And indeed it seems not very probable, that he who so pathetically laments the drudgery to which the unhappy lexicographer is doomed, and is known to have written his splendid imitation of Juvenal with astonishing rapidity, should have had 'as much pleasure in writing a sheet of a dictionary as a sheet of poetry.'

Thus, by the friendly hand of the hard-working, earnest old lexicographer, Mr. Compton was led from deep poverty up to a secure competency, and a place among the influential dignitaries of London society.

Thus I have laboured, by settling the orthography, displaying the analogy, regulating the structures, and ascertaining the signification of English words, to perform all the parts of a faithful lexicographer: but I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own expectations.

Different combinations of nouns have so often little or no difference of meaning, or of relation to each other, and so frequently is the very same vocal expression written variously by our best scholars, and ablest lexicographers, that in many ordinary instances it seems scarcely possible to determine who or what is right.

" We know that Shakspeare must, of his own personal knowledge of the man, have been qualified to paint his character; for while the great dramatist was the early and intimate friend of the Earl of Southampton, the petulant lexicographer boasts of having for years been domesticated in the pay and patronage of that munificent patron of letters.

Not for long, however; the unanimous rancour of so many men of influence and rank had successfully ruined the fortune and broken the spirit of the old piratical lexicographer.

"Labor," says Gadicke, the German masonic lexicographer, "is an important word in Masonry; indeed, we might say the most important.