BEING AN ATTEMPT TO TRACE TO THEIR SOURCE

PASSAGES AND PHRASES

IN COMMON USE.

BY JOHN BARTLETT.

I have gathered a posie of other men's flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine
own-MONTAIGNE.

"A MODEL OF WHAT A BOOK

OF REFERENCE SHOULD BE."

-Saturday Review

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Compiler of this Collection of Familiar Quotations thinks it desirable to say, in introducing the work to the favour of the public, that it is not easy to determine in all cases the degree of familiarity that may belong to phrases and sentences which present themselves for admission; for what is familiar to one class of readers may be quite new to another.

Many maxims of the most famous writers of our language, and numberless curious and happy turns from orators and poets, have knocked at the door, and it was hard to deny them admission. But to insert these simply on their own merits, without assurance that the general reader would readily recognize them as old friends, was beside the purpose of this Collection.

Still, it has been thought better to incur the risk of erring on the side of fulness.

The great number of Quotations contained in the book has created the necessity for a very copious Index, the largest perhaps ever given in a similar Collection.

It is hoped that the lovers of this agreeable subsidiary literature may find the present Collection satisfy their expectations, not merely in the variety, but in the scrupulous accuracy, of the Quotations cited.

LIST OF AUTHORS.