Page:Enchiridion (Talbot).pdf/12

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PREFACE.
7

esteem him, that they deposited the keys of the city in hist hands, as if he were the only trusty keeper of their liberties; they bestowed upon him likewise a golden crown, and erected a brass statue of him."

Let me now proceed to give some account of the manner in which I have discharged my office of translator of the follow- ing work. (The original of the Enchiridion of Epictetus is divided into small chapters, many of which are merely a contin- uation of the subjects in the preceding ones.) I have stepped aside from this arrangement, and cut the work into sections, some of which embrace two or more of these chapters. In making this disposition, I have been influenced solely by the desire of setting the precepts of the Enchiridion in the most agreeable and acceptable shape possible before the English reader, desiring thereby to invest them with the highest degree of attraction of which I have thought them capable. With the same view have I placed, at the commencement of each Section, an analysis of its contents, or, perhaps, I should rather say, a prose version of these, adapted, in train of idea and mode of expression, to the doctrines and phraseology of Chris- tian philosophers. The notes I have inserted in order to illustrate the text, and make it clear and intelligible to readers of every capacity; and the information upon which such of them as refer to points of antiquity and philosophy are based, has been derived from the best and most authentic sources. With respect to the Scriptural references, at the bottom of the pages, I must observe, what, no doubt, will immediately strike the eye of every reader of the ancient authors of Greece and Rome, whether these authors be clothed in their native