TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—The transcriber of this project created the book cover image using the front cover of the original book.The image is placed in the public domain.
A
POLYGLOT
OF
COMPRISING
FRENCH, ITALIAN, GERMAN, DUTCH,
SPANISH, PORTUGUESE, AND DANISH,
WITH ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
AND A
GENERAL INDEX.
BY
HENRY G. BOHN.
LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
MDCCCLVII.
While engaged in editing my Handbook of English Proverbs, itoccurred to me that a Collection of Foreign Proverbs, arranged inmonographs, and brought as far as possible into juxta-position by aGeneral Index, would be an interesting volume, as well to the ordinaryreader as to the linguist. And it happened that more than onepublic writer, in reviewing my Handbook, suggested nearly the sameidea, which determined me to realise it as speedily as other engagementswould permit.
After a lapse of more than two years, and much patient labour,during intervals of business or hours snatched from repose, I amenabled to present my gleanings to the public, and hope they will notbe found deficient of grain.
It will be seen that many of the proverbs are quite new to the Englishreader, and that others, hitherto supposed to be essentially, if notexclusively, English, are common to several other languages.
A task so various and complicated could not well be executed withoutaid, nor do I pretend to be master of all the languages included.Accordingly, I sought the assistance of competent scholars, and havegreat pleasure in here proclaiming my acknowledgments to them.After the groundwork of the volume had been laid by selections froma great variety of sources, an operation in which Mr. W. K. Kelly wasmy principal collaborateur, I was aided in correcting the Italian bySignor Pistrucci, the Spanish by Señor Yrazoqui and the ChevalierFrancisque Michel, the Portuguese by Senhôr Guerra, the Danish by[iv]Miss Rowan, and the Dutch by Mr. John van Baalen, of Rotterdam.It seemed to me advisable, to secure all possible accuracy, thateach foreign language should be read over by a native of the country.
For the English translations (excepting those from the Danish) Iam myself mainly responsible, as, where those already existing didnot satisfy me, I generally substituted others. I have, however, beenvery forbearing towards some pleasant bits of doggerel and alliterationfound in early volumes, and have occasionally indulged in similarplayfulness of my own. One so deeply immersed in Proverb-lore may,perhaps, be forgiven for having imbibed such a tendency.
In the Index, a single line is often made to represent a whole group,although the several translations may not be exactly the same. Thatadopted as the key, being the last thought, ought to be the best. Therunning lines at the top indicate the pages of each of the several languages,so that by a comparison of them with the figures of referencebelow, it will be easy t