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PRINCIPLES OF
Chap. XII.
that the beginning of ancient tales is not just what came into the head of the teller: no, they always began with some saying of Cato, the censor of Rome, like this, of "He that seeks evil may meet with the devil."
The beginning of the story, thus translated, has neither any meaning in itself, nor does it resemble the usual preface of a foolish tale. Instead of Caton Zonzorino, a blunder which apologises for the mention of Cato by such an ignorant clown as Sancho, we find the blunder rectified by Smollet, and Cato dignified with his proper epithet of the Censor. This is a manifest impropriety in the last translator, for which no other cause can be assigned, than that his predecessor had preoccupied the blunder of Cato the Tonsor,which
