BY THE TRANSLATOR. THE work we here present the English reader, has already acquired so great a reputation all over Europe, that it would perhaps be impertinent to attempt a panegyric of it in this place. For the most learned and ingenious Journalists have honoured it with the highest and most just encomiums in their pe riodical pieces, and applauded it as one of the completest treatises ever published on the subject of po lite literature. Nor have particular writers of the greatest fame, and the finest taste, been wanting in their praises of it, and to name only two of different nations; the late Bishop Atterbury, whose knowledge in the various topics here treated of, is universally allowed, gives it the highest character in a letter he sent to the author, on receiving this work from him; and the celebrated Mr. de Voltaire, though he has taken upon him to exclude a great number of eminent writers of his own country from his Temple of Taste, has yet given our author a very honourable place in it. In short, were we to trans scribe all the elogiums which have been made on this composition, we should write a volume instead of a preface. This treatise is not merely the result of speculation, but of a great many years practice, in an university to which several of the most eminent men in France owed their education. No preceptor seems to have studied more carefully the various geniuses, dispositions, and inclinations of youth, nor to have been more successful in his labour, than our author. The manner in which he has drawn up this excellent work, proves him cqual to it in every respect; and the tender and affectionate touches with which it is interspersed, shew him to have been the kindest master. If ever a tutor strewed the paths to science with roses, it is Mr. Rollin. Thrice happy the pupils who were under the tuition of a gentleman, in whom knowledge and sweetness of temper are so agreeably blended! It is too often observed, that when mere scholars (especially those concerned in the education of youth) take up the pen, their productions betray an air of pedantry, which is very distasteful to persons of a polite turn of mind and behaviour. But nothing of this character is seen in our author. He discovers so consummate a knowledge in the several arts he professed, that, to consider him in this light, one would conclude he had never stirred out of a college; and, on the other side, so much of the fine gentleman in the dress of his style and diction, that one would imagine he had spent his whole life at courts. A circumstance which reflects the highest honour on him, is his great modesty. Learning is but too apt to elate the mind, and to make those who are possessed of it, look with the highest contempt on all such as cannot boast the same advantages; but it had quite a different effect on Mr. Rollin. This gentleman, so far from delivering himself in a magisterial tone, speaks always in the mildest and most submissive terms. In this work, it is not the pedagogue who instructs us, but the fond parent, the amiable friend. A LET A LETTER written by the Right Reverend Dr. FRANCIS ATTERBURY, late Lord Bishop of Rochester, to Mr. ROLLIN, in Commendation of this Work, Reverende atque Eruditissime Vir. CUM, monente amico quodam, qui juxta ædes tuas habitat, scirem te Parisios revertisse; statui salutatum te ire, ut primùm per valetudinem liceret. Id officii, ex pedum infirmitate* aliquandiu dilatum, cùm tandem me impleturum sperarem, frustra fui; domi non eras. Restat, ut quod coram exsequi non potui, scriptis saltem literis præstem: tibique ob ea omnia quibus à te auctus sum, beneficia, grates agam, quas habeo certè, & semper habiturus sum, maximas. Reverà munera illia librorum nuperis à te annis editorum egregia ac perhonorifica mihi visa sunt. Multi enim facio, & te, vir præstantissime, & tua omnia quæcunque in isto literarum genere perpolita sunt; in quo quidem Te ceteris omnibus ejusmodi scriptoribus facilè antecellere, atque esse eundem & dicendi & sentiendi magistrum optimum, prorsùs existimo : cùmque in excolendis his studiis aliquantulum ipse & operæ & temporis posuerim, liberè tamen profiteor me, tua cùm legam ac relegam, ea edoctum esse à te, non solùm quæ nesciebam prorsùs, sed etiam quæ antea didicisse mihi visus sum. Modestè itaque nimium de opere tuo sentis, cùm juventuti_tantùm instituendæ elaboratum id esse contendis. Ea certè scribis, quæ à viris istiusmodi rerum haud imperitis, cum voluptate & fructu legi possunt. Vetera quidem & satis cognita revocas in memoriam; sed ita revocas, ut illustres, ut ornes; ut aliquid vetustis adjicias quod novum sit, alienis quod omnino tuum: bonasque picturas bonâ in luce collocando, efficis, ut etiain iis à quibus sæpissimè conspecta sunt, elegantiores tamen, solito appareant, & placeant magis. Certè, dum Xenophontem sæpius versas, ab illo & ea quæ à te plurimis in locis narrantur, & ipsum ubi• Podagrâ. a 3 que (vi) que narrandi modum videris traxisse, stylique Xenophontei nitorein ac venustam simplicitatem non imitari tantùm sed planè assequi: ita ut si Gallicè scisset Xenophon, non aliis illum, in eo argumento quod tractas, verbis usurum, non alio prorsùs more scripturum judicem. Hæc ego, haud assentandi causâ (quod vitium procul à me abest) sed verè ex animi sententiâ dico. Čùm enim pulchris à te donis ditatus sim, quibus in eodem, aut in alio quopiam doctrinæ genere referendis imparem me sentio, volui tamen propensi erga te animi .gratique testimonium proferre, & te alio saltem munusculo, etsi perquàm dissimili, remunerari. Perge, vir docte admodum ac venerande, de bonis literis, quæ nunc neglecta passim & spretæ jacent, benè mereri: Perge juventutem Gallicam (quando illi solummodò te utilem esse vis) optimis & præceptis & exemplis informare. Quod ut facias, annis ætatis tuæ elapsis multos adjiciat Deus! iisque decurrentibus sanum te præstet atque incolumem. Hoc ex animo optat ac vovet, Tui observantissimus FRANCISCUS ROFFENSIS. Pranşurum te mecum post festa dixit mihi amicus ille noster qui tibi vicinus est. Cùm statueris tecum quo die adfuturus es, id illi significabis. Me certè annis malisque debilitatum, quandocunque veneris, domi invenies. 6° Kal. Jan. 1731. A LET |