PREFACE.

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a majority of two of these states ought always to concur, in order to constitute what iscalled good usage.

But though custom, when general, is commonly well understood, there arc severalstates and degrees of it which are exceedingly obscure and equivocal; and the onlymethod of knowing the extent of custom in these cases seems to be an inspection of thoseDictionaries which professedly treat of pronunciation. We have now so many works ofthis kind, that the general current of custom, with respect to the sound of words, may becollected from them with almost as much certainty as the general sense of words fromJohnson. An exhibition of the opinions of orthoepists about the sound of words alwaysappeared to me a very rational method of determining what is called custom. Thismethod I have adopted in the following work ; and if I have sometimes dissented fromthe majority, it has been either from a persuasion of being better informed of whatwas the actual custom of speaking, or from a partiality to the evident analogies of thelanguage.

And here I must entreat the candid reader to make every reasonable allowance for thefreedom with which I have criticised other writers on this subject, and particularlyMr. Sheridan. As a man, a gentleman, and a scholar, I knew Mr. Sheridan, and respectedhim ; and think every lover of elocution owes him a tribute of thanks for his unweariedaddresses to the public, to rouse them to the study of the delivery of their native tongue.But this tribute, however just, does not exempt him from examination. His credit withthe world necessarily subjects him to animadversion, because the errors of such a writerare dangerous in proportion to his reputation: this has made me zealous to remark his in-accuracies, but not without giving my reasons; nor have I ever taken advantage of suchfaults as may be called inadvertencies.* On the same principles I have ventured to cri-ticise Dr. Johnson,t whose friendship and advice I was honoured with, whose memory Ilove, and whose intellectual powers impress me with something like religious venerationand awe. I do not pretend to be exempt from faults myself; in a work like the present,it would be a miracle to escape them ; nor have I the least idea of deciding as judge in acase of so much delicacy and importance as the pronunciation of a whole people ; I haveonly assumed the part of an advocate to plead the cause of consistency and analogy, and,where custom is either silent or dubious, to tempt the lovers of their language to inclineto the side of propriety : so that my design is principally to give a kind of history of pro-nunciation, and a register of its present state; and, where the authorities of Dictionariesor Speakers are found to differ, to give such a display of the analogies of the language asmay enable every inspector to decide for himself.

With respect to the explanation of words, except in very few instances, X have scru-pulously followed Dr. Johnson. His Dictionary has been deemed lawful plunder byevery subsequent lexicographer; and so servilely has it been copied, that such words ashe must have omitted merely by mistake, as Predilection , Respectable, Descriptive, Sulky,Inimical, Interference, and many others, are neither in Mr. Sheridan’s, Dr. Kenrick’s, norseveral other Dictionaries.

• The inspector will be pleased to take notice thatiny observations on Mr. Sheridan’s Dictionrelate to the first edition, published in his life-time, and the second, some time after hi. h "whatever alterations may have been made by his subsequent editors 1 am total Iv ''

quamted with. y UIMC *

t See Heeptick, Scirrhus , Codie, Further, &c.