Marcus Fabius Quinctilianus [sic] his Institutes of Eloquence: or, the Art of Speaking in Public... Translated into English... with notes, critical and explanatory, by William Guthrie. In Two Volumes. Vol. I [-II].

Bookseller Notes

A pleasing copy of Scottish journalist and historian William Guthrie's (1708-1770) vernacular edition of Quintilian. John Selby Watson, who accompanied his own edition (1891) with commentary on previous translations, had little good to say of Guthrie's version: 'The quality most remarkable in Guthrie [...] is his audacity; he was resolved to give some English for Quintilian's sentences, and when he could not see the sense, either by the light of his own scanty learning or of Gedoyn's French, he boldly excogitated something and thrust on his reader the offspring of his own mind for that of Quintilians'. Guthrie's Quintilian passed muster for a mid eighteenth-century audience however, and he established a robust reputation as a literary translator. He combined this with a successful career as a political writer, which he began by reporting on parliamentary debates for the Gentleman's Magazine, under the editorship of Samuel Johnson.