[Editor: This is the preface from The Eureka Stockade by Raffaello Carboni. A glossary has been provided to explain various words and phrases that may be unfamiliar to modern readers.]
Nota bene
In person I solicit no subscription — in writing I hereby ask no favour from my reader. A book must stand or fall by the truth contained in it.
What I wish to note is this: I was taught the English language by the Very Reverend W. Vincent Eyre, Vice Rector of the English College, Rome. It has cost me immense pains to rear my English up to the mark; but I could never master the language to perfection. Hence, now and then, probably to the annoyance of my Readers, I could not help the foreign idiom. Of course, a proper edition, in Italian, will be published in Turin.
I have nothing further to say.
CARBONI RAFFAELLO.
Prince Albert Hotel, Bakery Hill,
Ballaarat,
Anniversary of the Burning of Bentley’s Eureka Hotel, 1855.
Source:
Raffaello Carboni. The Eureka Stockade: The Consequence of Some Pirates Wanting on Quarter-Deck a Rebellion, Public Library of South Australia, Adelaide, 1962 [facsimile of the 1855 edition]
Editor’s notes:
nota bene = (Italian) “note well”; from the Latin notāre (“to note”) and bene (“well”) [commonly abbreviated as “n.b.”, used in texts to call attention to a notation of significance]
The Institute of Australian Culture
Speak Your Mind