PREFACE. 
Vll 
Petersburgh; and the same personages which Le Brim represents 
in the year 1704, with their noses, mouths, and beards mutilated, 
re-appear, quite whole in every feature, in the drawings of 
Niebuhr from Persia, in the year 1765. You will confess, that 
without some miracle, both these accounts cannot be true; 
yet this phenomenon actually presents itself on the plates of 
these two travellers; and Chardin shews the like inaccuracy to 
so great an extent, that I know not to which to yield any 
belief. * In short, I cannot but repeat the old French proverb, 
£ A beau mentir qui vient de loin.’ 
“ In this great perplexity to a lover of antiquity, I place my 
confidence in your plain dealing; that you will decide the con¬ 
troversy, by taking the trouble to make your drawings on the 
spot, and with scrupulous exactness copying the object before 
you line by line. Indeed, I conjure you, in the name of the 
Holy Antiquity , to mark down nothing but what you actually 
see ; nothing suppose ; nothing repair. I only beg you to re¬ 
present the original ancient remains “ tali quali, in statu quo.” 
“ By this simple matter-of-fact representation, we shall at 
last obtain a true idea of the progress which the arts made 
amongst the Persians ; and may become better acquainted with 
the forms of their ancient writing ; whether they did, or did not 
divide their letters with stops, and each word with a cuneiform 
character placed obliquely. Besides, I hope through your ob- 
* See Sir Robert Ker Porter’s copy of the same bas-relief, Plate XXXVII. 
