Second Edition

The kindness which has called for a second edition of my work so soon has prevented me from improving it as much as I might have done had I been able to contemplate it from a greater distance. I have, however, as I hope, strengthened a few weak lines, and corrected a few of the errors of taste and judgment into which I had previously fallen. The remarks of my various crities I have read with attention, and I trust with profit. If I have not always been able to accept them in detail, I have found much to encourage me in their general effect. The points against which they have been directed have mostly been such as I had already felt to be assailable, while I have been gratified to find the hope which I entertained, that my translation might, nevertheless, give pleasure to English readers as well as to students of the original, thus far confirmed. Self-criticism is a proverbially difficult task: and anything which tends to convince an author that he may in some degree trust his own judgment cannot but be welcome and reassuring. That judgment, I feel, may require to be widened and deepened indefinitely; but it is in learning to trust it in its measure that the hope of future improvement lies.