"When I am animated by this wish, I look with pleasure on my book,
however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of
a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become
popular I have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders and
risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was
ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden
ignorance in contempt; but useful diligence will at last prevail,
and there never can be wanting some, who distinguish desert, who
will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue can ever be
perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words
are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be
spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would
not be sufficient; that he whose design includes whatever language
can express must often speak of what he does not understand; that
a writer will sometimes be hurried by eagerness to the end, and
sometimes faint with weariness under a task which Scaliger
compares to the labours of the anvil and the mine; that what is
obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always
present; that sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance,
slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of
the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in
vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which
yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come
uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.
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