No reader or writer of any serious- ness can do without a good dic- tionary. This, anyway, is the modern view. With some awe we have to remind ourselves that writers like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton had no ac- cess to what we would call dictionaries. Spell- ing did not much worry them, as it worries a modem author who runs to his dictionary to check on difficult words like hemorrhage (my personal blind spot). Milton spelt in his own creative manner, preferring mee to me when he wished to...