PAR L. CHAMBAUD, SUIVIES D'UN RECUEIL DE FABLES EN VERS, AVEC UN DICTIONNAIRE DE TOUS LES MOTS CONTENUS DANS LES FABLES EN PROSE ÉDITION NOUVELLE. REVUE ET TRÈS SOIGNEUSEMENT CORRIGÉE, PAR ROSCOE MONGAN, A.B., ET PAR LOUIS GUIDA, LL.D., DE L'UNIVERSITE DE PARIS. A LONDRES: CHEZ SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, ET CIE.; DULAU ET CIE.; WHITTAKER ET CIE. ET GUILLAUME ALLAN. CHEZ GUILLAUME MCGEE, À DUBLIN; THE EDITOR'S PREFACE. I HAD already designed to annotate the "Fables Choisies," when I accidentally obtained a rare and valuable copy of the author's genuine edition, published in the year 1771. Even at that remote period, the author indignantly complains that his Fables had appeared in an altered and distorted form, without his sanction. "One may well imagine," he writes in his Preface, "that I was astonished when I saw my name set to a performance, which, upon my perusal of it, I could scarcely know for mine, the very title-page being disfigured." He afterwards specifies the unwarrantable and injudicious changes, which had been made in his book, and I have drawn attention to these in the Notes appended to the several Fables.* The present edition, independently of being based on the author's genuine work, possesses the following important emendations and improvements. * See more particularly Fables I., II., XI., XV., XXXI., XXXIV., LII., LIII., LIV., LVII., and LXXI. With regard to the Fable, Le Renard et le Léopard, Chambaud observes, that the inferior version is completely wrong both in the substance of the Fable, and in the Moral attempted to be drawn from it. It contains original explanatory comments, and valuable notes, selected from the most eminent French grammarians; amongst these I may specify the names of Ollendorff, Noel and Chapsal, Delille, Merlet, Fasquelle, Ahn, Pontet, and De Fivas. The idioms are simplified and explained, the order of the Fables corresponds with the author's own arrangement, and I have introduced throughout the work the modern orthography sanctioned by the French Academy. An attempt has been made to indicate the pronunciation throughout the work as accurately as the nature of the case would permit; for, it must be acknow. ledged, that it is absolutely impossible to adequately represent by characters and signs alone the peculiar intonations of a living language. The objectionable Fables have been excluded with the most scrupulous care, and even such unnecessary expressions as au nom de Dieu, in Fable LXXXII., have been expunged from the text, and replaced by more suitable words. The selections in verse present a double advantage in consequence of their peculiar arrangement. Those from La Fontaine correspond with similar Fables in prose, and by a comparison of both, the progress of the pupil will be greatly facilitated. On the other hand, the Fables from Florian are quite distinct from those of Chambaud, and by this graduation of difficulties, a vast advantage will be gained in the study of French poetry. All the words which occur in the poetical selections have inserted in the French Dictionary. The Dictionary itself required extreme labour and attention. It was deficient in the number of words, and particularly so in their arrangement, in consequence of which, a young pupil might often have been misled by not finding the words in their proper places. This latter defect has been completely remedied, and upwards of two hundred new words have been introduced, in order to make this a Dictionary of reference for the poetical as well as for the prose Fables. The pronunciation is indicated in brackets wherever such a course appeared to be advisable, and every word has been compared with the corresponding term in Spiers, and the Dictionary of the French Academy. 23, SOUTH FREDERICK-STREET, March 10th, 1861. ROSCOE MONGAN. |