These two performances
illustrate the last quality in Gordon, and in the old writers, to which I
shall draw attention: they were always restrained in their utterances, and
therefore they could be discriminating in their judgments; they could be
emphatic without noise, and deep without obscurity, ornamental but not
vulgar, carefully arranged but not stiff or artificial. They exhibit the
three indispensable gifts of the finest authorship: "simplicitas
munditiis," "lucidus ordo," "curiosa felicitas."
In this volume, Gordon's punctuation has been generally followed: his
orthography has been modernised a little, though not by my hands, nor with
my consent; and I have observed without regret, that some of Gordon's
original spellings have eluded the vigilance of the printer: that stern
official would by no means listen to my entreaties for the long "SS," the
turn-over words, or the bounteous capitals, which add so much to the
seductive and sober dignity of an eighteenth-century page; but, on the
whole, we have given a tolerable reproduction of Gordon's folio. In the
second edition, he himself made more changes than improvements.
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