LIBRORUM VETUSTIORUM,

ITALICORUM, GALLICORUM, HISPANICORUM,

ANGLICANORUM, ET LATINORUM.

Brydeee

PARS I.

GENEVE,

TYPIS G. FICK.

AUGUST. MDCCCXXII.

(75 exemplaria sola.)

PREFACE.

As I always desire a Preface to the Work of

another, I seldom omit to do, in this respect, as I would be done by. The plan of the present Volume requires no explanation: its matter will, I trust, be found conformable to its title.

Of that matter it is scarcely necessary to repeat the defence which I have given in my former publications of a similar nature. I hear, from so many quarters, that modern taste runs in a direction entirely opposite, that I have ceased to hope any impression on the public ear.

But ignorance and conceit are, nevertheless, deeply revolting even to the most candid of the intelligent part of mankind. That neither poetry, nor morals, nor politics, nor history, were understood till the present day, seems a most strange assumption. On the part of the mob, this opinion is the belief of blindness: on the part of the disseminators, it is mainly design. Among the eminent moralists and politicians of former days, there are few in whose writings the principles of sub