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not often provoked my indignation by his love of obscene words and phrases, of which he collected a large number, as well as of scurrilous sayings and senseless proverbs in depreciation of the female sex.
But if in many places his ridiculous diligence gave me much cause for blots, in many more he left me room for additions; so that I can honestly assure the reader that my dictionary contains above ten thousand words or significations of words not to be found in his, in spite of his pompous and false declaration that the Italian part of his performance contained «many hundred more words than the vocabulary of the Academicians della Crusca».
These considerations, and my having retranslated a large number of his phrases, rectified endless accents that he had misplaced in the Italian, accented ali the English, and expunged numberless superfluities, made me resolve to prefíx my name instead of his to this edition; and should any body think me wrong in so doing, as the whole of this work cannot be properly called mine, let him do as much for the advantage of the studious to Baretti ’s dictionary, as Baretti has done to Altieri ’s, and he shall bave my full leave to efface my name from its frontispiece, and place his own in the stead.
To the dictionary I bave prefíxed two grammars, one for an Englishman who learns Italian, the other for an Italian who learns English. They are both very short, but I hope they both contain enough to conduct any learner of tolerable capacity through the dark labyrinth of a new tongue.
Only three grammars of these two languages were hitherto generally used. One by Messieiirs of Port Royal, translated from the French, a second by Altieri, and a third by Venero ni. Which is the worst of the three is not easily to be determined. The Messíeurs were unacquainted with the tongue they pretended to tèach tò ah astonishing degree. The Italian authot from whom they h’áve drawn the greatest part of their examples, was John /^j -Baptist Marino, a poèt as proverbially branded in Italy for the uncorrectness of his language as for the fustian of his thoughts.
H
