Huyshe Vindication of the Parisian Press (HTML)

FRANCIS HUYSHE

Vindication
of the
Early Parisian Greek Press

A Correspondence extracted from:
The British Magazine (London) Vol III. 1833:
pp. 283ff., 427ff., 548ff., 658ff.
and
The British Magazine (London) Vol. IV. 1833:
pp. 29ff., 161ff., 276ff., 411ff., 530ff., 632ff., 757ff.

An examination of the sources and methods of Robert Stephens in
his production of the Textus Receptus Editio Regia

In which reference is made to,
and to which accordingly is prefaced:

A
SPECIMEN

OF AN

INTENDED PUBLICATION
(1827)

by the same author

A
SPECIMEN

OF AN

INTENDED PUBLICATION

WHICH WAS TO HAVE BEEN ENTITLED

A VINDICATION OF THEM THAT HAVE THE RULE OVER US, FOR
THEIR NOT HAVING CUT OUT THE DISPUTED PASSAGE,
I JOHN V. 7, 8. FROM THE AUTHORISED VERSION.

BEING

AN EXAMINATION
OF THE
FIRST SIX PAGES OF PROFESSOR PORSON’S FOURTH LETTER TO TRAVIS,

“OF THE MSS. USED BY R. STEPHENS.”

BY FRANCIS HUYSHE.
_______

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR C. J. RIVINGTON,
ST. PAUL’S CHURCH-YARD,
AND WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL
______

1827

{Editor’s Note: the following work is an analysis and rejection of the criticism attacking Stephanus’ claims regarding the manuscripts he used to produce the Editio Regia 1550. In this work, the “Specimen,” the focus is on Stephanus’ text at I John 5. 7 (the so called “Johannine Comma”). Stephanus based his text on manuscripts obtained from the Royal Library of France, which were later confiscated by the Roman Catholic authorities because he was suspected of “heresy.” The disappearance of these manuscripts was later used by critics to accuse Stephanus “by error or fraud” of having forged his Greek Testament. This charge is thoroughly refuted here by Huyshe. One example of the charges leveled at Stephanus is that when he listed in his margin “all” the manuscripts which he had showing a different reading from those he used for the text itself, it was imagined he meant “all” the manuscripts in toto had the reading that was different from that found in the text, not merely “all” the opposing or variant manuscripts, which could only mean Stephanus invented the reading in the text himself! This ludicrous idea contributed to the belief that Stephanus based his text mainly on the 5th edition of Erasmus and the Complutensian printed text. That is amazingly still the accepted “scholarly” consensus today. Which is why it is important to publish more widely the amazing and thorough refutation of such critics by Huyshe.

Additionally it should be noted that Francis Huyshe acknowledges a fault in the Specimen as here reproduced, which he admits on p. 634 of the Vindication (p. 90f. Infra):

“I must not quit [the manuscript] ιε without making due acknowledgment of my faults, and of my obligation to this note (ii. 782, note 275) for its having made me sensible of them. An abominable blunder pervades the Specimen, which blindly follows the Docti et Prudentes, {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} in representing the whole of the fifteen marked MSS. to have been taken to furnish opposing readings to the first volume of the folio. I trust that in future I shall have enough of that σωφρων απιστια, {Greek: “sensible unbelief”} which Mr. Porson so justly recommends, p. 163, never again to trust to their representations. Wherever the marked MSS. of Stephanus’s margin are mentioned in the specimen, the reader will now see that instead of xv. which the pamphlet gives, it ought to have been “the first thirteen;” and he is requested to correct it accordingly.}

ADVERTISEMENT
_______

THIS publication is occasioned by an advertisement in the newspapers, which announced, that we might expect a Defense of Mr. Porson against Bishop Burgess, by Crito Cantabrigiensis. {Crito Cantabrigiensis is the pseudonym of Thomas Turton, Regius Professor of Divinity, St. Catherine’s Cambridge, 1827-1842.} My veneration of the abilities and acquirements of Mr. Porson is unbounded: “forty thousand” sons “could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.” {From Hamlet V. i. 254-256.} I can speak of him only, as Dr. Parr does, “Richard Porson, του πανυ θαυμαστου {Greek: “the most amazing”}.” But if you talk of “an invincible love of truth, an inflexible probity,” you sap the foundation of my idolatry; and he stands within the prospect of comparison with his blundering correspondent. The reader has before him a specimen of my reasons for saying, that if the world was taken captive by him at his will; his own understanding did not bow to that will. And I have to make my grateful acknowledgments to Crito Cantabrigiensis, for his irresistible excitement to this part of my proposed work; as the whole probably would otherwise have been deferred till the night cometh, when no man can work. Should he think this not sufficient to establish my opinion; he shall have more of it; and he shall have it too, upon the Complutensian edition, and the Ravian MS.; upon Erasmus’s third edition, and the MS. that was sent to him from England; upon the kindred reading discovered in the Montfortian MS.; upon the West African recension; and above all, upon the internal testimony of the passage—till he cries “hold, enough.” But I am not without my hopes, that the favour, conferred upon me by Crito Cantabrigiensis, may be repaid by my saving him the expense of paper and print: and I feel confident of being allowed to doze out whatever may yet remain of the evening of life, without interruption from any other quarter. I have not to learn the truth of what the Trojan lady said,

λογος γαρ εκ τ᾽αδοξουντων ιων
Κἀκ δοκουντων αυτος ου ταυτον σθενει

{Greek: “….. the word that goes forth from those undeserving of credit, and even from those worthy of credit, does not validate the same.”}

And I am satisfied with thus publicly entering my protest on these heads; and with having furnished a clue, by which any one, who will use a little industry, may extricate himself from that labyrinth of fraud, which nearly two centuries have now been constructing round Stephanus and the received text.

July, 1827.

EXAMINATION,
&c.

____________

MR. PORSON in his fourth Letter attacks the testimony of Stephanus to the disputed passage of St. John; and he prefixes the motto,

“What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?”

{From Macbeth 4. 1. 122.} I reply, not by my pulling. I claim nothing here but the authority of one of Stephanus’s unmarked MSS.

The Letter begins, p. 54.

“How formidable an host you are now leading to battle! Sixteen MSS. of Robert Stephens, all containing the heavenly witnesses! We may however spare our alarms; for all these MSS, upon a nearer inspection will prove Phantoms bodiless and vain, empty visions of the brain.”

I cannot be satisfied with calling them “empty visions.” If Mr. Porson had not taught me, p. 26, to “acquiesce in the milder accusation of shameful and enormous ignorance;” I should have declared that the man who could possibly cite any of those sixteen copies, must have been bribed to betray the cause, and to ruin the authority of Stephanus’s editions. After Mr. Porson’s having demonstrated, as he certainly has done, that “the semicircle is wrong placed” in the text of the folio (i.e. that it ought to have comprehended not merely εν τῳ ουρανῳ {Greek: “in heaven”} as not appearing in the seven MSS. of the margin, but the whole of what [Specimen 2] is now most commonly marked for excision)*

*{Editor’s Note: The reference here is to the text of Stephanus 1550 at I John 5. 7. This reads in translation: “There are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.” Stephanus’ manuscripts which he used for his reading read “in heaven” but to the left of the Greek words “in heaven” he placed a diagonally-angled mark, and to the right of them a “semicircle” to show that the seven manuscripts quoted in the margin at this place, did not include the words “in heaven.” Thus:

From this we see that his main set of manuscripts used for the text itself included the words “in heaven” but the manuscripts labeled in the margin δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, and γ, did not include those words. Because these variant manuscripts (omitting the words “in heaven”) are no where to be found nowadays (having been confiscated or destroyed by the Roman Catholic authorities in the early days of the Reformation, along with the manuscripts used for the text itself), it is concluded wrongly by the critics refuted here by Huyshe that the whole phrase “there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one” etc. is what Stephanus intended to mark as not appearing in his manuscripts.}

he says, p. 82, “when we add to this that Wetstein found at Paris five manuscripts, which agree with five of Stephens’s manuscripts in other places, but here contradicted his margin, none will hesitate to pronounce, that Stephens’s copies followed the herd, and omitted the seventh verse, except only those, who by a diligent perusal of Tertullian have adopted his maxim of reasoning, and measure the merits of their assent by the absurdity of the proposition to be believed.” I ask, which of “Stephens’s copies followed the herd?” People may perhaps be deterred from putting this question, for fear of sharing the fate of Tertullianus; for whom by the bye, I think that I could have said enough to have shamed Mr. Porson. If the question had ever been asked; what could Mr. P. have stated more than those out of the fifteen MSS. of the margin, which happened to have this chapter? But let it be observed, that we are establishing the received text, and not opposing it—that we are not contending for the reading of the MSS. of Stephanus’s margin, which differ from the text; but for that of the text of his first and his second edition, which he very properly followed in the third.

