f Language wou'd allow.
This is the Attempt; how far I have succeeded, must be let to the
judicious and curious Reader to determine. Thus much I thought
necessary to say concerning former Translations, in order to justify
my own Undertaking, which will not acquire an intrinsic Merit from the
Censures, that I have pass'd upon others. No: The Faults of others
cannot extenuate our own; and that Stamp, which every Work carries
along with it, can only determine of what Kind it really
is.

The Reader will expect that I shou'd here say a Word or two
concerning the _Notes_ which follow the _Characters_. Some Authors or
Commentators (call them which you will) out of a vain Ostentation of
Literature, lay hold of the slightest of Opportunities to expose all
their Learning to the World, without ever knowing when they have said
enough: Insomuch, that in most Commentaries upon antient Authors, one
may sooner meet with a System of Antiquities, than with Solutions of
the real Difficulties of the Text. Consider'd barely as a Translator,
I lay under no immediate Necessity of writing _Notes_, but then as
I was highly concern'd, even in that Capacity, to lay before the
_English_ Reader, what I took to be the true Sense of the _Greek_,
and as I farther propos'd to preserve that particular _Humour_ of the
Original, which depends on those Manners and Customs which are alluded
to, I found, my self necessitated to add some _Notes_; but yet I have
endeavoured to shun that Fault, which I have already censur'd, by
saying no more, but what was immediately necessary, to illustrate
the Text, to vindicate a received Sense, or to propose a new one.

I am not conscious of having made any great Excursions beyond the
Bounds which these Rules prescrib'd to me, unless it is in the Chapter
concerning _Superstition_. And even here, unless the Commentary had
been somewhat copious, the Text it self wou'd have appear'd like a
motly Piece of mysterious Nonsense. Thus much I thought my self
oblig'd to do in Justice to _Theophrastus_; and as for the
Enlargements which I have made, over and above what wou'd have
satisfy'd this Demand, they will not, 'tis hop'd, be unacceptable to
the curious Reader. They are Digressions I own; but I shall not here
offer to make one Digression to execute another, or, according to the
Custom and Practice of modern Authors, beg a thousand Pardons of the
Reader, before I am certain of having committed one Offence. Such a
Procedure se