Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/37

Rh buted to the incorrect versions that have been given of it. Be this as it may, we accept with confidence the statement made by one of such extensive learning in philology and bibliography as Mr. A. Asher, the eminent bookseller of Berlin, who has edited the latest and infinitely the best edition of this traveller’s Itinerary (vide infra), “that it was in order to remedy a defect of which he complains, namely, an almost total want of research upon the geography of the middle ages, and to furnish materials for such a study, that he selected the Itinerary of the Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, not only,” he says in his preface, “because it contains more facts and fewer fables than any other cotemporary [sic] publication which has come down to us, but also because it describes a very large portion of the earth known in the twelfth century.”

In the bibliography of the work given in the first volume of Mr. Asher’s edition, and which we here transcribe, is an explanation of the origin of many of the corruptions which have tended to detract in some measure from the reputation of this most interesting narrative.

This edition is so extremely rare, that notwithstanding the most diligent search, Mr. Asher has not been able to meet with any complete copy. It has been in the Bibliothèque Royal, at Paris, but upon the closest inquiry could nowhere be found. The