Trusting to make it manifest to men of learning, that in the production of the books which bear his name, far more has been done for the grammar of our language than any single hand had before achieved within the scope of practical philology, and that with perfect fairness towards other writers; he cannot but feel a wish that the integrity of his text should be preserved, whatever else may befall; and that the multitude of scribblers who judge it so needful to remodel Murray's defective compilation, would forbear to publish under his name or their own what they find only in the following pages.
26.

The mere rivalry of their authorship is no subject of concern; but it is enough for any ingenuous man to have toiled for years in solitude to complete a work of public utility, without entering a warfare for life to defend and preserve it.

Accidental coincidences in books are unfrequent, and not often such as to excite the suspicion of the most sensitive.

But, though the criteria of plagiarism are neither obscure nor disputable, it is not easy, in this beaten track of literature, for persons of little reading to know what is, or is not, original.

Dates must be accurately observed; and a multitude of minute things must be minutely compared.