Every one knows, who has made the experiment, how difficult and almost impossible it is to assimilate to the English idiom, the simple and beautiful terseness of Greek composition. If any scholar therefore, who may choose to compare my version with the original Greek, shall be inclined to censure me for being occasionally diffuse, I would wish him to remember this.-I would desire him also to consider, that it was my duty to make that perspicuous to the less learned reader, which might have been conveyed in fewer terms to the apprehensions of the more learned or the more intelligent.

On the subject of translations in general, I entirely approve of the opinion of Boileau. In a preceding publication, I have before referred to this, but I see no impropriety in its having a place here, in the words of lord Bolingbroke.

"To

posed in such a manner, that it resembles an excellent poem, in its persuasive art, and that charming grace, which pleases to the highest degree. He has not omitted any of the beautiful and great qualities, unless it be in that manner of writing adapted to contests and disputes, either because he was naturally not made for it, or that he despised it, as not agreeable to history: for he doth not make use of a great number of orations, nor speeches to promote contention, nor has he the necessary force requisite to excite the passions, and amplify and augment things.

: "To translate servilely into modern language an ancient author, phrase by phrase, and word by word, is preposterous: nothing can be more unlike the original than such a copy; it is not to shew, it is to disguise the author. A good writer will rather imitate than translate, and rather emulate than imitate: he will endeavour to write as the ancient author would have written, had he wrote in the same language.

Letters on History.

Perhaps I ought not to omit, that many eminent writers, both of ancient and modern times, accuse Herodotus of not having had a sufficient regard to the austere and sacred dignity of historic truth. Ctesias, in Photius, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Aulus Gellius, and, above all, Plutarch, have made strong and violent objections to many of his assertions. Ctesias pretends to question his accuracy in what he relates of the Medes and Persians, but what he says hardly merits refutation. Manetho finds very much to blame in what he writes concerning the Egyptians. Thucydides also, in one or two passages, seems obliquely to glance at Herodotus. Strabo is more definitive, and remarks that the historian writes pleasantly enough, and introduces in his narratives many wonderful tales to supply the want of songs, VOL. I. C yerses,

verses, &c. The following passage in Juvenal has

also been applied to him.

Creditur olim

Velificatus Athos & quicquid Græcia mendax Audet in historia.

To many general censures which on this account have been aimed against the fame of our historian, I have made reply in various parts of my notes; and the plausible but unjust tract of Plutarch, on the Malignity of Herodotus, has been carefully examined, and satisfactorily refuted, by the Abbé Geinoz, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. Thus much must be allowed on all hands, that throughout his works there is the greatest appearance of candour and simplicity. Seldom or ever does he relate extraordinary and marvellous things, without qualifying his narrative with such expressions as these, I have heard, it is said, this does not appear credible, &c. In what he says of Egypt in particular, which has drawn upon him the unjust censure of Manetho, he invariably observes, that he learned what he communicates, from the Egyptian priests. But what, perhaps, is of more consequence to his character for veracity than any thing that can be adduced is, that it is determined by the most learned

learned men, that the writings of Herodotus are more conformable to the sacred Scriptures than those of Xenophon, Ctesias, and other ancient historians.

I have little to say concerning the Life of Homer, imputed by some to Herodotus, and in more modern editions published with his works. It seems generally determined among scholars, that though undoubtedly of great antiquity, it must have been written by some other hand. Vossius, Faber, Rykius, Spanhemius, Berglerus, Wesseling, and others, are decidedly against its authenticity; which has nevertheless been vindicated by Fabricius, by our countryman Joshua Barnes, and lastly by the President Bouhier. It must strike the most careless and indifferent observer, that the style of the Life of Homer, whoever was the author, does not bear the smallest resemblance to that of the Nine Muses. "In the Life of Homer,"

says Wesseling, "that unvaried suavity of the "Ionic dialect, so remarkable in the Muses, "never occurs at all." The great and the most satisfactory argument against its being genuine seems to be this:-Of all the ancient writers, who have taken upon them to discuss the birth, the fortunes, or the poems of Homer, not one has ever, by the remotest allusion, referred to this

work, which bears the name of Herodotus. There exists also a chronological argument against its authenticity. The author of this Life, whoever he may be, observes, that Homer lived 168 years after the Trojan war, and 622 years before the expedition of Xerxes against Greece. But if we have recourse to the Euterpe, we find Herodotus himself observe, that Homer and Hesiod lived 400 years before him. It must consequently have been many more years after the siege of Troy that these writers flourished.

There have appeared at different periods abridg ments of the works of Herodotus. One is mentioned in Suidas; the performance of Theopompus, of Chios, who also wrote what is called Philippiac. There were several of this name, who are mentioned in the works of the ancients, by Strabo, Julius Pollux, Athenæus, Harpocration, and others; but no one is any where specified as of Chios, except in Suidas. There is also an abridgment of Herodotus by David Chytræus, with various learned notes; which work I possess.

There have been, as might reasonably be expected, multiplied editions of the works of this historian. The first that appeared was in Latin, by Laurentius Valla, printed at Venice in 1474.

Of