TO THE RIGHT REVEREND CONNOP THIRLWALL, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVIDS, ETC., ETC.
Leonhard Schmitz translation
My Dear Lord,
Independently of your merits as a profound historian and an inquirer into the institutions and languages of the Ancient World, whereby you have given a fresh impulse and a new life to the scholarship of this country, I cannot, as a pupil of the illustrious Niebuhr, call to mind what you have done to make British scholars familiar with his labours without a sense of deep gratitude. This feeling is heightened by the unvarying friendship with which you have honoured me during the last sixteen years, and which I have always found ready and willing to assist, in whatever circumstances it was appealed to. The very idea of publishing any of the Lectures of Niebuhr would, perhaps, never have occurred to me, had it not been suggested by your Lordship. Some fifteen years ago, when you inspected my MS. notes of the Lectures on Ancient, and especially on Greek, History, you at once perceived their value, and urged on me the desirableness of their publication. With a natural timidity I at first shrank from so arduous and responsible an undertaking; and it was not till I found that no one else would venture upon it, that I resolved to do my best to carry out your suggestion and to rescue those precious remains from oblivion. It is now pretty generally admitted that these Lectures are doing some service to the study of classical antiquity, and it affords me the greatest satisfaction to have this opportunity of publicly acknowledging that, in the first instance, the public is indebted to your Lordship for whatever benefit their publication has conferred upon the students of ancient history. My own humble but conscientious labour, in bringing them before the British public, will be amply rewarded, if the manner in which I have executed my task should meet with your approbation. With this hope I beg your Lordship’s acceptance of the present volumes as a small tribute to your genius and learning, and as a token of the veneration and gratitude with which I shall ever remain,
My dear Lord, Your’s faithfully and sincerely,
L. Schmitz.