A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (4th edition)/Conclusion
CONCLUSION.
Thus, after many years of labour and anxious observation, a great part of which has been bestowed on this
Dictionary, I have given many additional corrections and improvements to a Fourth Edition of it. The favourable reception it has met with from the Public, demands my warmest acknowledgements; but at the same time makes me regret the diminished value of the former Editions, from the various corrections and improvements in this; but the judicious and candid observer will acknowledge, that a work comprehending such an infinite number of nice distinctions, and minute particulars, which (as Dr. Lowth observes) often escape observation when they are most obvious, would naturally admit of several corrections and amendments in future Editions. I have dissembled no difficulty; I have stifled no objection; and have sometimes chosen to risk the appearance of uncertainty and indecision, to those who are easily imposed upon by confidence and self-sufficiency, rather than hazard the opinion of the judicious few, by deciding without adequate reasons: and this Edition, the result of much fatigue and anxiety, has, I flatter myself, fewer faults than any similar work of the same delicacy, extent, and complexity. With thankfulness, therefore, to God, who has supported me through the whole of it, I once more consign it to
the candid and discerning Public.
G. Sidney, Printer,
Northumberland St. Strand.