4 Charles William Wallace 



however, that a mere report would be either adequate to the 

 materials or just to the student of literary history. Both scien- 

 tific accuracy and faithfulness to matter and reader justify and 

 require the printing of these documents in extenso, even though 

 they be verbose and prolix. The writers of them, three cen- 

 turies ago, did not have an eye to our present day ignorance of or 

 unfamiliarity with or injudicial criticism concerning their forms 

 of expression, methods of spelling, punctuation, &c. In being 

 faithful, therefore, to the documents in word and letter, so far 

 as the present printer's facilities allow, I am doing neither more 

 nor less than honest dealing with them demands. 



In this sort of work the ideal for the scholar is the original 

 document itself. The next approach to it is the photographic 

 facsimile. Next to that is the type-facsimile, with all signs of 

 contraction presented. It is falling somewhat short of my ideal 

 to have none of these. But since the signs of contraction would 

 require to be specially cast for this matter, I follow the next 

 best method, by expanding into italics all signs of contraction, 

 and making a type-facsimile of all else. When no sign of con- 

 traction is found in the original, the shortened form is not here 

 expanded. There is, therefore, in these expansions no " method " 

 or " system " or " uniformity," such as only the unscholastic could 

 wish, but a rigid adherence to the documents themselves, such as 

 every scholar has a right to demand. You will find, for example, 

 such as " pi", " pit ", " pl l ", and plaintiff, all for the same thing, 

 because only in this last form does the original have a stroke 

 above or through the short form which the present fonts are not 

 provided with. If faithfulness of representation alone did not 

 demand keeping these ununi fortuities, they should still be re- 

 tained for the very flavor of antiquity they give. If such forms 

 and the irregular spellings, with capitals and punctuation dis- 

 tributed at random, seem to some no more than merely " quaint," 

 their effect will not have been wholly lost. 



Superior letters are kept, long "/" is represented by modern 

 short " s ", and signs of contraction, as above, are expanded 

 into italics. Otherwise the print aims to be faithful to the origi- 

 nal. Words in square brackets [thus] are not in the documents, 



290 



