or
accidental order commonly ignoring the historical order in which the
various meanings arose. Still less do they attempt to give data from
which the vocabulary of the language at any previous period may be
determined. The philologist, however, for whom the growth, or
progressive alteration, of a language is a fact of central importance,
regards no record of a language as complete which does not exhibit this
growth in its successive stages. He desires to know when and where each
word, and each form and sense of it, are first found in the language; if
the word or sense is obsolete, when it died; and any other fact that
throws light upon its history. He requires, accordingly, of the
lexicographer that, having ascertained these data, he shall make them
the foundation of his exposition--in particular, of the division and
arrangement of his definitions, that sense being placed first which
appeared first in order of time. In other words, each article in the
dictionary should furnish an orderly biography of the word of which it
treats, each word and sense being so dated that the exact time of its
appearance and the duration of its use may as nearly as possible be
determined. This, in principle, is the method of the new lexicography.
In practice it is subject to limitations similar to those of the
vocabulary mentioned above. Incompleteness of the early record is here
an even greater obstacle; and there are many words whose history is, for
one reason or another, so unimportant that to treat it elaborately would
be a waste of labour and space.

The adoption of the historical principle involves a further noteworthy
modification of older methods, namely, an important extension of the use
of quotations. To Dr Johnson belongs the credit of showing how useful,
when properly chosen, they may be, not only in corroborating the
lexicographer's statements, but also in revealing special shades of
meaning or variations of use which his definitions cannot well express.
No part of Johnson's work is more valuable than this. This idea was more
fully developed and applied by Dr Charles Richardson, whose _New
Dictionary of the English Language ... Illustrated by Quotations from
the Best Authors_ (1835-1836) still remains a most valuable collection
of literary illustrations. Lexicographers, however, have, with few
exceptions, until a recent date, employed quotations chiefly for the
ends just mentioned--as instances of use or as illustrations of co