INTRODUCTION.

"Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci."

In an age when we are said to suffer from a superfluity of dictionaries of every kind, it may seem that an apology is required for the production of a New Dictionary of Foreign Quotations.

It is, therefore, necessary to explain that the present volume owes its existence to the extraordinary success of a book which, although far smaller both in size and design than the present work, had a somewhat similar aim. The book alluded to is "Deacon's Dictionary of Foreign Phrases," a little volume-now out of print-which was intended to assist those who, in these days when scarcely a single column of a newspaper is without a foreign phrase, find such a dictionary almost as much a necessity as a convenience.

That such a book was something more than the long-felt want of advertisement was amply proved by the fact that it speedily passed through several editions.

The success of "Deacon's Dictionary of Foreign Phrases" has encouraged the belief that there is room for a more ambitious work which, while preserving all the advantages of its predecessor, would, by the enlargement of its scope, deserve the approval of a wider circle of readers. It is true that the addi

tion of innumerable quotations and the complete revision of the whole have left little resemblance in the present volume to the former one, but all that has been proved useful is carefully retained.

It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to demonstrate to anyone who has the most superficial acquaintance with the English writers of to-day, whether they be those who address the public through the medium of the Press or of the bookseller, that it is becoming more and more common to seize upon some happy quotation from a foreign tongue in order, if not to point a moral, at least to adorn their tale. The writings of the Press constantly contain allusions and references which presuppose some knowledge of foreign languages and literature on the part of both the writer and reader. The same may be said of our public speakers. Although it has ceased to be a habit in the House of Commons for honourable members to denounce one another in a phrase borrowed from Lucan or Virgil, and although Prime Ministers do not now imitate the example of Walpole, and make guinea bets about the correctness of a quotation with leaders of the Opposition, still a happy phrase from the treasury of the classics is often found to be no mean ally in nforcing an argument.

Nowadays we are all citizens of Cosmopolis, and we do not hesitate to import a phrase, even if clothed in a strange dress, should it serve our purpose better than the more familiar words of our mother tongue. It might be thought by some that this borrowing from languages not our own is sometimes carried to excess. Still, the fact remains that very many phrases from foreign languages have become part of our own literary currency. For example, how common is the use of such Latin phrases as Deus ex machinâ; Quantum mutatus ab illo; Nolo episcopari; Non possumus; Pro bono publico; Tempus fugit; Cui bono? De mortuis nil nisi bonum, and countless others. Such French phrases as Bon chien chasse de race; Vogue la galère ;

Autres temps, autres mœurs; Du sublime au ridicule; Point d'argent, point de Suisse; Such Italian phrases as Vedi Napoli e poi mori; Se non è vero, è ben trovato; Dolce far niente, etc., etc

At the same time, while these and numerous other phrases are in common use, it must not be forgotten that a large number of the reading public—indeed, an ever-increasing multitude—are often in doubt as to the meaning of the commonest phrases of this kind. A great majority have never had the opportunity of cultivating any language other than their own, while, in the present day, technical education has very properly diverted the attention of many from the study of languages to what is of more immediate practical utility. Such people, when confronted by a quotation from a foreign language, may be tempted to exclaim with Berchoux, Qui nous délivrera des Grecs et des Romains? A confession of ignorance is always unpleasant, and it is for the convenience of those troubled ones that this book is primarily designed.

Nevertheless, it must not be thought that the object of this work is merely to help those to whom such common expressions as, shall we say? Après moi le déluge, or Vox populi, vox Dei, present difficulties. The intention has been rather to deserve to the full the motto which has been set at the head of these prefatory remarks. The collection and translation of common phrases is the contribution to the utile of the design. Let me now proceed to show how far an effort has been made to mingle the dulce of quotations, chosen for their beauty, with the utile of hackneyed expressions.

To the many phrases which, either because they are commonly employed by English writers, or because they are very familiar to those who are acquainted with the language from which such phrases are taken, have an obvious claim to inclusion, a large number of longer quotations has been added. These have been selected chiefly on the ground that they have

become "winged-words" in the languages whence they have sprung; that is to say, they are well-known to all who have an intimate knowledge of the literature of those languages. In some few cases passages have been selected on account of their own intrinsic merit, apart from any popularity they may have gained.

Furthermore, it is hoped that all lovers of proverbs will find in these pages an adequate number of those sententious sayings which, perhaps better than anything else, illustrate a nation's peculiar habit of thought. It will, doubtless, be interesting to many to find the same or a similar proverb possessed by many nations, a fact which may well be taken to confirm the good knight Don Quixote's view, that proverbs are true, being opinions extracted from the same experience. Wherever a proverb, or proverbialism, requires explanation, the literal translation has been given in brackets, while the explanation or English equivalent follows afterwards. The same plan has been pursued with many of the idiomatic phrases.

I will now deal with each section separately. Paradoxical though it may seem, the Latin section has given the greatest difficulty, because quotations from that language are most frequent. For, in addition to the many Latin. Latin legal phrases which are in common use, there are an enormous number of short quotations which are, so to speak, shreds from the fabric of a well-known passage of a Latin author. These passages are so familiar to those who are themselves well versed in the literature of the Romans that a word or two quoted from them becomes a finger-post to the entire passage. But I fear that to the average man the information that virginibus puerisque is a quotation from Horace, or that cacoëthes scribendi are words of Juvenal, would not materially add to his respect for the genius of these writers. It may be given to a few, to apply a phrase of Horace, to recognise a poet even in his dismembered limbs, but such

people are, I imagine, in a minority. In these cases, therefore, the name of the author, from whom such a quotation has been taken, is sometimes omitted; but if the full passage is also familiar as a quotation, the full text will be found in the alphabetical order of its first letters, with the name of the author appended. Such an arrangement has, of course, disadvantages, but the advantages are equally obvious. If the long form alone of the quotation were given, it would necessitate the addition of very full indexes to enable the diligent inquirer to discover in what long passage the short quotation is buried, and he would then be left unaided to thresh out the meaning of the shorter phrase. Experience has shown that such indexes, however sufficient they may be for the man who has a good acquaintance with the foreign language quoted, are of little service to the man who has no such equipment. Moreover, we live in days when time means money, and few are disposed to spend time over the scrutiny of an index, when they can gain the same information with less labour.

The arrangement adopted has the further advantage of giving both the popular and the correct form of a quotation. Thus Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco will be also found in its popular, but incorrect, form of Haud ignara mali, etc. Sometimes, too, the popular sense given to brief excerpts from the Latin is different from the meaning of the original. For example, Noli me tangere, which is the Vulgate version of the risen Christ's "Touch me not!" addressed to the Magdalene, is now commonly used to indicate a threatening attitude. Again, Horace's Vestigia nulla retrorsum and Virgil's O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint are often applied in a way not meant by the poets. Consequently, the plan followed admits of giving the now generally accepted interpretation of these phrases without doing open violence to the authors of them.

When, however, the author's name has been attached to a quotation, every attention has been paid to the correctness of