He accordingly explores every lane and _impasse_ in
the purlieus of Grub Street, and pounces on a new word as a naturalist
would on a new bug,--the stranger and uglier, the better. We regret
that this kind of rivalry has been forced on Dr. Worcester; but he is
so thorough, patient, and conscientious, that he leaves little behind
him for the gleaner. We confess that the amplitude of his research has
surprised us, highly as we were prepared to rate him in this respect
by our familiarity with his former works. We have subjected his Dictionary
to a pretty severe test. From the time of its publication we have made
a point of seeking in it every unusual word, old or new, that we met with
in our reading. We have been disappointed in hardly a single instance, and
we are not acquainted with any other dictionary of which we could say as
much.
An attempt has been made to damage Dr. Worcester's work by a partial
comparison of his definitions with those of Dr. Webster; and here,
again, the assumption has been, that _number_ was of more importance
than concise completeness. In the case of a quarto dictionary, we
suppose an honest reviewer may confess that he has not read through the
subject of his criticism. We have opened Dr. Webster's volume at
random, and have found some of his definitions as extraordinarily
inaccurate as many of his etymologies.
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