He Was An Inhabitant Of Sky, And
Therefore Was Within Reach Of Intelligence, And With No Great
Difficulty Might Have Visited The Places Which He Undertakes To
Describe; Yet With All His Opportunities, He Has Often Suffered
Himself To Be Deceived.
He lived in the last century, when the
chiefs of the clans had lost little of their original influence.
The mountains were yet unpenetrated, no inlet was opened to foreign
novelties, and the feudal institution operated upon life with their
full force.
He might therefore have displayed a series of
subordination and a form of government, which, in more luminous and
improved regions, have been long forgotten, and have delighted his
readers with many uncouth customs that are now disused, and wild
opinions that prevail no longer. But he probably had not knowledge
of the world sufficient to qualify him for judging what would
deserve or gain the attention of mankind. The mode of life which
was familiar to himself, he did not suppose unknown to others, nor
imagined that he could give pleasure by telling that of which it
was, in his little country, impossible to be ignorant.
What he has neglected cannot now be performed. In nations, where
there is hardly the use of letters, what is once out of sight is
lost for ever. They think but little, and of their few thoughts,
none are wasted on the past, in which they are neither interested
by fear nor hope. Their only registers are stated observances and
practical representations.
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