PREFACE.

These I obtained through the mediation of F. Thiersch, who believed that the kindness with which he had guided and moderated my studies as a young man should not be withheld from one whose spirit he deservedly trusted was not alienated from him, even though my person was far from his eyes. Of these manuscripts, some were sent to me, while others in Munich were examined at my request by C. Machtius, my former beloved student and now a master at the Spirensian school. I was supplied with other editions by nearby libraries, and I purchased some myself.

Equipped with these resources, I hoped I could carry out my plan, and I wished this to be public knowledge so that I would not suffer as I did with Seneca: that I would learn too late that I was laboring at a task already snatched away by another. I made this intention known 2), and at the same time asked that if anyone possessed something that might assist my work, they should communicate it to me. This was not in vain. For Kilia Ed. Osenbrueggen, now a professor at Dorpat and an imperial court advisor to the Russians, sent me a copy of the Gryphian edition of 1550, which I. A. Ernst reports in his Bibliotheca Latina (vol. III, p. 185) that he once possessed, with a marginal note of variant readings from a manuscript of the monastery of St. Gall. From Dorpat, M. L. Mercklin sent annotations he found inscribed in the margin of a London edition. Other materials were offered to me from Hamburg by L. Tross and from Nuremberg by Joach. Meyer.

Once these were sifted, I sought other copies, especially of the Saturnalia. From C. P. C. Schoenemann—whose primary concern is that the resources of the Wolfenbüttel library, over which he presides, should contribute as much as possible to the advancement of letters—I easily obtained, with the necessary permission for manuscripts to be sent abroad, a codex containing the three books of the Saturnalia. And Francesco de Furia, who even after fifteen years had not forgotten the time when I had inquired into Plinian codices in the Florentine libraries, very kindly took care to have three Medicean codices inspected for me in whatever places I desired. When the opportunity arose for the centennial celebration of the Friedrich-Alexander Academy, I published a specimen of my Macrobian studies 3). Shortly thereafter, with the kind intervention of C. B. Hase and

2) Cf. Zeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft, 1841, No. 113.
3) Cf. the dissertation titled: The rector and professors of the Royal Ludovician Gymnasium offer their pious prayers and congratulations on the occasion of the centennial celebration of the Royal Friedrich-Alexander Academy, to be held on August 23, 24, and 25. Containing Ludwig Jan’s Symbols for the Emendation of Macrobius’s Books of the Saturnalia. Schweinfurt, 1843.