Hector
joined in urging Johnson to undertake it, for a payment of five
guineas. Although nearly brought to a stop midway by hypochondriac
despondency, a little suggestion that the printers also were
stopped, and if they had not their work had not their pay, caused
Johnson to go on to the end. Legrand's book was reduced to a fifth
of its size by the omission of all that overlaid Father Lobo's
personal account of his adventures; and Johnson began work as a
writer with this translation, first published at Birmingham in 1735.
H.M.
THE PREFACE
The following relation is so curious and entertaining, and the
dissertations that accompany it so judicious and instructive, that
the translator is confident his attempt stands in need of no
apology, whatever censures may fall on the performance.
The Portuguese traveller, contrary to the general vein of his
countrymen, has amused his reader with no romantic absurdities or
incredible fictions; whatever he relates, whether true or not, is at
least probable; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds of
probability has a right to demand that they should believe him who
cannot contradict him.
He appears by his modest and unaffected narration to have described
things as he saw them, to have copied nature from the life, and to
have consulted his senses, not his imagination; he meets with no
basilisks that destroy with their eyes, his crocodiles devour their
prey without tears, and his cataracts fall from the rock without
deafening the neighbouring inhabitants.
The reader will here find no regions cursed with irremediable
barrenness, or blessed with spontaneous fecundity, no perpetual
gloom or unceasing sunshine; nor are the nations here described
either devoid of all sense of humanity, or consummate in all private
and social virtues; here are no Hottentots without religion, polity,
or articulate language, no Chinese perfectly polite, and completely
skilled in all sciences: he will discover, what will always be
discovered by a diligent and impartial inquirer, that wherever human
nature is to be found there is a mixture of vice and virtue, a
contest of passion and reason, and that the Creator doth not appear
partial in his distributions, but has balanced in most countries
their particular inconveniences by particular favours.
In his account of the mission, where his veracity is most to be
suspected, he neither exaggerates overmuch the merits of the
Jesuits, if we consider the partial regard paid by the Portuguese to
their countrymen, by the Jesuits to their society, and by the
Papists to their church, nor aggravates the vices of the Abyssins;
but if the reader will not be satisfied with a Popish account of a
Popish mission, he may have recourse to the history of the church of
Abyssinia, written by Dr. Geddes, in which he will find the actions
and sufferings of the missionaries placed in a different light,
though the same in which Mr. Le Grand, with all his zeal for the
Roman church, appears to have seen them.
This learned dissertator, however valuable for his industry and
erudition, is yet more to be esteemed for having dared so freely in
the midst of France to declare his disapprobation of the Patriarch
Oviedo's sanguinary zeal, who was continually importuning the
Portuguese to beat up their drums for missionaries, who might preach
the gospel with swords in their hands, and propagate by desolation
and slaughter the true worship of the God of Peace.
It is not easy to forbear reflecting with how little reason these
men profess themselves the followers of Jesus, who left this great
characteristic to His disciples, that they should be known by loving
one another, by universal and unbounded charity and benevolence.
Let us suppose an inhabitant of some remote and superior region, yet
unskilled in the ways of men, having read and considered the
precepts of the gospel, and the example of our Saviour, to come down
in search of the true church: if he would not inquire after it
among the cruel, the insolent, and the oppressive; among those who
are continually grasping at dominion over souls as well as bodies;
among those who are employed in procuring to themselves impunity for
the most enormous villainies, and studying methods of destroying
their fellow-creatures, not for their crimes but their errors; if he
would not expect to meet benevolence, engage in massacres, or to
find mercy in a court of inquisition, he would not look for the true
church in the Church of Rome.
Mr. Le Grand has given in one dissertation an example of great
moderation, in deviating from the temper of his religion, but in the
others has left proofs that learning and honesty are often too weak
to oppose prejudice. He has made no scruple of preferring the
testimony of Father du Bernat to the writings of all the Portuguese
Jesuits, to whom he allows great zeal, but little learning, without
giving any other reason than that his favourite was a Frenchman.
This is writing only to Frenchmen and to Papists: a Protestant
would be desirous to know why he must imagine that Father du Bernat
had a cooler head or more knowledge; and why one man whose account
is singular is not more likely to be mistaken than many agreeing in
the same account.
If the Portuguese were biassed by any particular views, another bias
equally powerful may have deflected the Frenchman from the truth,
for they evidently write with contrary designs: the Portuguese, to
make their mission seem more necessary, endeavoured to place in the
strongest light the differences between the Abyssinian and Roman
Church; but the great Ludolfus, laying hold on the advantage,
reduced these later writers to prove their conformity.
Upon the whole, the controversy seems of no great importance to
those who believe the Holy Scriptures sufficient to teach the way of
salvation, but of whatever moment it may be thought, there are not
proofs sufficient to decide it.
