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xxii Introduction
have scarcely discourag’d me from pursuing the
undertaking: For to have adventured abroad a
second Edition of this antiquated Version, would
doubtless have been interpreted as a design
rather of exercising the Reader in the unpleasant
task of laboriously picking out the meaning of
obsolete words, and expressions, than of fairly
leading him into the true and genuine sense of
the Original; although what is here asserted
might be easily made out beyond all possibility
of exception, yet the learned Author acquitted
himself so very well herein, that he comes fully
up even to the most commendable way of
writing, which obtain’d in his time.’
The translation now reprinted was made in
1668 by John Wilson (1627 ?-1696), scholar,
lawyer, and writer of plays. He was well known
for his ultra-royalist views, which gained him
favour with the Duke of York and a post in
Ireland, but better known for his comedies,
“The Cheats’ ‘and “The Projectors’; where
rascality is happily described. His version is
more direct and restrained than ‘Witt against
Wisdom’; or as Kennett himself puts it, ‘ The
modern Translator (Wilson)... tied himself...