformity and perfection, but was produced by necessity, and
enlarged by accident, and is, therefore, composed of dissimilar
parts, thrown together by negligence, by affectation, by learning
or by ignorance.
Our inflections, therefore, are by no means constant, but admit
of numberless irregularities, which in this Dictionary will be
diligently noted. Thus fox makes in the plural
foxes, but ox makes oxen. Sheep is
the same in both numbers. Adjectives are sometimes compared by
changing the last syllable, as proud, prouder, proudest;
and sometimes by particles prefixed, as ambitious,
more ambitious, most ambitious. The forms of our
verbs are subject to great variety; some end their preter tense
in ed, as I love, I loved, I have
loved; which may be called the regular form, and is
followed by most of our verbs of southern original. But many
depart from this rule, without agreeing in any other, as I
shake, I shook, I have shaken or
shook, as it is sometimes written in poetry; I
make, I made, I have made; I bring, I
brought; I wring, I wrung; and many others,
which, as they cannot be reduced to rules, must be learned from
the dictionary rather than the grammar.
The verbs are likewise to be distinguished according to their
qualities, as actives from neuters; the neglect of which has
already introduced some barbarities in our conversation, which,
if not obviated by just animadversions, may in time creep into
our writings.
Thus, my Lord, will our language be laid down, distinct in its
minutest subdivisions, and resolved into its elemental
principles. And who upon this survey can forbear to wish, that
these fundamental atoms of our speech might obtain the firmness
and immutability of the primogenial and constituent particles of
matter, that they might retain their substance while they alter
their appearance, and be varied and compounded, yet not
destroyed?
But this is a privilege which words are scarcely to expect: for,
like their author, when they are not gaining strength, they are
generally losing it. Though art may sometimes prolong their
duration, it will rarely give them perpetuity; and their changes
will be almost always informing us, that language is the work of
man, of a being from whom permanence and stability cannot be
derived.
Words having been hitherto considered as separate and
unconnected, are now to be likewise examined as they are ranged
in their various relations to others by the rules of syntax or
construction, to which I do not know that any regard has been yet
shown in English dictionaries, and in which the grammarians can
give little assistance. The syntax of this language is too
inconstant to be reduced to rules, and can be only learned by the
distinct consideration of particular words as they are used by
the best authors. Thus, we say, according to the present modes of
speech, The soldier died of his wounds, and the sailor
perished with hunger; and every man acquainted with our
language would be offended with a change of these particles,
which yet seem originally assigned by chance, there being no
reason to be drawn from grammar why a man may not, with equal
propriety, be said to die with a wound or perish of
hunger.
Our syntax, therefore, is not to be taught by general rules, but
by special precedents; and in examining whether Addison has been
with justice accused of a solecism in this passage,
The poor inhabitant----
Starves in the midst of nature's bounty curst,
And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst----
it is not in our
power to have recourse to any
established laws
of speech; but we must
remark how the writers of former ages have
used the same
word, and consider whether he can be
acquitted of
impropriety, upon the testimony of
Davies, given in his favour by
a similar passage:
She loaths the wat'ry glass wherein she gaz'd,
And shuns it still, although for thirst she dye.
continued...