well, thus to diminish the size of the book, but I suggest whether it would be right, also, to diminish the stipulated price. But, no doubt, the delegates will properly adjust the compensation, of their own accord. I will use all diligence to finish the annotations and indexes in such time, and to compress them into such a compass, that the execution shall be perfectly satisfactory to you.

WYTTENBACH TO J. CLEAVER BANKS.

Leyden, Aug. 25, 1801.

Your letter, bearing date of May 29, has been received, and a few days earlier, the promised parcel of books arrived. There was so much kindness manifested in both, that I scarcely know which was the more grateful to my feelings. To your distinguished friends, Porson and Whiter, I owe the more gratitude, for their elegant presents, for having done nothing on my part to elicit such favors; for the copy of my Life of Ruhnken, which I had designated for Porson, was left behind, in your haste, so that he did not receive from me even that token of regard, though he was specially entitled to it. This man is not only a great ornament to Greek literature, himself, but he is a worthy successor of the former friends of my dear Ruhnken, the Musgraves, Toups, and Tyrwhitts, whose various merits he so happily unites, as to exalt his own genius by the splendor of the most exquisite learning. I am surprised to find in him so much that is new on Euripides, after all the labors of other eminent critics, upon that poet. If there is any thing I desire, it is, that, for the sake of letters, he may have life and leisure sufficient to restore to purity the entire text of the tragedies of Euripides. I did not know that Eschylus had also been published, under the critical care of the same scholar, till I learned

it a few days ago, from a German review of Æschylus, edited by Professor Schütz, of Jena. * * *

The young P. G. van Heusde, whom you saw at my house, and who is so devoted to Plato, has been spending a month or two in Paris. On his return, a few days since, I learned that our common friends, the great Grecians there, are all well. I deeply regret that you cannot follow your inclination, in visiting me this summer. Ever since I learned from the Bishop of Oxford, that my papers on Plutarch had reached him in safety, I have applied myself to the work of completing the remainder. But, though I make a great ado, but little is done. For the three following months, I finished my notes on two books, only; the one, upon Reading the Poets; the other, upon Hearing. The longer I live, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

WYTTENBACH TO THOMAS GAISFORD.

Leyden, Dec. 29, 1805.

The regard which you have expressed for me, is very grateful to my feelings. I perceive in your letter, the evidence of your Greek scholarship, and think well of your method of study, as indicated by your design of editing Hephaestion. I hope you will so prepare this little treatise, as to make it a manual, from which scholars may derive great benefit, and obtain an accurate knowledge of number and measure. I will gladly furnish you, from our library, the aid which you ask, if I can find a suitable person to make the copy and the extracts. But this is the difficulty. For those who can, will not; and those who will, cannot. Although my reply has long been delayed by a fruitless hope of finding one, I do not yet despair. But I was unwilling that you should be ignorant of these circumstances, as you might be in doubt in respect to my readiness to oblige you. The excerpts of Plutarch are of

such a character, that it will hardly be worth the while to copy the remainder. Be assured, my learned young friend, of my desire to render you all possible aid in your studies.

WYTTENBACH TO GAISFORD.

Leyden, July 8, 1815.

I have long been indebted to you, my dear Gaisford, for a letter, and should have written before this, had it not been entirely out of my power. Now that the vacation has commenced, I will employ what strength I have, in writing to you. Your letter, and box of books were duly received. Among the latter, were the copies of Plutarch, Falconer's Strabo, your own Hephaestion, your edition of the Minor Poets, and catalogues of the libraries of D'Orville and of Clarke. For these valuable and elegant presents, I beg you to accept for yourself, and to present to the other delegates, my hearty thanks. But your own books, my dear Gaisford, have particularly attracted my attention. From them I learn, for the first time, the greatness of your talents, and the extent of your learning. I was kept in ignorance in respect to them, by that protracted French tyranny, which suffered neither any of your books to reach us, nor even a traveller to visit us and give us information of you. But as soon as our public intercourse was restored, literary men from your country represented you as being the pillar of Greek learning in England, since the death of Porson; and I perceived at once, on the examination of your works, that their decision was just. In order to assure you that I replied to your letter which you wrote me ten years ago, although you were then unknown to me, I send you herewith a copy of that reply. For, from about the commencement of the present century, I began to preserve a copy of all my Latin letters, and I regret that I did not begin sooner. In

a letter to Dr. Randolph, also, written about the same time, I added a paragraph respecting you. No competent judge, on examining the execution of your Hephaestion, could ask for any thing more. When you intimate, that probably additional matter might have been found in the Leyden library, I suppose you refer to P. Bondam's collections on the Latin grammarians. But you would have been disappointed in them, if you had obtained them. The library has not, to my knowledge, any manuscript of Hephaestion himself. The curators would not allow me to make a copy of Draco of Stratonice for you. Hermann also applied for it, through Matthiae, of Altenburg, but to no purpose. He afterwards obtained, through Bast, a copy of the Paris manuscript, the same which Ruhnken had copied. Very few competent persons can be found here, who are willing to copy for others. Therefore, persons who wish copies of any manuscripts in our library, will be obliged to come here in person, as I have recently announced in my Bibliotheca Critica.

I have not yet had the time to compare your accounts with mine. I prefer, as business is still unsettled here, that the money should be put at interest in England, as it has been heretofore. This reminds me of the circumstance, that you reckon the first volume of my Annotations, as making about one third of the whole, as if two other similar volumes were expected to follow. But you and the other delegates will recollect, that the engagement contained in my letter of the 19th of July, 1800, had no reference to the extent of the work. If the remainder should all be brought within the compass of one volume, the 300 guineas would, according to contract, be my due. I will go directly about completing the remainder, and finish it as soon as my other engagements, my poor health, and my weak and diseased eyes will allow.

In your former letter, you observed, that the printers were waiting. But it should not be forgotten, that I must furnish such materials as shall be worthy of your university, and of the Clarendon press. Frederic Creuzer is professor in Heidelberg, and is one of the very best scholars in Germany. He has undertaken a new edition of Plotinus, and has lately published a specimen, and copies of it, I know, have been sent to England, from which you can easily judge of the excellence and the importance of the production. Therefore, if you take my advice, you will urge the delegates to think about this work, and not let it go elsewhere, or fall through.

WYTTENBACH TO VILLOISON.

Leyden, Jan. 6, 1801.

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In my former letter I recommended van Heusde to you. If he were now in Paris, Heemskerk would not need letters to you, for van Heusde would introduce him to you; on whose account, no less than mine, you would receive him kindly. But being uncertain whether he would find van Heusde still with you, I could not let my friend without a letter to you. young go I wrote you some time since, that a parcel of my papers on Plutarch, the labor of four years, which I sent to Oxford three years ago, was lost on the way. But last month, after having lain in Hamburg during this whole interval, it came safely into the hands of the Oxford gentlemen. To extort from them a copy for you, is among the impossibilities. I will see that a copy is sent you, as soon as the work shall be finished.

WYTTENBACH TO VILLOISON.

Leyden, May 20, 1804.

My niece expresses now in person, as she did formerly in her letters, all the gratitude towards you which a