L. 16. _ici près_, a feature of colloquialism very much in place. In the
same way does Molière use 'ici dessous, _L'Êt._, I. iv., 'ici dedans,'
_Pré._ vii., 'ici autour,' _D. Juan_, III. ii.
L. 19. _Les grands ni les petits._ Grammarians find fault with sentences
in which _ni_ is not repeated before each of the subjects or objects,
but usage is against them. Haase, § 140, Rem. iii. Ayer, § 263, 3.
LITTRÉ, _ni_, 1°, observes that the instances he quotes are in verse,
but that they might be imitated in prose.
L. 22. _et d'aller._ For the French historic infinitive see Meyer-Lübke,
t, iii. p. 592, who does not think it a continuance of the Latin
historic infinitive, but a new thing, as the various Romance languages
follow in this sensibly different ways. Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
using the infinitive with the preposition _à_ (which occurs in quite
isolated cases in French: 'et bon prestre _à_ soy-retirer,' _Cent
Nouvelles nouvelles_) Is the verb 'to begin' understood? Meyer-Lübke
thinks that the infinitive with _de_ is used only because it was more
generally employed, at the time when this turn of phrase originated,
than the simple infinitive.
L. 31. _S'empresse de servir, ordonner, disposer._ Observe the rapidity
imparted to the sentence by the omission of _de_ before the last two
infinitives, a departure from the more common and regular practice.