or before this, may have easily learned at any odd hour the Italian tongue," and prescribes the reading of various authors in it along with ancient classics. And besides innumerable traces of his opinion of its beauty and value, discernible in the texture of his writings, he has recorded, in a letter to an Italian friend, the judgment of the polite scholars of his age, confirmed by a distinct and eloquent expression of his own: "Ut est apud eos ingenio quis forte floridior, aut moribus amœnis et elegantibus, linguam Hetruscam in deliciis habet præcipuis, quin et in solidá parte eruditionis esse sibi ponendam ducit." Nor does this arise from their being unable to ascend to the fountains of Greek and Roman wisdom; for he adds, "Ego certè istis utrisque linguis, non extremis tantummodo labris madidus, sed, siquis alius, quantùm per annos licuit, poculis majoribus prolutus, possum tamen nonnunquam ad illum Dantem, et Petrarcham, aliosque vestros complusculos, libenter et cupidè commessatum ire: nec me tam ipsæ Athenæ Atticæ cum illo suo pellucido Ilisso, nec illa vetus Roma suâ Tiberis ripâ retinere valuerunt, quin sæpe Arnum vestrum et Fæsulanos illos colles invisere amem.'

Cambridge, December, 1829.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THIS EDITION.

In the present impression of the text from stereotype plates, as no pains have been spared to free them from errors and blemishes, it is hoped that the reader will find little to offend him.

Cambridge, November, 1833