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[ALLETZ, Pons Augustin]. PETIT TRÉSOR DE LA BELLE LATINITÉ. Puisé dans les meilleurs Auteurs, ou Recueil de diverses façons de parler de la Langue Françoise, suivies du tour Latin qui leur répond: le tout par order alphabétique, pour aider les jeunes gens dans les compositions de François et Latin. Ouvrage Approuvé par plusieurs Professeurs de l’Université. A Paris: Chez Paul- Denis Bracas, MDCCLV [1755]. £250
FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. [ii], vi, 386, [2] privilege du roi; woodcut vignette on title; tears to bottom corners of a couple of leaves, not affecting text, and small diagonal cut to title-page with no loss; aside from occasional light spotting, clean and fresh throughout, with contemporary ownership signature of François Vyonin (?) on title-page; in contemporary sheep, spine gilt in compartments with raised bands and morocco lettering-piece; some wear to boards and extremities, but sound.
Attributed by the BnF to the prolific author, agronomist, and historian Pons-Augustin Alletz (1703 -1785), this charming work aims to offer the student of Latin (and indeed the budding writer in French) the building blocks with which to write idiomatically. In the very broadest sense a French- Latin dictionary, the Petit trésor attempts to avoid the dryness that the form usually involves, by arranging its contents as follows: French words are listed alphabetically; a definition is offered, and then, in French and then Latin, a sentence (or more) in which the word is found, with the French a translation from the Latin, taken from Cicero, Livy, Virgil, Horace, and others. For example:
PERDRE. (Parlant d’un sentiment, d’une qualité). J’ai perdu cette gayeté & cet enjouëment qui vois plaisent plus qu’à personne. Hilaritas illa nostra & suavitas quae praeter caeteros delectabat, erepta mihi omnis est. Cic. Ep. fam.
Outside France, OCLC records copies at Montréal, Victoria, and McGill in Canada, plus Pennsylvania and the national libraries of Spain and Sweden; not in LibraryHub.
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