(MÉNAGE Gilles). The origins of the French language. Paris, Courbé, 1650; in-4 (223 x172 mm), contemporary vellum. FIRST EDITION. One of the first great etymological dictionaries - but also a remarkable observation of usage, "le grand maître des langues" - this work exerted a great influence on the development of the French language. Familiar with the cabinet of the du Puy family and the salon of Mme de Rambouillet, a close friend of Mme de Sévigné and Mme de La Fayette, Ménage knew the resources and subtleties of the language better than anyone. He followed words "as if on the trail" and sought their origin in Greek and Latin as well as in patois ("the different idioms of our provinces and the language of the peasants"), in Italian and Spanish and "in all our old poets", in "all our old novels", in other words in our Gallic antiquities (he was a friend of Chapelain, and his interlocutor in the famous debate on La lecture des vieux romans 1647). A FINE COPY, WITH WIDE MARGINS, IN ITS FIRST SOFT VELLUM BINDING. Spine of binding partly detached. Dedication vignette scratched with loss of letters (1 cm) as well as on 6 other leaves; small marginal worm work on 12 ff. without loss; small light wetness in upper margin.