OF MICHAEL SEIGNEUR DE MONTAIGNE: WITH NOTES AND QUOTATIONS, AND ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. MADE ENGLISH BY CHARLES COTTON, ESQ. THE THIRD EDITION. LONDON: 1700. IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON: ALEX. MURRAY & SON, 30, QUEEN SQUARE, W.C. THE TRANSLATORS PREFACE TO THE READER. My design in attempting this translation, was to present my country with a true copy of a very brave original. How far I have succeeded in that design is left to every one to judge; and I expect to be the more gently censured, for having my self so modest an opinion of my own performance, as to confess that the author has suffered by me, as well as the former translator: though I hope, and dare affirm, that the misinterpretations I shall be found guilty of, are neither so numerous nor so gross. I cannot discern my own errours, it were unpardonable in me if I could, and did not mend them; but I can see his (except when we are both mistaken) and those I have corrected; but am not so ill natur'd as to show where. In truth, both Mr. Florio, and I are to be excused, where we miss of the sence of the author, whose language is such in many places, as grammar cannot reconcile, which renders it the hardest book to make a justifiable version of that I yet ever saw in that, or any other language I understand: insomuch, that though I do think, and am pretty confident, I understand French as well as many men, I have yet sometimes been forc'd to grope at his meaning. Peradventure the greatest critick would in some places have found my author abstruse enough. Yet are not these mistakes I speak of either so many, or of so great importance, as to cast any scandalous blemish upon the book, but such as few readers can discover, and they that do, will I hope easily excuse. The errours of the press, I must in part take upon my self, living at so remote a distance from it, and supplying it with a slubber'd copy from an illiterate amanuensis; the last of which is provided against in the quires that must succeed. To the Right Honourable GEORGE Marquess, Earl, and Viscount Hallifax, Baron of Eland, Lord Privy Seal, and one of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council. MY LORD, If I have set down, the only opportunity I ever had of kissing your Lordship's hands, amongst the happy encounters of my life, and take this occasion, so many years after, to tell you so, your Lordship will not, I hope, think your self injur'd by such a declaration from a man that honours you; nor condemn my ambition, when I publish to the world, that I am not altogether unknown to you. Your Lordship, peradventure, may have forgot a conversation so little worthy your remembrance: but the memory of your Lordship's obliging fashion to me all that time, can never die with me: and though my acknowledgment arrives thus late at you, I have never left it at home when I went abroad into the best company. My Lord, I cannot, I would not flatter you, I do not think your Lordship capable of being flatter'd, neither am I inclin'd to do it to those that are: but I cannot forbear to say, that I then receiv'd such an impression of your vertue, and noble nature, as will stay with me for ever. This will either excuse the liberty I presume to take in this dedication, or, at least, make it no wonder; and I am so confident in your Lordship's generosity, that I assure my self you will not deny your protection to a man whose greatest publick crime is that of an ill writer. A better book (if there be a better of the kind in the original I mean) had been a present more fitly suited to your Lordship's quality and merit, and to my devotion. I could heartily wish it such: but as it is, I lay it at your Lordship's feet, together with My Lord, Your Lordships most Humble, And most Obedient Servant, CHARLES COTTON. |