PREFACE.
“An editor, or a translator, collects the merits of different writers, and, forming all into a wreath, bestows it on his author’s tomb.”—Shenstone.
The world is indebted to the late Professor Karl Friedrich Neumann, for having rendered the perusal of Johann Schiltberger’s travels generally accessible. Until his edition of the Heidelberg MS. appeared, in 1859, there had been no publication of the interesting work, in its integrity, since the year 1700, the supposed date of an edition, sine anno, sine loco; so that, as a fact, the work had become scarce, and could be consulted in a few libraries only, or in private collections of rare books. In 1813, and again in 1814, was published Abraham Jacob Penzel’s edition of what was known as the Nuremberg MS.; but its sole merit consisted in the insertion of Proper and Geographical names in their original orthography, the work being otherwise vitiated by its modern and paraphrased style, and by the introduction of passages, of which Schiltberger never could have been the author.
Scheiger[1] condemns this book as being written in a very extraordinary and uncommonly empty style, in which the narrative of the honest old Bavarian drags itself along very uncouthly. Tobler[2] stigmatises it as being an unhappy translation into modern German, with no Introduction; and Neumann,[3] a still severer critic, says:—“This edition, in its modern garb, does honour to nobody. The additions to the original text are absurd, and testify to the editor’s ignorance of Schiltberger’s character, and of the times in which he lived. Take, for instance, the following sentence, with which Penzel concludes the author’s address to the reader:—‘Just as the doctor smears with honey the glass of physic prepared for a sick child, so have I also, as an agreeable pastime, introduced here and there some wonderful stories which, I flatter myself, will prove agreeable and instructive reading.’” Neumann might have added, that Penzel was not even the originator of the idea conveyed in this passage, evidently borrowed from Tasso!
“Sai, che là corre il mondo, ove più versi
Di sue dolcezze il lusinghier Parnaso,
E che ’l vero condito in molli versi
I più schivi allettando ha persuaso.
Così all’ egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi