Although a Glossary of the words peculiar to each County of England seems as reasonable an object of curiosity as its History, Antiquities, Climate, and various Productions, yet it has been generally omitted by those Persons who have undertaken to write the Histories of our different Counties. Now each of these Counties have words, if not exclusively peculiar to that County, yet certainly so to that part of the kingdom where it is situated, and some of those words are highly beautiful and expressive; many of their phrases, adages, and proverbs are well worth recording, and have occupied the attention and engaged the pens of men distinguished for talents and learning, among whom the name of Ray will naturally occur to every person at all conversant with his mother tongue, his work on Proverbs and on the different Dialects of England being one of the most popular ones in the English Language. But there is a still more important benefit to be derived from this custom, were it practised to its full extent in a publication comprising all the provincial Dialects of England, as they would when united all together form the only true and solid foundation for a work much wanted, a General Dictionary of the English Language.