The opening of Translator'S Preface
TO THE
THIRD AND FOURTH VOLS. OF THE LONDON EDITION.
Since it has been suggested that I ought not to suffer several glaring, though (as I think) unimportant, errors to pass unnoticed, as if I were not aware of them, I mention the most conspicuous. The Author says the Royal Exchange was built by Charles II.; that the piece of water at Blenheim covers eight hundred acres, whereas I am told it covers only two hundred and fifty;--he calls the great Warwick Beauchamp, and not Neville:--alluding to Sir Walter Scott's 'Kenilworth,' he calls Varney, Vernon; and he lays the scene of Varney's murder of his wife at Kenilworth, instead of at Cumnor.--There may be more such mistakes for aught I know. Such are to be found in every account of a foreign country I have ever seen, with the exception of some two or three works of faultless correctness and veracity, which nobody reads. Of these Carsten Niebuhr's may be taken as a representative.