ABSTRACT
Such evidence, however, is available. One need only compare the introductory passages of the prefaces to J. K.'s New English Dictionary, to Kersey's acknowledged revision of E. Phillips's New World of Words (1706), and to his own Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum (1708). The last two prefaces are written on much the same lines, as the work of 1708 is an abridged version of his revision of The New World of Words. The preface to the New English Dictionary is very different from the other two, because the object of the dictionary is fundamentally different. Here are the three passages :
1702: "Although it may be needless to insist on the usefulness of dictionaries in general, in regard that words are introductory to the knowledge of things, and no arts or sciences can be attain'd without a right understanding of their peculiar terms; yet we think it expedient to give some account of our present undertaking . ... "
