ing,
some skill and facility must be acquired; and that, in the ardent
pursuit of truth and knowledge, I am not conscious of decay. To an
active mind, indolence is more painful than labor; and the first months
of my liberty will be occupied and amused in the excursions of curiosity
and taste. By such temptations, I have been sometimes seduced from the
rigid duty even of a pleasing and voluntary task: but my time will now
be my own; and in the use or abuse of independence, I shall no longer
fear my own reproaches or those of my friends. I am fairly entitled to a
year of jubilee: next summer and the following winter will rapidly pass
away; and experience only can determine whether I shall still prefer the
freedom and variety of study to the design and composition of a regular
work, which animates, while it confines, the daily application of the
Author.

Caprice and accident may influence my choice; but the dexterity of
self-love will contrive to applaud either active industry or philosophic
repose.

Downing Street, May 1, 1788.

P. S. I shall embrace this opportunity of introducing two verbal
remarks, which have not conveniently offered themselves to my notice.
1. As often as I use the definitions of beyond the Alps, the Rhine,
the Danube, &c., I generally suppose myself at Rome, and afterwards at
Constantinople; without observing whether this relative geography may
agree with the local, but variable, situation of the reader, or the
historian. 2. In proper names of foreign, and especially of Oriental
origin, it should be always our aim to express, in our English version,
a faithful copy of the original. But this rule, which is founded on
a just regard to uniformity and truth, must often be relaxed; and the
exceptions will be limited or enlarged by the custom of the language and
the taste of the interpreter. Our alphabets may be often defective; a
harsh sound, an uncouth spelling, might offend the ear or the eye of our
countrymen; and some words, notoriously corrupt, are fixed, and, as
it were, naturalized in the vulgar tongue. The prophet Mohammed can
no longer be stripped of the famous, though improper, appellation of
Mahomet: the well-known cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, would
almost be lost in the strange descriptions of Haleb, Demashk, and Al
Cahira: the titles and offices of the Ottoman empire are fashioned by
the practice of three hundred years; and we are pleased to blend the
three Chinese monosyllables