The English Sentimentalist writers of the eighteenth century were attempting to write

Preface to the Dictionary
, Johnson reveals how he thinks of himself as an
“unhappy mortal…doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths of 
Learning and Genius,” by writing a dictionary (para. 2). But, at the same time, he says he “shall 
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not think [his] employment useless or ignoble, if by [his] assistance foreign nations, and distant 
ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge,” meaning he will feel effective if people take 
and use his dictionary for good (para. 92). Johnson’s lofty style, which includes architectural 
sentence structure and complex diction, could be explained as an attempt at creating “worthy” 
literature that people will pay attention to and learn from. Johnson is attempting to parallel the 
style of Bacon, Hooker, Milton, and Boyle (as mentioned in his 
Preface
) in the hopes that the 
grand, famous style will attract readers. Johnson was intuitively aware of his own insignificance 
in the world of literature, but that did not stop him from hoping that his works would bring 
knowledge to the masses. To the modern reader, the grand style appears as a tool of distancing, 
but in Johnson’s day the most read books (
Paradise Lost, The Faerie Queene, 
etc.) were written 
this way. Perhaps as modern readers, we are reading it incorrectly. Johnson did not want to 
blatantly praise his dictionary in the content of his 
Preface
, so he used his style to show how 
important his readers, and his connection to the literary world, were to him. He did not think his 
dictionary was exemplary, but he did think it was important and beneficial to society. 
If there were one definitive answer to why Sentimentalist writers chose to create a 
discrepancy between their content and form then such questions would never be asked by curious
college students. The answer is indefinite, and has more to do with the individual writer than 
anything else. Although there are some common patterns among them, at their core they were all
different and were attempting to complete different goals with their writings. Some were trying 
to elevate themselves to their famous predecessors, while others were simply trying to connect to
the unreachable public. Perhaps the Sentimentalists wanted to create an open-ended question 
with this discrepancy – one that would keep them, and their writings, alive for years after their 
deaths.
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