Philosophical Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Vol. 3

had been established, so that for more advanced students, for whom the editor had persuaded himself that the reading of the most noble Philosopher would be neither useless nor unpleasant, affordable copies could be placed into their hands 1; he had deemed that his primary task was to ensure that only the bare text, recognized according to the newest Leipzig edition 2 (in such a way, indeed, that he would occasionally follow his own judgment), be described accurately and neatly: and he faithfully performed that very task, with two most elegant volumes brought to light at Frankfurt-on-the-Main by Varrentrapp and Wenner in the year 1808. Now, when the first volume was almost completed and the booksellers had requested of the Editor that he also apply his mind to writing a Commentary, intending to comply with their wishes, he thought that, in addition to other things he had realized must be procured for this purpose, new resources should also be sought out, which he might use in investigating and establishing the true reading according to the laws of critical art. With this intent, when the learned man had discovered from Fabricius' Bibliotheca Latina that a far older codex of Seneca's Epistles was kept in the library of the Strasbourg Academy, he approached me by letter, as he knew the care of this library had been entrusted to me, asking either that I transmit that codex to him, or, if that could not be done, that I take care to have it collated with a printed copy and the excerpted readings communicated to him. Indeed, wishing to gratify his most honorable desire as much as I could, I gladly undertook the task of examining the codex, also employing in addition two other Codices which the same Library possesses—none to be despised; and soon I sent a specimen of the readings excerpted from the first four Epistles to the most learned man, with a brief critical assessment attached, in which I candidly set forth what seemed to me, by the prescription of the codices and the principal editions, to be changed in the common copies of these Epistles. Matthiæ, easily understanding from those specimens how many things remained even now in the entire book of Epistles to be purged and polished, and partly to be restored to the author—having been rashly taken away from him in the past—and partly to be cast out...

1 I use the very words of the Editor himself, with which he discussed this edition in the Program mentioned a little earlier.
2 The same one which I said a little earlier was prepared by Ruhkopf.