P. 54, “I shall lay down the real state of the case, and then confute your cavils. Mr. Gibbon gives his readers the option between fraud and error.”

Yes; Mr. Gibbon does give his readers the option, and so leaves me no option for my opinion with respect to himself. Ch. xxxvii, note 119, “The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by …… the typographical fraud or error of Robert Stephens in the placing a crotchet.” I have no objection whatsoever to one gentleman’s demonstrating that the “crotchet” was placed falsely by fraud; and another demonstrating that it was misplaced by error. But if this identical Mr. Gibbon can show cause for intimating that it was done by fraud, where was the blunder? if he can show, that it must have been by mistake, how am I to characterize the [Specimen 3] insinuation of fraud, that is thrown out in the same breath? Mr. Gibbon then is so kind as to give his readers the option, where he had no right to speak, if he could not decide. But this complaisance is amply compensated by his peremptory decision, that the wrong placing of his crotchet was typographical. I am not aware that he or any of the learned gentlemen, who refuse their readers the option, (as Mr. Porson does, particularly at p. 132) have assigned any ground for suspecting that the compositor did not place the lunula as it stood in the MS. And if I depended on that silence alone, I think I may venture to defy any man to show a reason for the assumption of the error being typographical, but that Stephanus is not to be got rid of without it.

P.54. “I am always unwilling to attribute to fraud what I can with any reasonable pretence attribute to error. But if any person be more suspicious than I am, he needs not be frightened from his opinion by your declamation.”

Certainly not by Mr. Travis’s declamation: but he is fool hardy indeed, if he be not frightened by Mr. Porson’s silence. Let us see how this gentleman, that is to be “more suspicious than” Mr. Porson, is to argue.

P. 54. bott. “For when he considers how Erasmus was worried for speaking his mind too freely, —”

We may find out how this was from Mr. Porson at p. 354. “From these examples, I hope, it will appear, how falsely that infamous villain Erasmus asserted that Christ is seldom called God in the N.T.” Erasmus had asserted in his first edition, on John i. I., “haud scio an usquam legatur dei cognomen aperte tributum Christo, in apostolorum aut evangelistarum literis praeterquam in duobus aut tribus locis.” {Latin: “I do not know whether the cognomen of ‘God’ is ever attached plainly to Christ in the writings of the apostles and evangelists except in two or three places.”} For this he was “worried:” and I trust that there never will be a time, when a man shall presume upon the ignorance of others, to make such an assertion, without being worried. Erasmus then makes what excuse [Specimen 4] he can, in his second edition, and in his answer to Stunica; and abandons his assertion. Observe now the suspicious gentleman’s mode of reasoning. Erasmus was worried for speaking his mind too freely in a note on the indisputable text, John i. 1.; therefore Stephanus, in stating what those MSS. said, that opposed the reading of his editions on 1 John v. 7, 8, was wilfully to place his marks wrong. Was Erasmus worried for giving nothing but what he found in his MSS. on our passage? If you think so, you cheat yourself by adding to the Professor’s words. Mr. Porson dared not say so. He tells you himself plainly enough how far Erasmus was from being worried for the omission. “I ask, therefore,” says he, p. 45, “what could induce Stunica, who is at other times scarcely less virulent against Erasmus than Mr. Travis himself is, what could induce him to be so mild and tame in this particular instance?” But this is not all: the Pope himself actually patronized Erasmus’s second edition, which exactly followed the first on this passage. (Butler, Hor. Bib. xi. p. 151. ed. 4. Butler’s Life of Erasmus, p. 172. Maces, note p. 929. and 934.)

P. 55 “—and with what jealousy R. Stephens was watched by the Paris divines—”

Mr. P. here omits to inform you to what point that jealousy went; as he did before, for what Erasmus was worried. We may turn then to Simon, Versions x. p. 134, b. “Je diray seulement en general, que R. Estienne y avoit inseré a dessein quelques expressions ambigües qui favorisent les sentimens des Protestans:” {French: “I would say in general that R. Stephens had inserted deliberately certain ambiguous expressions which favored the views of the Protestants:”} and Comment. xxxix. p. 566. a. “Mais il s’attira cette censure, ayant affecté de certaines notes qui sembloient favoriser les nouveautez des Protestans: {French: “But he brought upon himself this censure, having added certain notes which appear to favor the novelties of the Protestants:”}:” and when Henri II. gave him up to their will, he wrote, Nov. 25, 1548, “—ne voulant aucunement tolerer ne permettre chose qui soit pour detourner nos sujets de la droite voye Catholique—” {French: “not wishing at all to allow permitting anything which would lead to turning our subjects from the right Catholic way”.} And what effect this jealousy had upon Stephanus, may be seen from his editions of the Vulgate, where the lunula is constantly in its right place.

[Specimen 5] P. 55. “—— it cannot appear incredible that Stephens might make this seeming mistake on purpose;—”

“Seeming mistake.” It is not Mr. Porson’s mode to deal in seemings; and least of all on this point. Let the suspecter make it out to be a “seeming mistake” only; and the objections to the notation in Stephanus’s folio, become the “phantoms bodiless and vain.” Mr. Porson will then justify that enormous absurdity which Mr. Travis could believe, that there could have been found seven MSS. that agree in mangling the text, (I believe this is Mr. T.’s own expression,) by leaving out εν τῳ ουρανῳ {Greek: “in heaven”}, “But,” as Mr. Porson justly says, p. 69, “that seven Greek MSS. collected by the same person from different places; seven MSS. of different ages and merits, should all consent in a reading, that no critic or editor has been able, during the space of two centuries and a half, to find in any other MS. whatever, Greek or Latin, is such an excess of improbability, as the very men who maintain here, would be foremost to ridicule in any other dispute.” And Griesbach [7], 691 Lond. 1810, “Vix enim comminisci potuissent quidquam tam incredibile, quam est illa de codicibus Stephanicis fabula.” {Latin: “For they would hardly be able to recall a thing so unbelievable as that fable about Stephanus’s book-form manuscripts.”} And I am to be told by Mr. Porson, that “it cannot appear incredible,” that Stephanus might have made this “fabula”—this “excess of improbability” on purpose.

P. 55. “——so far, like Zacagni, (see Letter II. p. 33.) honest in his fraud, that he furnishes every inquisitive reader with the means of detection.”

