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THE METHOD OF LANGUAGES
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formed, so that if any one desire to look up any subject in the authors who have written on it, he may be able to find out who they are.

24. By subsidiary books are meant those by whose help the school-books may be used with greater speed and with more result.

For the Vestibulum a small vocabulary, both Vernacular-Latin and Latin-Vernacular, should be provided.

For the Janua an etymological Latin-Vernacular dictionary, giving the simple words, their derivatives, their compounds, and the reason for the meanings attached.

For the Palatium a phraseological dictionary in the Vernacular, in Latin (and if necessary in Greek), forming a compendium of the various phrases, synonyms, and periphrases that occur in the Palatium, with references to the places where they are to be found.

Finally, for the completion of the Thesaurus, a comprehensive lexicon (Vernacular-Latin and Latin-Greek) which shall embrace, without exception, every point in each language. This should be carried out in a scholarly and accurate manner, care being taken that fine shades of meaning in the several languages be made to correspond, and that suitable parallels be found for idioms. For it is not probable that there exists any language so poor in words, idioms, and proverbs that it could not furnish an equivalent for any Latin expression, if judgment were used. At any rate, accurate renderings could be devised by any one who possessed sufficient skill in imitating, and in producing a suitable result from suitable material.

25. No such comprehensive dictionary has hitherto been produced. A Polish Jesuit, G. Cnapius, has, it is true, done good service to his countrymen by his work entitled A Thesaurus of Polish, Latin, and Greek; but in this work there are three defects. Firstly, the collection of vernacular words and phrases is incomplete. Secondly, he has not observed the order that we suggested above, since individual, figurative, and obsolete words are not arranged under separate headings, though in this way the