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THOMAS JOHNES, ESQ. Memoirs of the life of Sir John Froissart

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THOMAS JOHNES, ESQ.
Memoirs of the life of Sir John Froissart
page 55



If might difpleafe them. Perhaps thk charge is only «lie It. confequem» o£ the firft ; and readers, prejudiced on one hand againft Froiflart for having been an enemy to the French, furprifed on the other at not finding any traces of this pretended enmity in his hiftory, may have judged, without further reafoo, that Sauvage had retrenched, through love for hia country, all that the hiftorian had written through hatred to it. The French with whom Sauvage, according to this mode of reafoning, ought to have found favour, have not been lefs haitl upon htm on another head* According to lèverai, he has altered and disfigured the proper names: he has changed the fimple language of the times of Froifikrt, ta fubftkute his own, by which he has more obfcured the hiftory than enlightened it, and has only caufed thofe editions which were prior ta his own to become more fearce and mom dear. We fhall fee whether this be the recompence that aE the troobk ho-gave himfelf deferved ; but I ought firft to fpeak of the manner in which be-laboured at this edition,, and the aflftance he. had, accorcti% to the account which he gives himfelf. Sauvage, having firft tranferibed the printed copy of Galliot du Pré,, compared it with the two other Mack4etter editions* when he found the difference between them fo trifling that he thought he ought ta confider all three but as the feme. He then collated his text with a printed fragment: ftill more ancient ; then with the third volume of 4 La Mer des Hiltoires,9 in which Froiflart has been copied from the beginning to tile 177th chapter^ and, Jaftly, with two abridgments ia MS. which he diftingui£hes, not being acquainted with the authors, by the names of 1 La Chaux and de Sala,1 who had communicated them to hirxu The editor, in acknowledging that thefe abridgments, or manufcripts,, which were fo much damaged that he was frequently %obliged to guefc the meaning, have been at times very ufeful to him, gives notice that he did not follow their punctuation ; but, perfuaded there cannot be too great exaétnefs in religioufly preferving the language of ancient authors, he follows, with a fcrupulous attention, the orthography, the ancient words and ancient modes of fpeech, although they were very different from what they were when the firft copies came from the hands of Froiflart. He, neverthelefs, avows that, without derogating from the refpeét due to the


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