This first historical "dictionary" in English was authored by "several Learned Men" but credit is given to "the best Historians, Chronologers, and Lexicographers" on the title page. The text consists of a compilation of the major classical dictionaries in Latin and French. It is an enlarged English translation of the sixth edition of Louis Moreri's Grand Dictionaire published in Lyon in 1674, itself corrected and enlarged by Le Clerk. Not a dictionary in the modern sense, it is more of an encyclopedia of historical figures and famous places. Canada, for example, is "a great Country in America Septentrionalis [ie. North America] which is also named New France, because the French possess the better part of it, and have divers Colonies there."