Page:Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus - Volume 1 - Farquharson 1944.pdf/33

 sense, but whether I have hit it always I leave to the judgement of others. There are many plain reasons why this was difficult, yet I confess that in some points I required the help either of divination or of a bold departure whether from the Greek manuscript or from normal Greek usage.' We are reminded of Wyttenbach's tribute to the great scholar's memory: 'Xylander I love for his candour, his probity, his honesty, manifest proofs of which are conspicuous not only in his writings but in his whole life.' We must remember that he was printing a plain text, without marginalia or footnotes, and be grateful to him for his fidelity.

So much of the editor. What is to be said of Gesner's compositors? Xylander writes in the second edition: 'as my lucubration was vilely reproduced by the carelessness of the printers and so published that it might fairly be held not to have been edited at all, I have been thinking for some time of remedying this'. The indictment is serious and the original editor's words have been repeated by subsequent editors. I am inclined to think it exaggerated. We must at least remember that Xylander made his corrections for the second edition without reference to the manuscript. That, it appears, had not been returned to Heidelberg; certainly Xylander makes no reference to it (except the above) in his second edition. Is it not possible that in reading the printed text he noticed and xxv