For an instance of fraud in this case, Mr. P. is obliged, we see, again to have recourse to Zacagni. We shall see how far even Zacagni can serve him, if we are to go together over the passage here referred to.
After all, I say to those who are willing to attribute the wrong position of the lunula to fraud; and are not “frightened from” asserting that Stephanus made “this seeming mistake on [Specimen 6] purpose”—Can you not devise a method, by which he might have done this much more easily, to much better “purpose,” and by which it could never have been shewn to be even a “seeming mistake?” What think you of leaving a blank in his margin? His simple silence, as I conceive, would have supported this text, which he gave from his former editions, with all the marked MSS. that had the epistle. I see an obvious motive, then, for such a mistake as that being made on purpose. But by what means, I should like to know, was Stephanus ever to have had a suspicion of the possibility, that such exquisite management, and such intense stupidity, could meet together; so that it could be made the great question of criticism, whether or not he established the three heavenly witnesses in our Greek Testaments, by “the placing a crotchet?” By what means was he to foresee that there should be a Gibbon to be attacked by a Travis, and to be defended by a Porson and a Marsh? I can conceive nothing more futile, more absurd, than the introducing of the folio edition into this question, with the opposing readings of the fifteen MSS. of the margin. But I have thought it right to let the reader see what sort of justice is to be expected at the hands of Mr. Porson; when he can give his consent to have Stephanus condemned upon such grounds: “si poteris recte, si non, quocunquemodo” {Latin: “if you can, properly, if not, by any means whatsoever”}—

P. 55. “But as I am content with the other supposition, I say,—”

Mr. Porson is content, for himself, to attribute to error, what he cannot with any reasonable pretence attribute to fraud: so he says,

P. 55. “1. That Henry Stephens and not Robert collated the MSS.”

Mr. Porson has admirably adapted this to the phantoms of that brain, which could never dream of any thing but the collation of the marked MSS. for the margin of the folio. Let Mr. Porson, or any one of the learned and acute men who have [Specimen 7] made such an assertion as this, have changed places with the poor Archdeacon; and he would have enquired what collation was meant, and which set of MSS.*

{[Note:] * The Preface says “Superioribus diebus ——N. T.—— cum vetustissimis sedecim scriptis exemplaribus——collatum, minore forma, minutioribusque Regiis characteribus tibi excudimus. Idem nunc iterum et tertio cum iisdem collatum, majoribus vero etiam Regiis typis excusum tibi offerimus”—— {Latin: “At an earlier period ——the New Testament——collated——with sixteen very ancient hand-written exemplars, we printed for you in a smaller format, and with smaller Royal characters. This once again a third time also collated with the same exemplars, we provided to you in printed form in a larger Royal typeface.”}

It then proceeds to give an account of the margin, and of various readings preserved in it, where the new text of the folio differs from fifteen of the MSS. that had been obtained from all sources, and a printed edition, all of which are denoted by the Greek numerals.}

Robert tells us in the preface to the folio, that there were three collations of the XVI MSS. with which he began his critical career; and to whatever text they were referred, it was different from that with which the XV of the margin were collated; for that was the new text of that edition.

When Mr. P, is pleased to assert his negative, “and not Robert,” does he mean that he could give the slightest ground for suspicion that Robert never took part at any time, in any one of the collations? Why might not he, or any one of the ten learned foreigners, of whom Henry gives an account in his epistle prefixed to his Aulus Gellius, (Almeloveen, p. 31. Maittaire, p. 18.) or Vatable, in giving the readings of his own MS. ιγ, have borne a share in the collations? Can you show any one, besides Robert, who was concerned in the collation for the first edition? Certainly not Henry, for we shall see that he lays claim to the honour of collating only for the folio, and the duodecimo, which had just preceded it. Can you show any ground for asserting that none of the MSS., of any set, were in foreign countries—Spain, Germany, England, Italy; so that neither Robert nor Henry ever saw them themselves; but must have been furnished with the various readings by others?) Semler seems not to have thought any thing of the kind improbable. He says, in note 281 on Wetsten’s Proleg. p. 373, “Ceterum non est dubitandum, codices regios et qui in propinquo erant, non sine patris arbitrio et adjumento a filio collatos fuisse.” {Latin: “But it is not to be doubted that the Royal book-form manuscripts and which were at hand, were collated by the son, with the authorization and help of the father.”}

[Specimen 8] P. 55. “2. That the collation was probably inaccurate and imperfect.”

No doubt this was the case with every one of the collations of every set. I never heard of any collation that was not so. The second and the third collation of the first set, evidently admits as much.

P. 55, “3. That it certainly was not published entire.”

Most certainly. As Semler says (ubi supra) “Robertus ipse maxime elegit ea que voluit typis exhibere, caeteris interea sepositis, quibus postea, cum Henricus communicaret, usus est Beza.” {Latin: “Robert himself made the principal selection of those [sc. exemplars] which he wished to bring out in print. Others became available in the intervening period, which latterly, when Henry shared them, Beza used.”} Robert undertook only to give V. L. {different readings} from the Complutensian edition, and from XV MSS. He does not profess to give any thing from the rest of his authorities, whether printed or manuscript. We therefore know nothing of these parts of the collations of his MSS. but from one single note, I believe, of his own; and from some casual V. L. {different readings} “quibus postea, cum Henricus communicaret, usus est Beza,” {Latin: “which latterly, when Henry shared them, Beza used”} in his commentary.

P. 55. “4. That Stephens’s margin is full of mistakes in the numbers and readings of the MSS. 5. That the marks in the text are often misplaced or omitted. 6. That some of the very MSS, used by Stephens having been again collated, are found to agree in this critical passage with all the rest that have been hitherto examined. And 7. That therefore the semicircle, which now comes after the words εν τωι ουρανωι {Greek: “in heaven”} in the seventh verse, ought to be placed after the words εν τηι γηι {Greek: “in earth”} in the eighth.”

To this I reply, and what then? Does this show that the acknowledged error in this place was typographical? And does all this tend in the slightest degree to show what Mr. P. undertakes to establish, viz. that Stephanus’s error affects our Greek testaments? As for the folio and its margin, I only ask you to leave me the first words of the preface, and [Specimen 9] those readings, which demonstrate the truth of what appears there, viz. that he had another set, out of which he formed his first edition (cum vetustissimis sedecim scriptis exemplaribus {Latin: “with sixteen very ancient hand-written exemplars”}) besides that of the XV which he marks with the Greek numerals; and you may (as far as this question is concerned) sacrifice the rest to the vanity of modern editors. The notion that the Epistle of St. John was contained in any other of the XV marked MSS. than those which are quoted in the margin, I consider the most empty vision of the most addled brain. And place the semicircle wheresoever you like, it still denotes a reading, that is more or less at variance with “our Greek Testaments.” When therefore the acute historian was talking about typographical fraud or error in placing a crotchet; he was only placing a crotchet in those addled brains. When Mr. Porson, pref. p.ii. with such inimitable skill, contented himself with the delicate insinuation, “that R. Stephens, in his famous edition of 1550, inserted the verse,” &c., he showed that he felt his total inability to “gainsay or resist” the two despised editions of 1546 and 1549, which had given the passage in the new form. And what shall I say of Mr. Butler; when, Append. Hor. Bibl. ix. (p. 274) he tells us with unblushing front, “With respect to Robert Stephens’s manuscripts;—To explain this part of the case, to persons unacquainted with Stephens’s celebrated edition of the Greek Testament, which gives rise to the present question, and which was the edition published by him in 1550—it is necessary to observe that the text of it is a re-impression of the fifth of Erasmus, with a few alterations.” Mr. Butler might safely depend upon his readers being “persons unacquainted with Stephens’s celebrated edition.” But what in reality had that “famous edition of 1550” to do with the point at issue, more than the fourth of 1551, or any one of the Elzivirs? Where is there a single Greek Testament exhibiting that reading which would be made by the “semicircle wrong placed.” (p. 82)? Where is the critic that has ever contended for it? Of all those, who have been ruining the cause by their [Specimen 10] defense, I know not one, whose folly has been sufficient for him to intimate, that such a reading could possibly have been given by the apostle. Beza immediately declared respecting εν τῳ ουρανῳ which would be thus rejected, “omnino videtur retinendum, ut tribus in terra testibus ista ex adverso respondeant.” {Latin: “By all means it seems it should be retained, so that there should be a correspondence between the three witnesses on earth and these contrariwise.”} And all the world has acquiesced in his judgment. When therefore Mr. P. proves, that the lunula “ought to be placed after” εν τῃ γῃ {Greek: “on earth”} what is it that he shows, but that the fifteen marked MSS. were all either without the epistle, or without the passage; and therefore that none of them opposed that reading of it, which Stephanus had given in his former editions? And if common sense and common honesty had been brought together to the question; it could not have remained for me to tell the world, that the received text in this passage was established in the first and the second edition of Stephan{us}: [I mention the second, because it corrects a typographical error of the first, not noticed in the table of errata,] nor when the fifteen marked MSS. are proved to have been all without it, that it must have been established there, from another part of the collation, which as Mr. P. so justly observes (3) “certainly was not published entire.”

