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v PREFACE.
his judgement and taste are by no means equal to his erudition. The
travels into cach country are introduced by a large account of that coun-
try, chiefly derived from the very travels which he is about to insert;
so that there is a needless repetition; and often a dryness of discussion,
and superfluous anxiety about the pretended accuracy of frivolous or
false information, that unite to disgust the most patient reader: and the
work of course fell into such a decline of estimation, that it stopped at
the fourth volume, being alike an object of neglect with the Public and
with the learned.
Another radical cause of this failure was the very title, and assumption,
that the voyages into distant countries, performed by distant persons, and
even at distant ages, could form the subject of a history, which implies
« continuous and well digested narrative of successive events in chro-
nological order. In compilmg this pretended history, the editor sub-
jected Iimself to the greatest disadvantage; the chief interest and
authenticity of the voyage being lost by the assumption of the third
person; one ereat charm in readmg books of travels consisting in the
personal interest, arising from the author’s own narrative of his own
feelings and dangers. The instruction to be derived from such works ts also
violated by injudicious or unfaithful extracts; a defect too well known
in the old collection called Purchas’s Pilgrims, in which that venerable
author has exerted his utmost judgement, ability, and discernment, in
selecting the most useless parts of the unhappy authors imprisoned in
his jail; leaving the patient reader to consult the originals, if he wish
for solid information. With the noble example of Hakluyt before his
eyes, it is surprising that he should fall into this error; but the want
of judgement can never be supplied by fancy, or by memory, which
ought ever to be subordinate to that supreme monarch of the mind;
and whose laws alone can give stability and duration to any human
production.
From these defects the work of Grecn, amidst great pretensions to
accuracy, and solemn discussions of mere trifles, with notes replete with
learned contradictions, and minute and microscopic balancing of one
11 straw
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