Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/168

 text, which as far as we know has never been printed. The Jesuit version is well written but too diffuse, so that it is always alien from the style of the original letters and often different in sense, with the result that the writer seems to be writing letters of his own, rather than translating those of Phalaris: the version of Kirchmeier is more concise and accurate, but not very elegant while the version of Accolti is more felicitous than either. But since in each version there were things which I did not like, I have made a translation conforming as closely to the original as a Latin version could. Where (as often it is) I have found the text obscure and faulty, I have endeavoured to give a sense which if not the original is still sense, and this I have found wanting in the other versions.

I have collated the Epistles themselves with two Bodleian MSS. from the Cantuar and Selden collection: and I have also had them collated, as far as the 40th Epistle, with a MS. in the Royal Library: the Librarian with the courtesy for which he is remarkable [pro singulari sua humanitate] refused me the further use of it.

I have not noted every variation of the MSS. from