DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4023#0010
PREFACE
There is no greater excellence, and yet nothing more
uncommon, than to adapt the style to the nature os the subjecl:;
and I am os opinion, that there is not more bombast and sustian
in poetry than in profe: we have had treatifes os phyfick drest up
in all the ssowers of rhetorick, and the admirers os such authors
have called them Ciceronian, tho* they do great injustice by fuch
imputation to Cicero, who did not write epistles in the ftyle
that he wrote orations and set speeches; {ot fuch the greateft part
of his philosophical works fhould be considered.
The feveral little (lories' that are interspersed, which may
seem to ordinary readers to be trifling, are perhaps the best method
of painting the manners of a people, and! am fure it is the most
natural and fatisfafbry. '. We. here fee that, they ftill retain the
character which C^sar gave.,of the inhabitants ofc.'Alexandria in
particular, " That he knew them to be deceitful, meaning one
thing and pretending another." And one cannot but be fenfibly
affected, that a people once fo glorious, who transmitted forms
of government, laws, religion, arts, and sciences to the reft of
mankind, ftiould at prefent be funk in the groffeft ignorance and
barbarity.
As to the additions by the translater, they are chiessy taken
srom the moft valuable authors amongft the ancients and moderns,
who have written any thing relating to the country and antiquities
of Egypt. Thefe extracts might have been more large and
numerous, but would then perhaps have diverted the attention
os the reader too much srom the principal author.
Some errors have escaped the Gentlemen os the Royal Society
os Sciences at Copenhagen, who were entrusted with the revifal
and publication os these Travels. All which having been care-
sully corrected, as sar as it was posTible sor me to do, will3 I hope,
give the tranflation an additional merit.
When the first volume os this work made its appearance,
some years since, many among the learned and curious os this
nation expresTed their desire that the public lliould be furniihed
with an Englijh edition of it: but the expence or engraving so
large
There is no greater excellence, and yet nothing more
uncommon, than to adapt the style to the nature os the subjecl:;
and I am os opinion, that there is not more bombast and sustian
in poetry than in profe: we have had treatifes os phyfick drest up
in all the ssowers of rhetorick, and the admirers os such authors
have called them Ciceronian, tho* they do great injustice by fuch
imputation to Cicero, who did not write epistles in the ftyle
that he wrote orations and set speeches; {ot fuch the greateft part
of his philosophical works fhould be considered.
The feveral little (lories' that are interspersed, which may
seem to ordinary readers to be trifling, are perhaps the best method
of painting the manners of a people, and! am fure it is the most
natural and fatisfafbry. '. We. here fee that, they ftill retain the
character which C^sar gave.,of the inhabitants ofc.'Alexandria in
particular, " That he knew them to be deceitful, meaning one
thing and pretending another." And one cannot but be fenfibly
affected, that a people once fo glorious, who transmitted forms
of government, laws, religion, arts, and sciences to the reft of
mankind, ftiould at prefent be funk in the groffeft ignorance and
barbarity.
As to the additions by the translater, they are chiessy taken
srom the moft valuable authors amongft the ancients and moderns,
who have written any thing relating to the country and antiquities
of Egypt. Thefe extracts might have been more large and
numerous, but would then perhaps have diverted the attention
os the reader too much srom the principal author.
Some errors have escaped the Gentlemen os the Royal Society
os Sciences at Copenhagen, who were entrusted with the revifal
and publication os these Travels. All which having been care-
sully corrected, as sar as it was posTible sor me to do, will3 I hope,
give the tranflation an additional merit.
When the first volume os this work made its appearance,
some years since, many among the learned and curious os this
nation expresTed their desire that the public lliould be furniihed
with an Englijh edition of it: but the expence or engraving so
large