P. 55. “You, Sir, answer in the first place, that H. Stephens was not the sole collator of the MSS. ‘because there is no pretence for the assertion, and because reason, propriety, and probability, are all uniformly against it’ p. 297. Now this is so fully proved in Wetstein’s Prolegomena, p. 143, 144, that I should even be tempted to hope that if you had read them before you wrote your letters, you would have spared yourself a considerable quantity of disgrace and repentance (p. 56.).”

All this “quantity of disgrace and repentance,” that Mr. Travis was to have been saved by reading Wetsten, I must incur, after having attended to all that both he and Mr P. have urged. Without thinking for a moment of Henry’s character, “In suis certè scriptis frequentius suae laudi studet;” {Latin: “Certainly in his writings he frequently affects to sing his own praises.”} (Maittaire 485, [Specimen 11] quoted by Travis 3rd ed. 254.) I cannot see one of the quotations from him, that says any thing like “and not Robert.” So far from proof that no other person was concerned in any part of the work of collation, I am unable to discern an intimation that any one of the collations of any one set of the MSS. was performed by Henry alone; or that Henry had any concern in the collation of the XVI, for the first edition, or of any one of the printed authorities. And I must add to the quantity of my disgrace and repentance, by saying that the notion of the whole having been performed by him alone, appears to me an absurdity, which nothing but gross misrepresentation of facts, could have made pass in the world.

P. 56. “I shall repeat Wetstein’s last quotation. Pater meus—cum N. T. Grecum cum multis vetustis exemplaribus OPERA MEA COLLATUM, primo quidem minutioribus typis—mox autem grandibus characteribus, &c.” {Latin: “My father—when the Greek New Testament HAD BEEN COLLATED THROUGH MY ENDEAVORS with many very ancient exemplars—first in smaller typeface,—but soon in larger characters ….”}

Though this may be, as Wetsten says, “luce meridana clarius,” {Latin: “clearer than the mid-day sun”} for the confutation of his opponent’s absurd theory; what does it effect for substantiating his own? Henry says, “mea opera collatum,” {Latin: “had been collated through my endeavors”} I see nothing like “mea solius opera.” {Latin: “only my endeavors.”} Henry says, “cum multis vetustis exemplaribus,” {Latin: “with many very ancient exemplars”} not, as some gentlemen are pleased to assert, “cum XV tantum.” {Latin: “with 15 only”}. Henry says, “primo quidem minutioribus typis—mox autem grandibus—,” {Latin: “first in smaller typeface,—but soon in larger”} not a hint about the original edition of 1546—not bis quidem minutioribus—deinde grandibus {Latin: “twice in smaller typeface, but soon in larger”}. I can see nothing, but what might have been said by a man without a spark of Henry’s vanity, supposing him to have been at the head of the business, (primo quidem {Latin: “first”}) in recollating the XVI original MSS. for the second 12mo. edition of 1549, and soon afterwards (mox autem {Latin: “but soon”}) in the different collations for the folio of 1550; in the first place, of all the MSS. for forming the text, and then of the XV with that text for the margin. And I hesitate not to say, that if Mr. Porson had seen any thing of the kind, he would have distinctly pointed it out; and not contented himself with merely repeating [Specimen 12] Wetsten’s gratuitous assertion, “sole collator :” and “disguising the fact in a general expression” (note in next p.) “of the MSS.” A few words to that purpose, would have more effect upon my mind, than any intimation of the quantity of disgrace and repentance that is to befal me, if I venture to question the decision of the critics, that no person but Henry, collated any one of the MSS. that Robert used for any one of his editions.

The deduction from these words of Henry, appears very similar to that which the learned are pleased to make from what he says in his Concordance, respecting his father’s subdivision of the text in his last edition. Henry says, “At contra eorum damnatricem instituti patris mei opinionem, inventum illud simul in lucem, simul in omnium gratiam venit.” {Latin: “And in spite of their condemnatory accusations they took up my father’s idea, and that invention was introduced into the world, to the grateful acknowledgement of all.”} That division into verses, which we now follow, was the invention of Robert Etienne, as Henry here tells us. But what say our critics? They call “Robert Stephens the first inventor :” (Michaelis, Vol. II. ch. xii. sect. xi. p. 527.) “for the first time the numerals were marked in the margin of his small edition of 1551.” (Dr. J. Pye Smith, Eclectic Review, April, 1809, p. 330.) It “is remarkable for being the first edition of the New Testament divided into verses.” (Horne’s Introduction, Part I. ch. iii. sect. ii, vol. ii. p. 186, 3rd ed.) But Brett, Dissert. on the Ancient Versions, in Watson’s Tracts, p. 49, says, “Vatablus, a Frenchman and an eminent Hebrician, about an hundred years after Rabbi Nathan, taking his pattern from him, published a Latin Bible with chapters and verses numbered with figures.” Bengel Apparat. § xxxvi. p. 71. ed. 1763. “Atque antea Jacobus Faber textum Latinum et annotationes suas simul editas, alia et alia versuum distributione coagmentarat :—tum vero Stephanus, Fabri, opinor, invento aliquid addens—” {Latin: “And before that Jacobus Faber put together a Latin text with his notes printed with it, variously divided into verses:—and then Stephanus made some additions, as I see it, to the invention of Faber.”} And I have before me Sanctes Pagninus’s Bible, 1528, with Tmematia, as Henry would call them, marked by numerals in the margin, and the text divided by a lunula ⁌. Henry Etienne says, that his father was inventor of our division of verses, and that he himself was collator of MSS. for his father’s second and his third edition. [Specimen 13] The learned say, that his father was first inventor of such a division, and that Henry was sole collator.

P. 56. “To which add Beza’s testimony to the same purpose. Ad haec omnia accessit exemplar ex Stephani nostri bibliotheca cum viginti quinque plus minus manuscriptis codicibus et omnibus pene impressis diligentissime collatum.” {Latin: “In addition to all these there is an exemplar from the library of our Stephanus, a very diligent collation of twenty-five, more or less, book-form manuscripts and almost all the printed texts.”}

Here Mr. P. tells us, and upon the authority of Beza himself, the person who had the book of collations, and who, if we except the man from whom he received it, is now the only possible authority, that there were XXV ± MSS.; XVI of which, as we learn from Stephanus’s preface to his folio, were collated three several times; and almost all the printed editions. Now to suppose that the whole business of collation was performed by one single man, appears to me so gross, that I think no one who had fairly stated what the work really was, could have maintained the notion for a moment. I say, therefore, without any further evidence than this, not only that there exists not the least proof that Henry did the whole; but that it is a perfect absurdity to have ever imagined it. His age (18) at the time of the first collation, four years before the N.T. was published “grandibus characteribus et magno volumine,” {Latin: “in larger typeface and a large-sized volume”} says loudly with respect to that, “not Henry.”

P. 56. “Thus Beza in his first edition of 1556. But in his second edition, when R. Stephens was dead, these important words follow after impressis {Latin: “printed texts”}: AB HENRICO STEPHANO EJUS FILIO ET PATERNE SEDULITATIS HEREDE quam diligentissime collatum.” {Latin: “a very diligent collation PERFORMED BY HENRY STEPHANUS HIS SON AND HEIR TO THE CAREFUL WORK OF HIS FATHER.”}

