INTRODUCTION
sense, but whether I have hit it always I leave to the judgement of others. There are many plain reasons why this was difficult, yet I confess that in some points I required the help either of divination or of a bold departure whether from the Greek manuscript or from normal Greek usage.'[1] We are reminded of Wyttenbach's tribute to the great scholar's memory: 'Xylander I love for his candour, his probity, his honesty, manifest proofs of which are conspicuous not only in his writings but in his whole life.'[2] We must remember that he was printing a plain text, without marginalia or footnotes, and be grateful to him for his fidelity.
So much of the editor. What is to be said of Gesner's compositors? Xylander writes in the second edition: 'as my lucubration . . . was vilely reproduced by the carelessness of the printers and so published that it might fairly be held not to have been edited at all, I have been thinking for some time of remedying this'.[3] The indictment is serious and the original editor's words have been repeated by subsequent editors. I am inclined to think it exaggerated. We must at least remember that Xylander made his corrections for the second edition without reference to the manuscript. That, it appears, had not been returned to Heidelberg; certainly Xylander makes no reference to it (except the above) in his second edition. Is it not possible that in reading the printed text he noticed and cor-
- ↑ 'Verba appendere ad trutinam neque volui, neque vero debui: sensum quidem secutus sum, an autem assecutus sim ubique aliorum opto iudicium: cur difficile hoc fuerit, multae sunt, neque non manifestae causae. Etsi fateor, in quibusdam me vel ut divinarem opus habuisse, vel audacter a codice Graeco aut usu communi discessisse' op. cit., p. 25 (i.e. p. 9).
- ↑ 'Xylandrum etiam amo, propter animi ejus candorem, probitatem, honestatem, quarum virtutum manifesta exstant indicia, cum in scriptis viri, tum in tota ejus vita' Plu. Moralia Oxon. a.d. 1795, p. cvi.
- ↑ 'Quae mea lucubratio cum (quod in promtu est cuiuis videre atque iudicare) foede esset incuria operarum typographicarum deprauata, itaque plane edita, ut pro non edita censeri optimo iure posset, iam pridem cogitaram de remedio ei malo faciendo ' op. cit., p. 3–4.
