PREFACE.

FEW of the ancient writers have received a greater share of attention from continental scholars than Theophrastus. Of this fact, the names of Stephens, Morell, Casaubon, Schwartz, Siebenkees, Bloch, Pauw, Schneider, and Ast are sufficient evidence, all of whom, with many others, have edited or commented upon his works, while some of them, as Ast and Casaubon, have published commentaries on the Characters of great length, erudition, and value. Nor has there been any lack of translations and imitations. One Spanish and several Italian versions are known to the curious; the lively French imitations of La Bruyère enjoy an extended reputation; and both Coray and Schweighaeuser have given valuable illustrations of our author in the same language. Germany, as usual, is not behind her neighbours. Meritorious versions by various writers, among whom we may enumerate Pirckheymer, G. E. Mueller, Drueck, Kiessling, and Hottinger, have long been well known in that country; and to a German also, J. J. Hottinger, we owe the most valuable psychological exposition which the Characters have as yet received. In England, however, the state of the case is very different. different. With

the exception of Needham's edition, published at
Cambridge in 1712, and some scattered notes by
Duport preserved in the same university, I have seen
nothing in the way of commentary which can bear
comparison with the labours of the above-mentioned
continental scholars. Our translations also are not
very valuable. Indeed, Theophrastus is best known
in England through a foreign medium, the clever but
somewhat overdone imitations of La Bruyère. There
is a "Translation of the moral Characters of Theo-
phrastus with
with a critical Essay on characteristic
Writing," by Henry Galley, M.A., but I have not
been able to discover that it contains anything de-
serving of notice. The version most commonly met
with is that in the Family Classical Library, reprinted,
I believe, from a handsome volume published by
Francis Howell, in 1824, but as a translation it is
below criticism, and does not even appear to have
been made from the original text. The psychological
remarks, too, which accompany the text do not exhibit
any particular acuteness, and are expressed in a
verbose and affected style little likely to find favour
in the present state of our literary taste.

It will then be my endeavour, as briefly as possible, to explain what has been done in the present edition. Having long attached a high value to these characteristic sketches of Theophrastus, I had for some years been anxious to see them edited in a form acceptable to the English scholar. But of contributing personally to such a result I altogether despaired. The text of Theophrastus is more corrupt

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than that of any other ancient author-so corrupt, indeed, that in places it is entirely unintelligible. The MSS., moreover, are for the most part inaccessible to an English editor, and present difficulties of no ordinary complication. They belong, as will be seen from the subjoined classification, to four distinct eras, the later among them containing matter absent from those of earlier date, and it must be confessed in many cases of very questionable character. With such materials the editors have dealt as it was in old days the fashion for editors to deal. They seldom omitted any chance of winning a reputation for acute conjecture and elegant emendation. He who had successfully restored a corrupt passage was for the time a greater man than the victorious captor of a city. So it came to pass that, as the present opportunity was great, greatly did the editors avail themselves of it. With most of them rashness and extravagance reign supreme. In no two consecutive sentences is the author permitted to speak for himself. Theophrastus is made to express modern notions, and that too in modern phraseology. Hence the reader even of such editions as those of Casaubon and Schneider cannot but be haunted by the consciousness that it is Schneider or Casaubon who is speaking, and not the Greek philosopher himself. In common, as I should imagine, with most readers, I did not feel that, with the means available, it was possible for powers so limited as mine "tantas componere lites," or to interpose between an utterly corrupt text and a thoroughly unscrupulous restoration.

Accident, however, made me acquainted with the edition of Ast, a scholar deservedly celebrated for his labours upon Plato; and after perusing his preface I rejoiced to believe that the task had been performed. "Theophrasti notationes," he says, "etsi a multis, et iis eruditissimis viris tractatæ sunt, tamen mendis ita scatent, ut critica quæ dicitur conjecturalis, quo latior ei campus patet, in quo exultare possit, cò majore cum cautione restringi debeat. Nimirum critica illa, cui permultos nimium tribuere constat, tandem eò nos perducit ut omnia veri ac genuini vestigia omittamus. Quocirca jure nobis videmur contendere posse, quò magis scriptor aliquis criticâ illâ luxuriante exagitatus fuerit, eò religiosius quoad ejus per sensûs linguæque rationes fieri possit, librorum veterum scripturam esse instaurandam, ejusque vestigiis insistendum. Itaque quum recentiores characterum editores, pluribus in locis eò audaciæ processissent ut conjecturas suas a pristina scripturæ ductibus prorsus abhorrentes, nulliusque libri auctoritate nitentes, in ipsa contexta reciperent, ne critica istius luxuries, latiùs serpens, omnia pæne pristinæ libelli formæ vestigia deleret, novam textûs recensionem, quæ veterum librorum auctoritatem ac fidem religiosissimè sequeretur, non solùm gratam fore Græcarum literarum cultoribus, verùm etiam per se necessariam esse judicavimus." No words could more clearly express the principles which it seems to me desirable for an editor to maintain. I did not, therefore, deem it presumptuous to hope that, aided by the judgment of so judicious a critic in the estab