[18] This strange association of _Balor_ (_i.e._, Bolor, that name of so many odd vicissitudes, see pp. 178–179 _infra_) with the shut-up Israelites must be traced to a passage which Athanasius Kircher quotes from _R. Abraham Pizol_ (qu. Peritsol?): “_Regnum_, inquit, Belor _magnum et excelsum nimis, juxta omnes illos qui scripserunt Historicos_. Sunt in eo Judaei _plurimi inclusi, et illud in latere Orientali et Boreali_,” etc. (_China Illustrata_, p. 49.) [19] Vol. ii. p. 1. [20] _A short Account of Libraries of Italy_, by the Hon. R. Curzon (the late Lord de la Zouche); in _Bibliog. and Hist. Miscellanies; Philobiblon Society_, vol. i, 1854, pp. 6. _seqq._ [21] P. del Natali was Bishop of Equilio, a city of the Venetian Lagoons, in the latter part of the 14th century. (See _Ughelli, Italia Sacra_, X. 87.) There is no ground whatever for connecting him with these inventions. The story of the glass types appears to rest entirely and solely on one obscure passage of Sansovino, who says that under the Doge Marco Corner (1365–1367): “_certe Natale Veneto lasciò un libro della materie delle forme da giustar intorno alle lettere, ed il modo di formarle di vetro_.” There is absolutely nothing more. Some kind of stencilling seems indicated. [22] _History of Printing in China and Europe_, in _Philobiblon_, vol. vi. p. 23. [23] See _Appendix L_. in First Edition. [24] Ramusio himself appears to have been entirely unconscious of it, _vide supra_, p. 3. [25] This subject has been fully treated in _Cathay and the Way Thither_. XIV. EXPLANATIONS REGARDING THE BASIS ADOPTED FOR THE PRESENT TRANSLATION. 89. It remains to say a few words regarding the basis adopted for our English version of the Traveller’s record. [Sidenote: Text followed by Marsden and by Pauthier.] Ramusio’s recension was that which Marsden selected for translation. But at the date of his most meritorious publication nothing was known of the real literary history of Polo’s Book, and no one was aware of the peculiar value and originality of the French manuscript texts, nor had Marsden seen any of them. A translation from one of those texts is a translation at first hand; a translation from Ramusio’s Italian is, as far as I can judge, the translation of a translated compilation from two or more translations, and therefore, whatever be the merits of its matter, inevitably carries us far away from the spirit and style of the original narrator. M. Pauthier, I think, did well in adopting for the text of his edition the MSS. which I have classed as of the second Type, the more as there had hitherto been no publication from those texts. But editing a text in the original language, and translating, are tasks substantially different in their demands. [Sidenote: Eclectic formation of the English Text of this Translation.]