Слике страница
PDF
ePub

A

DICTIONARY

OF

QUOTATIONS FROM ENGLISH AND
AMERICAN POETS.

BASED UPON

BOHN'S EDITION,

REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED.

TWELVE HUNDRED QUOTATIONS ADDED FROM AMERICAN

AUTHORS.

"The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great that
everything must now be reduced to extracts."'- Voltaire.

NEW YORK:

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.,

No. 13 ASTOR PLACE. "

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THE

HE present work is the American version of the latest edition of Bohn's Dictionary of Poetical Quotations. It largely represents American authors, and embraces many additions from English writers. All the quotations have been carefully compared with the author's text, not one being included the accuracy of which has not been verified. Full references have been supplied in every instance.

The quotations from Shakespeare's Plays have been verified by Charles Knight's text, and those from his Poems, by Mrs. Horace Howard Furness's Concordance to Shakespeare; those from the Old Dramatists by Routledge's edition; and those from other authors, by the best editions of their works. Subjects have been grouped, and full cross-references have been made.

Every quotation has been consecutively numbered, and a Concordance Index added, giving the prominent words in each extract twice or more, so that every passage can be readily referred to.

The places, and dates of birth and death are given, with the authors' names, in an Index showing the quotations from each writer. In Jong pderas the lines have been counted, and the extracts verified by reference to the exact passage.

It is believed that by: these methods, and by the great care observed in proof-reading, this volume will approv itself to the tastes and necessities of the ordinary reader, as well as to all teary studio persons, containing, as it does, so choice a representation of English verse.

NEW YORK, July, 1883.

Anna

[ocr errors]

TIBBYBA

MEM AOBK

PREFACE.

HAVE examined this Dictionary of Poetical Quotations carefully, and, bearing in mind the multitude of difficulties which must have beset the making of it, I can honestly say that, in my opinion, they have been triumphed over by the maker. At first sight, it may seem easy to compile such a work. One has but to go through any dictionary of the language, and select as many of the words which are things as are likely to have inspired the poets, and then proceed to illustrate these words with extracts from the poets,

-the expression, words which are things, covering what is felt as well as what is seen, whatever comes home to the business and bosoms of men, as well as whatever surrounds them in the material universe. This seems easy, I say, but a little reflection will show that it involves labor: not merely of the hand in transcription of the extracts to be used, but of the mind in determining what extracts should be used; the labor of reading scores of works similar to the one contemplated, and of devising improvements for them; and the labor of reading hundreds of other works, in order to procure the materials for these improvements. In old Burton's time (the thought is his, not mine), men made books as apothecaries made their medicines, — by pouring out of one bottle into another; but this is no longer possible, for reading has become so general that plagiarism is readily detected, and criticism so outspoken that would-be plagiarists are afraid. If books have not entirely ceased to be drugs in the market, as publishers sometimes complain, it is not because they are still compounded after the old recipes, for every apothecary -I mean every bookmaker - is supplied with essences and flavors and tinctures of his own.

« ПретходнаНастави »