and sture of the language; and, even after he is thas prepared, he will find abundance of difficulty ftill behind: for the liberty taken of departing from the letter of the Latin, in order to make the English finrooth and elegant, frequently renders the verfion

ther fo general or figurative, as leaves the learner much in the dark, nay, often altogether at a lofs, as to the proper import of the Latin expreffion: and a little experience will convince any one, that a tranflation of this kind cannot be near fo helpful to a learner as a literal one will.

For in a literal tranflation, the Latin is rendered word for word into the English, or the fenfe and meaning of every word in the original is expreffed in the translation; and it must be much easier for a boy, or any body elfe, to come at the meaning of a. Latin author by fuch a help as this, than by one of the former kind. We have feveral free tranflations of Salluft, but none that I know of has ever attempted a literal one. Whether this be owing to an apprehenfion, that a literal verfion is a drefs too mean and fordid for fuch a great hiftorian, or to the difficulty of the task, for difficult it is, as any one,. by trying to tranflate but two or three chapters in this manner, will foon be convinced; or whether it has been thought, that Salluft was not to be read by boys till they had gone through a good many other authors, and acquired a confiderable skill in the language, and that then a free tranflation would ferve their purpose: which of all thefe, or whether any of them, be the true reason why we have not hitherto had a literal tranflation of this author, I fhall not pretend to determine. But as he is an author com monly taught in fchools, I cannot but think it a piece of good fervice done the public, to accommodate him, as much as poffible, to the capacity of youth and it is with this view I have made out the following tranflation; which is not, I acknowledge,.

precifely

precifely or ftrictly literal in every fentence: and indeed it was impoffible it could be fo; for the Latin idiom differs fo widely from the English, and particularly in Salluft, whofe Latin is truly pure and claffical, that a great many fentences cannot be tranflated literally, and at the fame time fuch a measure of justnefs and propriety in the style preferved, as the Englifh may bear a reading, and not appear abfolutely ftiff and barbarous. I may however affirm, that it is more literal, and confequently better adapted to the use of learners, than any tranflation of Salluft yet published and in this I am fupported by the teftimony of feveral gentlemen of skill and judgment, who took the trouble to examine it carefully, and to whom I am obliged for feveral amendments. Sometimes, to render the fenfe more clear, or the English more fmooth, I found it convenient to infert words in the tranflation that have none to answer them in the Latin; and these are in a different character.

Befides what I have already observed, there is another confideration that makes a new tranflation of Salluft neceffary; and that is, all the tranflations hitherto published, are done from very faulty and incorrect editions of the Latin. Salluft has fuffered prodigiously, and has been strangely abused, through the ignorance and careleffness of commentators and tranfcribers. The blunders and corruptions that have crept into the text are very numerous, and feveral of them very grofs, and different too in different copies; infomuch that, if you compare two copies of different editions, you will find very few chapters exactly agree. These corruptions in the original muft of courfe occafion blemishes and imperfections in the tranflations formed from them; and as feveral of the falfe readings in the Latin are fuch as fcarcely admit of any confiftent meaning, one may obferve them flurred over in the tranflations in fuch a fuperficial manner, as plainly discovers the tranflators had been

a. 3

puzzled

puzzled what to make of them. And if two tranflations be compared together, they will be found to differ in many places as to the very fenfe; which no doubt is owing chiefly to the different readings in the Latin copies from which the tranflators made their verfions. But as the learned, judicious, and accurate Gottlieb Cortius, by comparing a great many of the oldeft manufcripts with one another, has lately, with immenfe labour and pains, furnished the world. with a correct edition of the Latin, the following tranflation is done from it; which, as it is a great, fo it is a peculiar advantage.

And as Cortius has not only restored the writings of Salluft in a great measure to, their original purity, by clearing them of many fpurious interpolations, and other corruptions, with which for feveral ages they had been fullied and deformed, but has alfo illuftrated and adorned them by a great many judicious comments and explications; I have thought proper to cull out the most material and useful of them, and have added a few more collected from other writers, which will, in my opinion, contribute greatly to a right understanding of Salluft. And here the reader is defired to notice, that all the Latin notes, except a very few that have their authors quoted, are taken from Cortius; the English notes are partly gathered from him, and partly made out from other authors. The reader will perhaps with that all the notes had. been in English; and this at first indeed was my defign: but I found that fome few of them would not appear in an English drefs with the fame advantage they do in Latin; the reft, which make by far the greateft number, are adduced purely to fhow, that I have tranflated Salluft in the fame fenfe in which the learned Cortius understood him. In both thefe cafes therefore I dropt my first intention; and as all the Latin notes come under one or other of these

heads,

heads, I hope the reafons given will be looked upon as a fufficient apology for their being in Latin.

In fome few editions the Jugurthine War is placed before the Catilinarian; which the editors have no doubt done purely out of regard to the order of time in which they happened: for the war with Jugurtha broke out about thirty-three years after the deftruction of Carthage, and in the year of Rome 641; whereas Catiline's Confpiracy happened not till fifty years after, in the confulfhip of Cicero, and year of Rome 691. However, in most editions Catiline's Confpiracy is placed firft, as having been first written by the author, which appears from what is faid in the fourth chapter; and this is the order I have. followed.

The orthography or fpelling, in a good many words of the following Latin, befides thofe taken notice of in the notes, is a little different from that which obtains in the common editions of Salluft.. This the reader muft look upon not as cafual, but as the confequence of their being conformed by Cortius to the most ancient and authentic manufcripts. And this edition has with fuch care been adjusted to that of Cortius, not only in this, but in all other refpects, that, I hope, it fhall be found to want nothing of the accuracy of that excellent pattern. And in fome few things, I may fay, it is more perfect. and correct for the ablatives of the first declenfion, and other doubtful cafes, are here afcertained, by having their proper mark placed over the final vowel, or the vowel of the final fyllable; and fuch adverbs as are of an ambiguous nature, or which a tyro may be ready to take for adjectives or other parts of Speech, have the mark of the adverb fuper-infcribed. Again, feveral typographical escapes or other blunders have crept into Cortius's edition, which are not taken notice of amongst his Errata: these are here rectified from the authority of his notes; as the reader

reader may fee, Cat. cap. xviii. n. 2. Jug. cap.. xli. n. 2. cap. lxxxvii. n. 2. cap. xcvii. n. 5. cap. cii. n. 2.

Encouraged by the favourable reception the fol lowing performance met with, on its firft publication, and especially by the approbation fome gentlemen of skill have on different occafions been pleased to exprefs, I have with great care revifed the whole. Some typographical mistakes, that had efcaped obfervation in the first edition, are now rectified; feveral new notes are added, and fome expreffions in the tranflation altered; and nothing is omitted or neglected that I could think had a tendency to improve the book, or render it more ufeful and acceptable to the reader.

I fhall conclude by obferving, that at Leipfick, where Cortius's Salluft was printed, and in other places of Germany, and in Holland too, they use two kinds of points: the one, called punctum majufculum, or the great point, is affixed to the end of a complete or perfect fentence, being the fame as the point or punctum ufed in Britain and France, and is always followed by a capital; the other, called punEtum minufculum, or the little point, is a kind of middle interpunction betwixt the great point and the colon or femicolon, its ftrength or force being less than that of the great point, and fomewhat greater than thofe of the other two, and is known by the word following, which always begins with a fmall letter, and never with a capital. This little point, for the fake of uniformity in the text and verfion, is adopted in the tranflation.