the reason for translating afresh beccaria’s ‘dei delitti e delle pene’ (‘crimes and punishments’) is, that it is a classical work of its kind, and that the interest which belongs to it is still far from being merely historical.

it was translated into english long ago; but the change in the order of the several chapters and paragraphs, which the work underwent before it was clothed in its final dress, is so great, that the new translation and the old one really constitute quite different books.

the object of the preliminary chapters is to place the historical importance of the original in its just light, and to increase the interest of the subjects it discusses.

the translator has abstained from all criticism or comment of the original, less from complete agreement[vi] with all its ideas than from the conviction that annotations are more often vexatious than profitable, and are best left to the reader to make for himself. there is scarcely a sentence in the book on which a commentator might not be prolix.

to combine the maximum of perspicuity with the maximum of fidelity to the original has been the cardinal principle observed in the translation. but it would, of course, have been no less impossible than contrary to the spirit of the original to have attempted to render perfectly comprehensible what the author purposely wrapped in obscurity. a translation can but follow the lights and shades of the surface it reflects, rendering clear what is clear in the original, and opaque what is opaque.