THE

CHARACTER OF POLYBIUS,

AND

HIS WRITINGS."

THE worthy author of this translation,' who is very much my friend, was pleased to entrust it in my hands for many months together, before he

• This Essay was prefixed to an English translation of Polybius, by Sir Henry Sheers, in two volumes, 8vo. which appear from Motteux's GENTLEMAN'S JOURNAL, to have been published in the latter end of the year 1692, though the title-page, according to the custom of booksellers, is dated 1693.

Of Sir Henry Sheers, Knight, I have been able to obtain but few memorials, beside those furnished by himself and by our author. He appears, from his preface, to have been a military officer; for he tells us that he trusts

his defects as a translator, may in some degree be supplied by the long conversation he had in those matters which are principally treated by Polybius." ---- "It is an employment (he adds) wherein he who performs best, trafficks for small gain, and it would be unfair and unconscionable to make the loss more than the adventure; and at the worst, it having been rather a diversion than å task, helping me to while away a few winter hours, which is some recreation to one who has led a life of action and

published it, desiring me to review the English, and to correct what I found amiss; which he needed not have done, if his modesty would have

business; and whose humour and fortune suit not with the pleasures of the town. Wherefore I shall have little cause of complaint, if my well-meaning in consenting to its publication be not so well received: I have been worse treated by the world, to which I am as little indebted as most men, who have spent near thirty years in publick trusts; wherein I laboured, and wasted my youth and the vigour of my days, more to the service of my country, and the impairment of my health, than the improvement of my fortune; having stood the mark of envy, slander, and hard usage, without gleaning the least of those advantages, which use to be the anchor-hold and refuge of such as wrongfully or otherwise suffer the stroke of censure.'

Mr. Moyle, speaking of this translation, in a letter to his friend, Antony Hammond, dated Jan. 14, 1698-9, says, "I am sorry our acquaintance, Sir Henry Sheers, who has given the English world a translation of Polybius, understood French so well, and Greek so ill; but I will say no more." Sir Henry, indeed, candidly owns in his preface, that he had no warrant to undertake this task from any depth of learning."-The excellent translation of this author by Mr. Hampton, has long since converted the former version into waste paper.

Sir Henry Sheers published in 1698 an "Essay on the Certainty and Causes of the Earth's Motion on its Axis ;" and in 1705, “ A Discourse concerning the Mediterranean Sea, &c." He also translated some of the Dialogues of Lucian, 8vo. 1711: and among the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum, N° 3828, art. 19, contains his "Directions about Building, addressed to Lord Nottingham."

given him leave to have relied on his own abilities, who is so great a master of our style and language, as the world will acknowledge him to be, after the reading of this excellent version.

2

It is true that Polybius has formerly appeared in an English dress, but under such a cloud of errours in his first translation, that his native beauty was not only hidden, but his sense perverted in many places; so that he appeared unlike himself, and unworthy of that esteem which has always been paid him by antiquity, as the most sincere, the clearest, and most instructive of all historians. He is now not only redeemed from those mistakes, but also restored to the first purity of his conceptions; and the style in which he now speaks is as plain and unaffected as that he wrote. I had only the pleasure of reading him in a fair manuscript, without the toil of alteration; at least it was so very inconsiderable, that it only cost me the dash of a pen in some few places, and those of very small imporSo much had the care, the diligence, and

tance.

-He died in or before the year 1713, his library being advertized in the GUARDIAN, N° 82, to be sold on the 17th of June in that year, at a shop in the inner walk at the east end of Exeter Exchange, the price being marked in each book. This mode of sale, which is now so common, has subsisted, therefore, from the early part of this century. These books, however, (which are said to have belonged to Sir Henry Sheers, deceased,) were sold by a written, not a printed, catalogue.

exactness of my friend prevented my trouble, that he left me not the occasion of serving him, in a work which was already finished to my hands. I doubt not but the reader will approve my judgment. So happy it is for a good author to fall into the hands of a translator, who is of a genius. like his own; who has added experience to his natural abilities; who has been educated in business of several kinds; has travelled, like his author, into many parts of the world, and some of them the same with the present scene of history; has been employed in business of the like nature with Polybius, and like him is perfectly acquainted not only with the terms of the mathematicks, but has searched into the bottom of that admirable science, and reduced into practice the most useful rules of it, to his own honour, and the benefit of his native country; who, besides these advantages, possesses the knowlege of shipping and navigation; and, in few words, is not ignorant of any thing that concerns the tacticks: so that here, from the beginning, we are sure of finding nothing that is not thoroughly understood. The expression is clear, and the words adequate to the subject. Nothing in the matter will be mistaken; nothing of the terms will be misapplied: all is natural and proper; and he who undertands good sense and English, will be profited by the first, and delighted with the latter. This is what may be justly said in commendation of the translator, and without the note of flattery to a friend.