In A Very Large Proportion Of That Curious Work, It Is
The Author Who Speaks To The Reader, And Not
The traveller.
In the present work, wherever that could possibly be accomplished, it has
uniformly been the anxious desire of
The Editor that the voyagers and
travellers should tell their own story: In that department of his labour,
his only object has been to assume the character of interpreter
between them and the readers, by translating foreign or antiquated language
into modern English. Sometimes, indeed, where no record remains of
particular voyages and travels, as written by the persons who performed
them, the Editor has necessarily had recourse to their historians. But, on
every such occasion, the most ancient and most authentic accessible sources
have been anxiously sought after and employed. In every extensive work, it
is of the utmost consequence that its various parts should be arranged upon
a comprehensive and perspicuously systematic plan. This has been
accordingly aimed at with the utmost solicitude in the present undertaking;
and the order of its arrangement was adopted after much deliberation, and
from a very attentive consideration of every general work of the same
nature that could be procured. If, therefore, the systematic order on which
it is conducted shall appear well adapted to the subject, after an
attentive perusal and candid investigation, the Editor confidently hopes
that his labours may bear a fair comparison with any similar publication
that has yet been brought forward.
In the short Prospectus of this work, formerly submitted to the public, a
very general enunciation only, of the heads of the intended plan, was
attempted; as that was then deemed sufficient to convey a distinct idea of
the nature, arrangement, and distribution of the proposed work. Unavoidable
circumstances still necessarily preclude the possibility, or the propriety
rather, of attempting to give a more full and complete developement of the
divisions and subdivisions of the systematic arrangement which is to be
pursued, and which circumstances may require some elucidation.
An extensive and minutely arranged plan was carefully devised and extended
by the Editor, before one word of the work was written or compiled, after
an attentive examination of every accessible former collection; That plan
has been since anxiously reconsidered, corrected, altered, and extended, in
the progress of the work, as additional materials occurred: yet the Editor
considers that the final and public adoption of his plan, in a positively
fixed and pledged systematic form, any farther than has been already
conveyed in the Prospectus, would have the effect to preclude the availment
of those new views of the subject which are continually afforded by
additional materials, in every progressive step of preparation for the
press. The number of books of voyages and travels, as well general as
particular, is extremely great; and, even if the whole were at once before
the Editor, it would too much distract his attention from the division or
department in which he is engaged for the time, to attempt studying and
abstracting every subdivision at once.
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