Modern Languages. 107 



which had gone before it; and taking into the ac- 

 count also, that it was written " with little assist- 

 ance of the learned, and without any patronage of 

 the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, 

 or under the shelter of academic bowers, but 

 amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness, 

 and in sorrow," it must be regarded as a won- 

 derful monument of philological taste, erudition, 

 and labour. 



The English dictionaries which have been given 

 to the public since that of Dr. Johnson, are nu- 

 merous. They have, in general, however, con- 

 tented themselves with servilely copying that great 

 lexicographer, and have made few important ad- 

 ditions to his labours. To this general character 

 Dr. Ash is an exception : considering his dictionary 

 as a collection of all kinds of words, scientific, 

 technical, obsolete, colloquial, decent, or other- 

 wise, it is doubtless the most complete extant; and 

 so far as the mere number of words is an excellence, 

 his work must be pronounced much superior to that 

 of Johnson. It may fairly be questioned, how- 

 ever, whether such an indiscriminate admission of 

 words as Dr. Ash has thought proper to adopt, be 

 not more injurious than useful. The dictionaries 

 of Kenrick, Sheridan, Walker, with a com- 

 parative view of their respective merits, were be- 

 fore noticed. But as these were designed rather 

 to promote English Orthoepy than the general in- 

 terests of our language, the further consideration of 

 them will not be attempted in this place. 



It is worthy of remark, that the eighteenth 

 century has produced a great extension of the 

 knowledge and use of the English language. 

 Within the last forty or fifty years this language 

 has been gradually becoming more known among 

 the learned of other countries, and its best models 

 of composition more studied. Mr. Pope is said 



