standing to which he may have exposed himself. Some readers may remark that the system of orthography which he here follows is widely different from the one adopted in another work to which his name is annexed, and it may be inferred that he thinks that which he now uses is the best. To prevent such an imputation, he desires it should be known that he looks upon the established system, if an accidental custom may be so called, as a mass of anomalies, the growth of ignorance and chance, equally repugnant to good taste and to common sense. But he is aware that the public-perhaps to show foreigners that we do not live under the despotism of an academy. clings to these anomalies with a tenacity proportioned to their absurdity, and is jealous of all encroachment on ground consecrated by prescription to the free play of blind caprice. He has not thought himself at liberty in a work like the present to irritate these prejudices by innovations, however rational and conformable to good and ancient, though neglected, usage, and has therefore complied as closely as may be with the fashion of the day. But with respect to one very numerous class of words he has not had the benefit of this guidance, nor is he able to plead the like excuse where he has done amiss. As to the mode of writing Greek names in English, there is no established rule or usage of sufficient authority to direct him in all cases, and he has therefore here been left to follow his own discretion. Some readers perhaps will think that he has abused this liberty, and will complain that he has not observed a strict uniformity. His own taste would have inclined him to prefer the English to the Latin forms of Greek names and words in every instance. But as the contrary practice is the more general, and most persons seem to think that the other ought to be confined to terms which have become familiar and naturalised in our language, he has not ventured to apply his principle with rigid consistency, where the reader's eye would perhaps have been hurt by it, but has suffered anomaly to reign in this as in the other department of orthography. He would not fear much severity of censure, if those only should condemn him who have tried the experiment themselves, or can point out the example of any writer who has given universal satisfaction in this respect. The only great liberty he has taken is that of writing the real names of the Greek deities, instead of substituting those of the Italian mythology by which they have hitherto been supplanted, though even here he could now defend his boldness by some respectable precedents. Trinity College, June 12. 1835. : THE foregoing Advertisement was prefixed to the first volume of the First Edition, at a time when it was intended to limit the work to a compass wider indeed than that of the original design, but still much narrower than that which it has actually reached. The manner in which it has grown to its present dimensions may explain, and perhaps in some degree palliate, the defects of the plan, which could not now be remedied unless by a complete recasting of the whole. The object of the publishers, in the present edition, was chiefly to render it accessible to a large class of persons whom the smallness of the type might have deterred from taking it up in its earlier form. Under these circumstances, the author has thought it best to abstain, as far as possible, from any alteration of the text, and to insert whatever seemed necessary in the way of correction or further illustration in the notes. In fact he has altered the text only where it was at variance with his present views. And such corrections he will think himself bound to make in the subsequent volumes. In the present, the number of the notes has been considerably enlarged, beside the addition of a new Appendix on the History of the Homeric Poems. The remainder of the work will no doubt afford abundant occasion for similar enlargement: but to what extent this may be carried must depend on the leisure and opportunities which the author may enjoy; on which he cannot now calculate with any approach to certainty. London, May, 1845. |