The Best of the Worlds Classics, Restricted to prose. | Page 3

prolog of his Almagest,[4] he (he says) is not dead, who gave life to science.
What learned scribe, therefore, who draws out things new and old from an infinite treasury of books, will limit their price by any other thing whatsoever of another kind? Truth, overcoming all things, which ranks above kings, wine, and women, to honor which above friends obtains the benefit of sanctity, which is the way that deviates not, and the life without end, to which the holy Boethius attributes a threefold existence in the mind, in the voice, and in writing, appears to abide most usefully and fructify most productively of advantage in books. For the truth of the voice perishes with the sound. Truth, latent in the mind, is hidden wisdom and invisible treasure; but the truth which illuminates books, desires to manifest itself to every disciplinable sense, to the sight when read, to the hearing when heard; it, moreover, in a manner commends itself to the touch, when submitting to be transcribed, collated, corrected, and preserved. Truth confined to the mind, tho it may be the possession of a noble soul, while it wants a companion and is not judged of, either by the sight or the hearing, appears to be inconsistent with pleasure. But the truth of the voice is open to the hearing only, and latent to the sight (which shows as many differences of things fixt upon by a most subtle motion), beginning and ending as it were simultaneously. But the truth written in a book being not fluctuating, but permanent, shows itself openly to the sight passing through the spiritual ways of the eyes, as the porches and halls of common sense and imagination; it enters the chamber of intellect, reposes itself upon the couch of memory, and there congenerates the eternal truth of the mind.
Lastly, let us consider how great a commodity of doctrine exists in books, how easily, how secretly, how safely they expose the nakedness of human ignorance without putting it to shame. These are the masters that instruct us without rods and ferulas, without hard words and anger, without clothes or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble, if you are ignorant, they can not laugh at you.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: From the "Philobiblon," a treatise on books, translated from the original Latin into English in 1852 by John Englis. The Latin text and a new translation by Andrew J. West were printed by the Grolier Club of New York in 1887.]
[Footnote 2: The reference is to Julius C?sar.]
[Footnote 3: The Roman Consul, general and ambassador to Pyrrhus in 280, who was noted for inflexible honesty.]
[Footnote 4: The best-known work of Ptolemy of Alexandria, astronomer and mathematician, who lived in the first half of the second century.]

SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
Reputed author of a book of "Travels" of the fourteenth century, a compilation intended as a guide to pilgrims in the Holy Land, and based upon works by William of Boldensele (1336) and Friar Odoric of Pordenone (1330).

I.
THE ROUTE FROM ENGLAND TO CONSTANTINOPLE[5]
He that will pass over the sea and come to land, to go to the city of Jerusalem, he may wend many ways, both on sea and land, after the country that he cometh from; for many of them come to one end. But trow not that I will tell you all the towns, and cities and castles that men shall go by; for then should I make too long a tale; but all only some countries and most principal steads that men shall go through to go the right way.
First, if a man come from the west side of the world, as England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, or Norway, he may, if that he will, go through Almayne and through the kingdom of Hungary, that marches to the land of Polayne, and to the land of Pannonia,[6] and so to Silesia.
And the King of Hungary is a great lord and a mighty, and holds great lordships and much land in his hand. For he holds the kingdom of Hungary, Sclavonia, and of Comania a great part, and of Bulgaria that men call the land of Bougiers, and of the realm of Russia a great part, whereof he has made a duchy, that lasts unto the land of Nyfland,[7] and marches to Prussia. And men go through the land of this lord, through a city that is called Cypron,[8] and by the castle of Neasburghe, and by the evil town, that sit toward the end of Hungary. And there pass men the river Danube. This river of Danube is a full great river, and it goeth into Almayne, under the hills of Lombardy, and it receives into him forty other rivers, and it