Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy; Corresponding Member of the Royal Society of Northern JOHN RUSSELL SMITH,4, OLD COMPTON STREET, SOHO. MDCCCL: PREFACE. THE difficulties proverbially attending the first essay in a literary design of any magnitude constitute one of the very few apologies the public are generally willing to concede an author for the imperfect execution of his undertaking. Perhaps no desideratum in our literature could be named which needs this indulgence more than a Dictionary of the Early English language,—a work requiring such extensive and varied research, that the labours of a century would still leave much to be added and corrected, and one which has been too often abandoned by eminent antiquaries for failure to be conspicuous. It is now brought to a completion for the first time in the following pages, in some respects imperfectly, but comprising a variety of information nowhere else to be met with in a collective state, and forming at present the only compilation where a reader of the works of early English writers can reasonably hope to find explanations of many of the numerous terms which have become obsolete during the last four centuries.* So far I may be permitted to speak without intrenching on the limits of criticism. A work containing more than 50,000 words,† many of which have never appeared even in scattered glossaries, and illustrated, with very few exceptions, by original authorities, must contain valuable material for the philologist, even if disfigured by errors. With respect to the latter contingency, I am not acquainted with any glossary, comprising merely a few hundred words, which does not contain blunders, although in many instances the careful attention of the editor has been specially directed to the task. Can I then anticipate that in a field, so vast that no single life would suffice for a minute examination of every object, I could have escaped proportionate liabilities? That such may be pointed out I have little doubt, notwithstanding the pains taken to prevent * A Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words was compiled about fifty years ago by the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, Vicar of Epsom, but only a small portion, extending to Bla, has yet been published. The manuscript, which is in the custody of one of the editors of the work, I have not seen, but to judge from what has appeared, it probably contains much irrelevant matter. Mr. Toone has given us a small manual of early English words, 8vo. 1832. Nares' Glossary, published in 1822, is confined to the Elizabethan period, a valuable work, chiefly compiled from the notes to the variorum edition of Shakespeare." + The exact number of words in this dictionary is 51.027. |