Henrici Stephani Epistola, qua ad multas multorum amicorum respondet, de suae typographiae statu, nominatimque de suo Thesauro linguae graecae. In posteriore autem ejus parte, quam misera sit hoc tempore veterum scriptorum conditio, in quorundam typographorum prela incidentium, exponit. Index librorum qui ex officina ejusdem Henrici Stephani hactenus prodierunt

EPIST. AD QVOSDAM AM. 11

For few things from Budaeus, and other suitable authors, were described, and those indeed not very faithfully (inasmuch as they were not well understood); many things, on the contrary, from Lapo Florentinus, Leonardo Aretino, and other interpreters of the same flour (so that they might have lettuce leaves matching their lips) were transferred into that work. From those places, indeed, in whose interpretation Laurentius Valla was fortunate, they brought forth very few: but according to their own perverse judgment, they chose all his most perverse interpretations (such as you will see almost countless numbers annotated by me in the Latin editions of Herodotus and Thucydides) to decorate that work, as if they were gems. But if I should wish to commemorate not how many, but only how many kinds of errors are there, I will surely rightly exclaim: ἡ ὥρη, ἡ δ’ ἔπειτα, ἡ δ’ ὑστέρον καταλέξω the time for that, and then, and later I shall recount. For I think it is difficult for us to imagine or invent any kind of error of which there is not some example there. Therefore, it will suffice to have indicated the more frequent ones. In which number can be placed by us (not to go far away) those which are had in those two places I mentioned just before. For who (to omit the rest) not only possessed of some knowledge of the Greek language, but even of common sense, would not notice that it is not at all consistent with reason that one and the same verb, βαίνω, by itself and without any addition, be said to signify both to ascend and to descend? But that the same verb is explained as to love and to flatter, the occasion for this so insolent and absurd exposition was provided by a faulty copy of Hesychius in that word. But he will not wonder much (indeed he ought not to wonder) who will find therein Αὐθαίρετος self-chosen explained as Simple, True, Manifest, Short: and Ημιδαμής half-tamed, as Tamed by the sword: