The History of Herodotus

The dignified rank which Herodotus holds among the historians of antiquity while it stamps his character of excellence and superiority renders his pages interesting and his authority indisputable; but if clothed in the partial obscurity of a learned language he is accessible only to the critic and the more classical members of society. It is the unavoidable lot of many whom accident or laborious employments have deprived of the pleasures and the improvements of study not to be able to taste of the original spring or to discover the various beauties of the natural landscape which he has painted with so masterly a hand. Translation indeed lends her useful and well-directed assistance; and it is no unpleasing task to attempt to give entertainment to those who court information and more universally to diffuse the name and to publish the merits of an historian whose works are not only the admiration of the learned but prove a splendid pattern for others to imitate and for posterity to applaud.