Sowerby Catalogue Volume V : page 106

Dictionnaire Etymologique de la langue Française de Menage. 2. v. fol.

1815 Catalogue, page 164, no. 148, as above.

MÉNAGE, Gilles.

Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Françoise, Par M. Ménage, Avec les Origines Françoises de M. de Caseneuve, les Additions du R. P. Jacob, & de M. Simon de Valhebert, le Discours du R. P. Besnier sur la Science des Etymologies, & le Vocabulaire Hagiologique de M. l’Abbé Chastelain. Nouvelle Édition, dans laquelle, outre les Origines & les Additions ci-dessus, qu’on a insérées à leur place, on trouvera encore les Etymologies de Messieurs Huet, le Duchat, de Vergy, & plusieurs autres. Le tout mis en ordre, corrigé, & augmenté, par A. F. Jault, Docteur en Médecine, & Professeur en Langue Syriaque au Collége Royale. Auquel on a ajouté le Dictionnaire des Termes du vieux François, ou Trésor des Recherches & Antiquités Gauloises & Françoises de Borel, augmenté des mots qui y étoient oubliés, extraits des Dictonnaires de Monet & Nicot, & des Auteurs anciens de la Langue Françoise. Tome Premier [-Second]. A Paris: Chez Briasson, rue Saint Jacques, à la Science & à l’Ange Gardien [De l’Imprimerie de Gissey]. m d c c. l. Avec Approbation et Privilege du Roy. [1750.]

PC2580 .A2 M5 1750

2 vol. Folio. Vol. I, 430 leaves; vol. II in 2 parts, 288 and 134 leaves, the second part with separate title, signatures and pagination for the Dictionnaire des Termes du vieux François by Borel; prefaces and preliminary matter in long lines, text of the Dictionnaire in double columns.

Quérard VI, 31.

Graesse IV, 483.

Jefferson bought his copy from Froullé in Paris on December 13, 1788, price 42.0.0.

Gilles Ménage, 1613-1692, French savant, published the first edition of this work in 1650 in one volume, quarto. The second edition, printed in 1694 after the death of Ménage, was edited by Simon de Valhebert from the material left by Ménage. This contained the greater part of the contents of the edition of 1750 with the exception of the addition by Pierre Borel (1620?-1689).

[4827]

Dictionnaire Neologique Français par Snetlage. 12 ^mo.

1815 Catalogue, page 164, no. 25, as above.

SNETLAGE, Leonhard Wilhelm.

Nouveau Dictionnaire Français, contenant les Expressions de Nouvelle Création du Peuple Français. Ouvrage additionel au Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française . . . Par Léonard Snetlage . . . Gottingue: J. C. Dietrich, 1795.

8vo. 133 leaves, and a Table. No copy of this work was located; the above title was taken from the only entry for this book in the Catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale. Quérard IX 199 cites the 1795 ed. only. The catalogues of the Library of Congress which distinguish the Jefferson collection call for an edition printed in 1759, which has not been located; the date may be a misprint for 1795.

In Jefferson’s long letter to John Waldo concerning language, dated from Monticello August 16, 1813, [see no. 4848], he wrote: “ If we wish to be assured from experiment of the effect of a judicious spirit of Neology, look at the French language. even before the revolution, it was deemed much more copious than the English; at a time too when they had an Academy which endeavored to arrest the progress of their language, by fixing it to a Dictionary, out of which no word was ever to be sought, used, or tolerated. the institution of parliamentary assemblies in 1789. for which their language had no apposite ”