And what were “the important words,” “when R. Stephens was” alive? “Sed quod ad vetera N. T. Graeci exemplaria attinet, quorum fides et authoritas in his annotationibus saepissime citatur —— de hoc te commonefaciendum per me putavit illorum author——” {Latin: “But what relates to the ancient exemplars of the N. T., whose trustworthiness and authority is frequently referred to in the these notes——on this matter you should treat them as I do as the conjectures of their author.”} Thus, at the end of the Apocalypse, “Lectorem monuit typographus {Latin: “the printer advised the reader”}, Edit. 1. f. 335,” as Wetsten says, 148. 7. (381 Semler): so Mr. Porson must have [Specimen 14] been well acquainted with “these important words:” for after all his ridicule of the poor Archdeacon, we cannot suppose him to have been ignorant of Wetsten’s Prolegomena; where we find them so distinctly cited. Indeed he refers to them himself; Gentleman’s Magazine, 1790, p. 128b. Kidd, p. 353. Travis himself, after Mr. P. had forced him to read it, gives the words at p. 247, 3d edit. This was the best possible method of authenticating the various readings which Beza gave from the XXV ± MSS. “(cum alia tum ea omnia que in regis Gallorum bibliotheca extant, {Latin: “when all those other ones were also then present in the library of the king of France”})” not merely the eight that were collated with the text of the folio, but the XV,—ea omnia {Latin: “all those”}, that Stephanus had received from the King’s library; as we learn, from his Resp. ad Cens. Theol. Paris. p. 37. given by Wetsten in loc. p. 724; in the French, leaf 23. But in Beza’s “second edition, when R. Stephens was dead,” it is pretty evident that this could not stand: the paterna sedulitas {Latin: “careful work of his father”} could not then be vouched. So in criticism, as in law, you must be satisfied with the best evidence that does exist. This was he, who bore so large a part in the two latter collations for the two editions, 1549, 1550; when he became a man, and was capable of it. The paternae sedulitatis haeres {Latin: “heir to the careful work of his father”} is therefore now appealed to, and “these important words follow after impressis AB HENRICO {Latin: “printed BY HENRY”}” &c. Suffer me then to take the important words of both editions—and I cannot conceive how Beza’s work could exhibit more decisive evidence of the truth of those various readings which he gives from all parts of the exemplar—readings selected from the whole of the XXV ± MSS. that Mr. Porson so justly tells us, had been collated.

P. 56. “Observe in all this proceeding the craft of a printer and editor.”

I say, “Observe in all this proceeding the craft of a” critic, who finds it necessary to get rid of the labors of the poor “printer and editor.” Let us see how, that which should have been for their health, is to be unto them an occasion of falling. [Specimen 15]

P, 57. “Robert was aware that by telling his readers who was the collator, he might infuse a suspicion into their minds, that the work was negligently performed: he therefore carefully avoided mentioning that circumstance.”

The first piece of craft, is such as that which is here charged upon Stephanus, the suppression of truth. Richard “was aware that by telling his readers who was” the printer of Beza’s 2nd edition, he must banish all “suspicion” from “their minds;” “he therefore carefully avoided mentioning” the circumstance, that Henry printed the second edition of 1565, as Robert did the first of 1556. So that each afforded the best possible evidence, then in existence, for the accuracy of the “exemplar cum viginti quinque plus minus manuscriptis codicibus diligentissime collatum.” {Latin: “a very diligent collation of twenty-five, more or less, book-form manuscripts and almost all the printed texts.”}

Craft the second is more audacious: we are told that “Robert was aware”—that Robert “therefore carefully avoided.” Did Robert then write the preface? Did he write one word of the book, except what we have seen above? I thought that it was “Beza’s testimony,” and that it was “Thus Beza” spoke “in his first edition of 1556.” But Richard “was aware” that if he had made it to be Beza, that carefully avoided mentioning the circumstance “in his first edition of 1556;” the question: would recur, what made him to be so careful to publish it in his edition of 1565? As Beza’s various readings were taken from the different collations of the XXV ± MSS. of Stephanus, he most certainly would carefully avoid mentioning any circumstance, that could derogate from their authority. So far the story goes very well: but we were promised to have craft shewn us “in all this proceeding.” How comes it then to turn to driveling imbecility; and that the secret, upon the keeping of which every thing was to depend, should be blabbed in the edition of 1565? And what was the death of Robert to do with letting out the circumstance, which they were so carefully to avoid mentioning, according to Mr. Porson’s [Specimen 16] theory? Is Beza to have common sense only on the tenure of Robert’s life?

A third piece of craft is seen in the “suspicion” which Mr. Porson takes care to infuse into the minds of his readers, “that the work was negligently performed” in all its parts. Wetsten’s quotations, as I have acknowledged, give us nothing that can affect the first edition; but they refer to the second and the folio, when Henry came to have any part of the work—“primo quidem minutioribus typis—mox autem grandibus characteribus;” {first in smaller typeface, but soon in larger”} and they prove sufficiently the attention that was bestowed on that part of these collations, be it what it would that fell to his share. And other testimonies may be found: I have observed one myself in the Thesaurus, Vol. I. p. 253 b, on αιτιαμα {Greek: “request”}. I am aware that these do nothing for settling the authority of 1 John v. 7, 8. which was fixed before Henry could have had any share in the work. But, let it be remembered, that the XVI MSS. from which the new text for our passage was formed in the first edition, were submitted, as well as the others, to the critical eye of Henry, who has evinced all this accuracy, and that the new form was continued, with a correction of its typographical error in the second, and afterwards in the folio.

A fourth piece of craft consists in the calm assumption, that there could be but one person to perform the work of all those different collations. The writer of the preface, call him Robert or Theodore, as you like, “carefully avoided mentioning the circumstance” that Henry was the sole collator, for the best of all possible reasons, namely, that he was not the sole collator. “By telling his readers” that Henry “was the collator,” he would not have been infusing a suspicion into their minds, that the work was negligently performed; but he would have been infusing a direct falsehood. Mr. Porson was aware of this, when he came to reprint this letter. It is recorded in Stephanus’s preface to his folio, that the second authority of those whose various readings are given in the margin, was collated by some friends in Italy. If Henry’s mode of expression could mislead any one [Specimen 17] in the quotation from his preface to Marlorat, as we see it has done in that from his Concordance; here was a decided fact, that left no room for doubt. Did this then make the Professor retract the hasty absurd deduction, that no one but Henry had any share in all the work of collation? Mr. Porson, it is true, declared that he was always unwilling to attribute to fraud, what he could with any reasonable pretence attribute to error. But this, let it be observed, was error to be ascribed to Stephanus; not one of such importance to be acknowledged for himself. Rather than avow this one error of his own, he attributes, without any pretence whatever, two frauds to Stephanus. It is thus that Mr. Porson gets rid of Stephanus’s flat contradiction. He now adds a note,

P. 57, note. “With the same caution, speaking of his No. 2. (now our Cambridge MS.) he calls it exemplar vetustissimum in Italia AB AMICIS collatum {Latin: “a very ancient exemplar collated BY FRIENDS, αντιβληθεν {Greek: “used for opposing readings”}. Without fairly confessing or openly violating the truth, that it was collated by his son Henry, he disguises the fact in a general expression. I have not forgotten Mr. Travis’s masterly construction of the sentence, p. 284, ‘It was the exemplar, the book itself, then (and not the lections out of it) which was collected or (rather) procured for R. Stephens, by his friends in Italy.’”

If Mr. Porson had said that No. 2. as far as we know of it, and our Cambridge MS. are the same for all critical purposes, no one would controvert it. But when such a man asserts, that they are one and the same, it ought to be observed, that he is only repeating Wetsten’s blunder; which was corrected by Semler, note 44, who refers to Simon (sur MSS. p. 60.) “et caeteri omnes eruditi {Latin: “and all the other learned”}.”

Mr. Porson notices the Archdeacon’s mode of construing Stephanus; and his own is scarcely less to be admired. As Trinculo says in the play, “misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.” Neither of them chooses to let the Italian friends have any concern in the collation. As Henry says, “opera mea collatum, {Latin “collated by my endeavors”},” Mr. Porson will not allow it possible that one morsel [Specimen 18] of the work of collation could be performed by any one else. As Beza says, on 1 Cor. vii. 29, “Sic lego et distinguo hunc locum ex sedecim vetustorum Stephani codicum {Latin: “Thus I read and make out this place in the text from the sixteen very ancient book-form manuscripts of Stephanus”},” Mr. Travis, who can think of nothing but the marked copies of Stephanus’ margin of his folio, is pleased to conclude, ed. 3, p. 397, note, “that R. Stephens had in his possession the MS. β;” which, by the bye, had not the epistles.

In Italia ab amicis collatum {Latin: “in Italy collated by friends”}, says Stephanus. “This sentence (as Mr. P. says on another clause of this preface, at p. 63,) to an ordinary reader, would be very intelligible, but Mr. Travis is no ordinary reader.” No: nor yet was either of his correspondents.

