Read the excerpts from Samuel Johnson's preface to A Dictionary of the English Language. So far have I been from any care to I look with pleasure on my book, grace my pages with modern however defective, and deliver it to decorations, that I have studiously the world with the spirit of a man that endeavoured to collect examples and has endeavoured well. authorities from the writers before the restoration In both excerpts, the word endeavour means to O probe, investigate, or examine. make an effort or attempt, or to try. O judge harshly or criticize. O overlook, ignore, or neglect.