OF JOSEPH HALL, D.D. SUCCESSIVELY BISHOP OF EXETER AND NORWICH: WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE AND SUFFERINGS, A NEW EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED: WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITIONS, A TRANSLATION OF ALL THE LATIN PIECES, ADVERTISEMENT TO VOL. XI. : Ir is the wish of the Editor to exonerate the Publisher, as far as may be, from the delay attendant on the production of the present volume. He could say much of the weariness and painfulness, with which, in the midst of overwhelming duties and failing health, he has brought another portion of his labours to a close but he will content himself by observing, that to the production of the Latin Theology of Bishop Hall in a creditable manner,—with a correct text, a careful translation, and notes of reference diligently collated, and many either amended or supplied, that to these objects he has devoted not only a large amount of time, but the best of his powers, bodily as well as mental. Among scholars like himself, the language of the Bishop will find admirers enough, without any such commendations as the Editor could presume to offer. The sportive panegyric applied to his Latinity by one of old,—" Cui nihil inest acre, nihil acerbum, præter stranguriæ calculique cruciatus ;"—would suggest a degree of excellence far below the truth. More justly observes the venerable friend, to whom the public are indebted for the recovery of the Roma Irreconciliabilis" in its present shape:-" His Latin style is much better than that of most of the learned persons of his day, and exhibits the same easy natural sweetness, which so remarkably distinguished his English compositions." 66 It may be right perhaps for the Editor to explain the arrangement adopted in the second and fifth of the pieces comprised in the ensuing pages: which, as presented to the eye of the reader, may naturally lead him to suppose, that the English is the original, and the Latin the translation. The fact is, that with the "Meditatiuncula" such was really the case: and the thought arose at first out of an accidental circumstance, that it might be well (for want of a better expedient) to adopt the like method for distinguishing the "Roma Irreconciliabilis" also, as being, both in Latin and in English, the composition of the Bishop, from those pieces, of which the translation has been supplied by other hands. The Editor has now only to add, in the name of the Publisher as well as in his own, that by the time that vol. xi. has reached the hands of subscribers, vol. xii. will be half finished; and may be confidently promised in the course of the ensuing month. Chelsea, April 2, 1839. P. H. |