“Collatum {Latin “collated”} αντιβληθεν {Greek: “used for opposing readings”} of Stephanus must import” says Mr. Travis (284, 2d edition, and he has the hardihood to repeat it, 397, 3d edition) “that the exemplar, the book itself was procured (and not the lections out of it collected) for R. Stephens, by his friends in Italy.”

Ab amicis {Latin: “by friends”}, “by his son Henry,” says Mr. P. “he disguises the fact in a general expression.”

“In Italia” Mr. P. does not meddle with; but if β is to form one of the “sixteen copies in the gross,” as Mr. P. calls that set of MSS. from which the first edition was formed, (p. 63,) and it was collated for that edition by Henry in 1546; then “in Italia” by an easy substitution of Cis-Alpine Gaul for Trans-Alpine, must be construed “at Paris:” because Henry never went to Italy till 1547.

According to Mr. P. what Stephanus says is “craft”—“caution” —“without fairly confessing or openly violating the truth.” The latter is much more than I can say of Stephanus’s commentators. Show me, if you can, the slightest ground for suspicion, that the words of Stephanus were not perfectly true, in their plain and obvious sense—except that it flatly contradicts the assumption, that there was but one set of MSS. but one collation of that set, and but one person to make that collation.

And if Stephanus found it necessary carefully to avoid men- [Specimen 19] tioning who was the collator of β—if “prudential motives induced him at that time to conceal his name,” (note 113, p. 690, on Michaelis, vol. ii. p. 238,) I should like to know why he could not hold his tongue here, as you are pleased to say he did in Beza’s preface. I ask Mr. Porson’s dupes, for what possible reason Stephanus should make any distinction with respect to β; but that it was actually collated by different persons, and in a different place from the other XIV. of the margin. Was the worrying of Erasmus, and the jealous watching of the Paris divines, to induce Stephanus to make this seeming mistake on purpose; furnishing such inquisitive readers, as Mr. Travis and his two correspondents, with the means of detection?

P. 57. “Another instance of this management may be seen in the preface to his first edition, where he says, that he has not suffered a letter to be printed but what the greater part of the better MSS. like so many witnesses, unanimously approved.”

The self-same management, if management it is to be, attended the conclusion, as well as the commencement of his critical labors. In his Respons. p. 36, he gives us his firm reply to Castellan, who had reprobrated his obstinacy, in not giving way to the tampering of the Sarbonne. “Nego me posse adduci ut unquam contra fidem omnium codicum quicquam mutarem, atque ita falsarius deprehenderer.” {Latin: “I deny I could be adduced to change anything whatsoever contrary to what is reliably assured by all the book-form manuscripts, and so be caught doing something fraudulent.”} French, leaf 22, “Je luy di que jamais on ne m’eust sceu amenera a ce point, de changer rien au texte contre ce qui se trouuoit par tous les exemplaires pour estre par ce moyen trouue faulsaire,” {French: same as Latin.} (Maittaire, p. 67.)

P. 57. “‘ This boast is indeed utterly false, as all critics agree, who have taken any pains in comparing Stephens’s editions,”

I know that all critics do agree in this—all who have taken pains to produce new editions, and those who have enlisted under their banners. I am perfectly aware of the conspiracy, and of the causes of it. I am aware, too, that the ipse dixit {Latin: “personal viewpoint”} of these critics, who do thus agree, passes as irrefragable, with a [Specimen 20] world which is much more ready to take upon trust, than to take the pains of examining. These critics, however, we are told, have taken pains in comparing Stephens’s editions. Comparing them with what? With the MSS. from which Stephanus professed to form them? No. I know that Mill has sapiently collated the first edition with another set; and whoever considers the result of that collation, will see that this must have been the case. But when they make their modest assertion, that Stephanus’s boast, with respect to his first edition is “utterly false,” Task, what do they know of the XVI MSS. from which he thus solemnly protested, that he never deviated? I quote the words of “that Divine,” who, as Dr. Carpenter says, (ag. Magee, p. xxxiv.) “holds the first rank among our English critics,” when I tell you of MSS. being “at present either lost or buried in obscurity, in the same manner as the Codex Boreeli, the Codex Camerarii, the Codex Rhodiensis, Erasmus’s MS. of the Revelation, and several other manuscripts of the Greek Testament, used by Stephens himself”—Note 114, on Michaelis II. P. 239, p. 698. If I allow that VIII. out of the XV. MSS. which he had from the King’s library (Respons. p. 37, as above) were those identical royal MSS. whose various readings are given in the margin of the folio; who, I pray you, has collated the remaining VIII of the first edition; who can pretend to tell me what they are, and in what state they are? And who, I ask you, can tell me any thing of the MSS. used for forming the text of the folio; but from those various readings that are given in the margin? for I think that those preserved by Beza will not enable you to fix upon the rest. Mr. Porson says, p. 232, “Who ever called R. Stephens a cheat, because he retains many readings in his edition which he found in no MS.?” I am afraid that I shall not be equally polite to the gentlemen who make the assertion, that R. Stephens retains many readings in his editions which he found in no MS. But it should seem that, according to Mr. P. Stephanus’s guilt is to be proved by comparing the editions with one another. [Specimen 21]

P. 58. “They know that Stephens has not observed this rule constantly, because his editions often vary from one another,——”

Does it then follow that the editions cannot each be taken from MSS. because they vary from each other? Griesbach’s editions vary from each other, but I never heard this inference drawn with respect to them. The variation, I have understood, might be accounted for, so as to leave Griesbach in possession of his “boast.” Old MSS. might have been better collated, or new ones might have been obtained; and thus the 2d edition might give new readings. I have yet to learn why this might not be the case with Stephanus. I am here directly at issue with the conspiring critics, who it seems are not “always unwilling to attribute to fraud, what they can” very reasonably attribute to the man’s doing his duty as editor. “His editions often vary from one another.” Well; this is one reason with me for believing that he followed his MSS. I do not infer what they, technically I presume, call “management.” My inference is, that the materials from whence the editions were formed, had varied. It will be for the reader to decide, whether Stephanus’s boast and my logic be “utterly false, as all critics agree:” and it may be of some use to him in making his decision, to observe that the XVI original MSS. were, as Stephanus declares in the preface to the folio, collated three times over; and that, as Mr. P. himself has just informed us, they were increased in number to XXV±; or as the man who must know best—he who superintended the work for the second and the third edition has stated it, to more than thirty. (Praef. to ed. 1587, in Wetsten, p. 143. Semler 369.)

P. 58. “——and in his third edition often from all his MSS. even by his own confession.”

This is a curious confession for any editor to make: and, let it be observed, Mr. Porson himself has told us the moment before, that Stephanus, when he published his first edition, declared [Specimen 22] that he had given nothing “but what the greater part of the better MSS. approved;” and, as we have just seen, “this boast” was pretty nearly repeated, after he had concluded his third edition. It is also a curious circumstance, that this confession was utterly unknown for fourscore years; during which time it was universally believed that he had always followed some of the XXX+ MSS. that his son Henry said he had seen; though the good doctors of the Sarbonne were as anxious to demolish his N. T. as Wetsten, Griesbach, or Mr. P. could possibly be. But Mr. Porson tells us, that the critics know that he actually did make such a confession. Why then, when they have Stephanus confitentem reum {Latin: “confessing that was so”}, I think we might expect to be shamed by the words of the confession being blazoned before us; or, at least, some reference to the place where it was registered. I want to know under what circumstances he was brought to this most wonderful confession; and who were the witnesses. I must add also, that I should like to have the very words in which he acknowledged his guilt. I am fresh from that admirable piece of criticism that makes “in Italia ab amicis,” to mean “my son Henry at Paris;” I should like therefore to be allowed to see myself that the words attributed to him actually express that his text varies from all his MSS.

P, 58. “But because Mr. Griesbach took this point for granted; not foreseeing that a man would be found so hardy or ignorant as to deny it, you insult him, p. 298, and call his assertion groundless, improbable, uncandid, and injurious, These are the magic words that have charmed your converts of the first eminence.”

Mr. Griesbach, in the whole of his most able and judicious work, never showed, according to my notions, so much judgment, as he did, when he “took this point for granted.” But when the professed defender of Stephanus came to it, did he not exult? was there no song of triumph? No. Mr. Travis had nothing but those “empty visions,” in his poor “brain.” Nothing could satisfy him, but grex noster {Latin: “our herd”}: he must have the authority of [Specimen 23] every MS. in the margin of the folio. One out of the “XXX et plures,” {Latin: “30 and more”} seen by Henry, was nothing to a man, determined to have a majority of all known MSS. for the heavenly witnesses; so the text copied from the little editions is utterly beneath his notice. “Give me” XVI. “or else I die.” The reader will see that there is great danger of my insulting Mr. Griesbach, much more than the poor Archdeacon did: groundless, improbable, uncandid, &c. would certainly not satisfy my notions, They appear to me as vapid as the Archdeacon’s accusation. When these editions of Stephanus have the inestimable value of having been begun with a determination of quitting the received text, (of Erasmus) wherever it was not supported by the XVI MSS, with which these editions commenced—and of having approached nearer and nearer to it, as the collation became more accurate, and the number of MSS. increased; I cannot stand unmoved, at seeing a modern editor at once throw them aside; taking it for granted, that Stephanus often varied from all his MSS; or at least allowing them to have then only any value when the received text opposes them.

And now, when the fact of the point having been thus assumed, is fairly acknowledged; what is the case with him whose talents, even among the Wetstens and the Griesbachs, shine forth, “velut inter ignes luna minores?” {Latin: “as the moon among the lesser lights.”} Mr. Porson too “took this point for granted.” And yet, to adopt Mr. P.’s words at p. 60, “up starts a grave and reverend gentleman, and tells us with a serious face,” that Professor Porson “has left nothing to be said on the subject [of the disputed passage] either in vindication or reply.” (Dr. Adam Clarke, end of his note.) Here is an accusation, which involves not merely our passage, but the whole N. T. Did Dr. Clarke pass this over, as unworthy of his notice; or did he really think, that the Professor left nothing further to be said, when he “took this point for granted?” And did Dr. Adam Clarke think himself warranted by this assumption, to say (Sacred Literature, p. 85,) that “of all the MSS. yet discovered, which contain this epistle, amount- [Specimen 24] ing to more than one hundred, only three, two of which are of no authority, have the words.” It is true that we have in Mr. Porson, “the magic words,” hardy or ignorant “to charm his converts of the first eminence.” But even after the Professor’s anathema, there is a man to be found, “so hardy or ignorant as to deny it.” Ecce adsum qui feci {Latin: “Lo it is who did it”}; ignorant of any place where Stephanus has told us any thing about the reading of “all his MSS,” except that of 1 Cor. xv. 51. to Castellan, in his Resp. p. 36, referred to above; hardy, because Mr. Griesbach is thus “deserted at his utmost need.” I cannot help suspecting that Mr. Porson was aware, either that the document, upon which they depend, was a forgery; or that the confession did not amount to varying from all his MSS.

P. 58. “Editors and printers are such conscientious people, that we may be sure they will never practise any tricks of their profession, or give their own publications undeserved praise.”

I beg the reader to observe, that I make no such claim for those contemned beings, that have been “editors and printers.” But I do demand for them, that they shall not be assumed to be guilty, without proof: and I shall not suffer myself to be duped by the editors and critics, when they practise the tricks of their profession; and would establish their editions, on the ruin of all their predecessors, by taking this point for granted.

P. 58. “And whoever offers to think that they may sometimes bestow extravagant commendations on their own labour, diligence, or fidelity, is totally void of literary candour and Christian charity.” (p. 59. 125.)

When the editor and printer in question, gave such solemn assurances, both at the commencement, and after the conclusion of his labors; and these assurances were never called into doubt, for eighty years, by his bitterest enemies; “whoever offers to think” that he violated these engagements, merely on the ground that those, who would find him a troublesome evidence, have [Specimen 25] “agreed” to take “this point for granted,” I should search out for some more appropriate “terms, to give him out,” than those which denote want of literary candour, &c. whether it be the head, or the heart, that is in fault.

P. 58. “But an example will make this position clearer.”

It seems that Mr. Porson after all, thinks that he can find one instance. It is enough to say, in the words of the adage, that one swallow does not make summer. Still a single instance would throw some suspicion; let us therefore see the utmost that the Professor can do.

P. 58. “In the eleventh verse of the second chapter of Matthew, all the MSS. the Complutensian edition, nay the very MS. from which Erasmus published his edition, have ειδον {Greek: “they saw”} instead of ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”}, but Erasmus upon the single authority of a faulty copy of Theophylact, altered it to ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”}; Stephens in his third edition followed Erasmus, and ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”} infects our printed Testaments to this day.”

“Stephens in his third edition.” What is the third edition to me, more than any of the Elzivirs? I thought that we were to have an example that would make Mr. P.’s position clear, with regard to that which alone concerns the question about 1 John v. 7,8. No. Mr. Porson will not “be found so hardy, or so ignorant,” as to tread in the steps of Mill, 1177, &c.; and to pretend to pick out one single instance, in the edition which gave our passage in the new form—that form, which “infects our printed Testaments to this day.” But a single instance, even from the third edition, might reflect back some shade of suspicion on the first, and give some room for a possibility of doubt respecting our text. Let us follow Mr. Porson then.

“All the MSS.” All what MSS.? If this means all the MSS. that Mr. Porson ever saw, I shall readily allow it: and shall, like our learned translators, and their predecessors in [Specimen 26] the Bishops’ bible, bow to the sentence which he pronounces, that ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”} infects our printed Testaments; though Whitby and Wolfius were of a different opinion. But this is not enough; it is not sufficient for him to show, that almost all the MSS. of Griesbach (Codices tantum non omnes {Latin: “only not all the book-form manuscripts”}) have ειδον {Greek: “they saw”}, he has to prove that not one of Stephanus’s had ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”}: and when it comes to the point, you see that Mr. Porson will not undertake this.

Stephens in his third edition followed Erasmus. Very well: and what then? I have no doubt that he made it the general principle of his third edition, to follow Erasmus’s text, (the then received text,) wherever he found it supported by his own MSS. His first edition then has “ειδον {Greek: “they saw”} instead of ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”};” and I am ready to allow that, when he “altered it to ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”},” in his third edition; he “followed Erasmus.” Was it impossible for him to copy a Greek MS. (it shall be as bad as you like,) when he thus followed Erasmus? Mr. Porson takes this point for granted. Now mark how much better Wetsten does this: “Erasmus in codicem vitiosum Theophylacti incidens, qui pro ειδον habebat ἑυρον, codicem 2. quem typographis edendum dedit, sua manu correxit, cui Stephanus editione tertia, reclamantibus, ut fatetur, omnibus suis Codicibus temere adstipulari non dubitavit.” {Latin: “Erasmus came across a faulty book-form manuscript of Theophylact which had ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”} instead of ειδον {Greek: “they saw”}, book-form manuscript 2., which he arranged to be printed in an emended form, corrected by his own hand, and which Stephanus in his third edition, rejecting, as it is said, all his Book-form manuscripts, doubted not to have the temerity to uphold.”}

This is like a man: you have the proof positive, you see, from Stephanus’s own confession: and it is not “all the MSS.,” but “omnibus suis codicibus,” {Latin: “all his book-form manuscripts”} which is repeated upon our passage, p. 724, 2nd par.—ipsa Stephani editio palam testatur, editorem a lectione omnium suorum codicum recessisse, et aliam lectionem recepisse—.” {Latin: “the edition of Stephanus itself plainly bears witness that the editor rejected the testimony of all his book-form manuscripts, and accepted another reading.”} With this, what wonder that the Archdeacon of blessed memory, should add in his third edition, p. 188, this note (k) to what he had given in his 2nd ed. p. 118. “In Matthew ii. 11. R. Stephens follows Erasmus in writing ἑυρον instead of ειδον: they FOUND, instead of they saw the child. And this circumstance has been amplified into a desertion of his plan, as well as of his MSS. But the charge is ill-founded. His plan was to accept, by whatever hand it might be offered, that [Specimen 27] which appeared to him to be the genuine reading of Scripture. And he accorded with Erasmus in preferring ἑυρον, {Greek: “they found”} probably because (both words affording nearly the same sense,) the same verb, ἑυρητε, {Greek: “you found”} occurs before in the eighth verse. In acting thus, therefore, he deserted not his plan, but followed it. Nor did he, in any culpable sense desert his MSS: for he tells us frankly, ειδον εν πασι, All my MSS. read ειδον {Greek: “they saw”}.” Dr. Hales too, Faith in the Holy Trinity, (1818.) vol. ii. p. 19. “Griesbach objects, that “Stephens frequently follows Erasmus, contrary to the credit and authority of all his MSS.” Proleg. p. xviii. This censure is praise.—Stephens did not, like Griesbach, servilely follow the external evidence of manuscripts, versions, and fathers only; he carefully weighed the internal also, and made that his chief standard. Of this we have a remarkable instance in Matt. ii. 11. where he follows Erasmus in the reading ἑυρον, “they found,” instead of ειδον, “they saw.” Though he candidly confesses, ειδον— ―εν πασι, “All my MSS. read ειδον ” {Greek: “they saw”}. ― “He, therefore, was fully justified in rejecting the authority of all his Greek MSS. upon such a combination of evidence.” p. 20. It may appear very invidious in me, to take upon me to decline, for Stephanus, all this praise, which Dr. Hales finds in Griesbach’s censure. But the truth must be told. Stephanus, poor simple man, did not think himself “fully justified in rejecting the authority of all his Greek MSS.” And to talk of his “deserting his MSS.,” and not doing it, “in any culpable sense,” he would have said, was nonsense. The whole praise that he claimed, was that of making a selection from his MSS., and giving a text accordingly. “All critics agree,” as Mr. Porson tells us, to deny this to him; but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy. (Isa. xxvi. 11.)

As, however, Erasmus is introduced, to make out that no MS. authority existed; a word or two must be premised respecting him. “Erasmus upon the single authority of a faulty copy of Theophylact.”—There happens to be another “single authority” (more last words of Mr. Baxter,) Wetsten Prol. 44. [Specimen 28] (116 Seml.) on this very codex 2, “quem typographis edendum dedit,” {Latin: “which he arranged to be printed in an emended form”} speaking of the corrections by Erasmus, has—“Matt. ii. 11. ειδον {Greek: “they saw”}] ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”} ex Versione Vulgata {Latin: “from the Vulgate Version”}:” and let it be observed, this is not an old forgotten piece of criticism, reprinted from the edition of 1730: for it does not appear there, see p. 58. Mill in Loc. was able to find another “unum excipiam Epiphanium et Vulg. Interp. {Latin: “I except uniquely Epiphanius and the Vulgate Interpretation”}. “Whitby Exam.—yet another “Hieronymus vero Vulg. Epiphanius {Latin: “Jerome, the Vulgate and Epiphanius”} ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”}.” Now I should like to know how Wetsten and our Professor would have accounted for the existence of all these proofs of the faulty reading: and till I am informed, I shall take the liberty to suppose that they came from some faulty Greek copies, one of which furnished Erasmus with his correction. If Mr. P. had been able to keep, for five pages, to his principle, “I am always unwilling to attribute to fraud what I can, with any reasonable pretence, attribute to error,” he would still have not stood singular in taking such a solution; for Mill says, 1229, “ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”} quod reperit in uno fortasse aliquo Cod. Erasmus obstinate retinuit {Latin: “which Erasmus found perhaps in some one book-form manuscript or other and obstinately retained”}; which I think is not absolutely contradicted by Griesbach’s “Codd. tantum non omnes {Latin: “only not all the book-form manuscripts”}.” Wetsten laid down his charge of villainy against Erasmus in good round terms, in the first edition of his Prolegomena, 57 bott. (ante tamen Erasmus hunc codicem ad fidem Theophylacti aliorumque Patrum, interdum etiam ex conjectura correxit {Latin: “However before this Erasmus corrected this book-form manuscript on the basis of Theophylact and other Fathers, also in the meanwhile from conjecture”}); but he found himself obliged afterwards to correct his own conjecture; and had to add, after “aliorumque Patrum {Latin: “of other Fathers”},” et ex Versione Latina, aut aliis codicibus Graecis {Latin: “and from the Latin Version or other Greek book-form manuscripts”}, Prol. 44. Seml. 116.

Now, then, for those who charge Stephanus with avowing that he gave his text contrary to all his MSS., and those who glory in the charge. I say, in the name of common honesty to the one party, and in the name of common sense to the other,— where has he confessed that he has given the reading, “reclamantibus omnibus suis MSS. {Latin: “rejecting all his Book-form manuscripts”};” where does “ipsa Stephani editio palam testatur editorem a lectione omnium suorum codicum recessisse {Latin: “the edition of Stephanus itself plainly bears witness that the editor rejected the testimony of all his book-form manuscripts, and accepted another reading.”}?” Where does he tell us frankly—where does he candidly confess, “All my MSS. read ειδον {Greek: “they saw”}?” Where, ex- [Specimen 29] cept as before excepted, to Castellan, does he himself say any thing about the reading of “all his MSS.?” Where does he say a word of the reading of any, but the XV of the margin, except in the case referred to above; viz. Eph. iii. 1., where, as Griesbach’s says, “κεκαυχημαι” {Greek: “I have boasted”} alii apud Stephanum {Latin: “Other witnesses in Stephanus”}?”

I can very readily believe that when the good Archdeacon and his disciple of Killesandra inserted the possessive pronoun, and made ειδον—εν πασι {Greek: “they saw—in all”} to express “all my MSS. read ειδον {Greek: “they saw”},” they very honestly believed that all the XV of the margin had this passage, and gave ειδον {Greek: “they saw”} instead of ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”}. Poor Travis says for Stephanus, with respect to 1 John v. 7, 8. “In all my Greek MSS. from whence I compiled my Greek edition of A.D. 1550, the whole of the same disputed passage is also read, except in seven only—” 2d ed. 302, 3d ed. 415. I should not, however, be charitable enough to think so of the man, who inserted “suis,” and said, “reclamantibus, ut fatetur, omnibus suis codicibus” {Latin: “rejecting, as is claimed, all his Book-form manuscripts”}. I should say that Mr. Porson, whose judgement is no less to be admired than his acuteness, had reason sufficient for not committing himself to Wetsten’s assertions on Matt. ii. 11, if he saw only in what a different manner he could express himself respecting the reading of αδελφους {Greek: “brothers”}, Matt. v. 47, which stands in precisely the same circumstances. “Erasmus tamen, qui testatur plerosque Graecos codices habere φιλους, et Stephanus qui φιλους εν πασι reperit, hanc lectionem nescio qua de causa secuti non sunt.” {Erasmus however who testifies that the majority of the Greek book-form manuscripts have φιλους {Greek: “friends”}, and Stephanus who found φιλους εν πασι, {Greek: “friends in all”} I know not why they did not follow this reading.”} I should go on to say, that Wetsten might have been able to see it possible for Stephanus, “who found φιλους εν πασι, {Greek: “friends in all”}” still to maintain his boast of never giving a reading that was not supported by his MSS., whilst he retained αδελφους {Greek: “brothers”}. I should even say, that he was well aware that Stephanus never confessed that he had in all more than ten of his MSS. against him. I should say this, if I had seen only his boast, p. 146. 3. (Seml. 375.) that he had supplied Stephanus’s omission of giving a description of the MSS. of his margin, and “preter Complutensem Editionem habuisse exemplaria Evangeliorum decem, Actorum et Epistolarum octo, Apocalypseos vero non nisi duo.” {Latin: “Apart from the Complutensian edition, he had ten exemplars of the Gospels, eight of the Acts and Epistles, and no more than two of the Apocalypse.”} [Specimen 30] I am, fortunately, not left to draw the inference myself; and I thus escape the suspicion of being anxious to attribute to fraud, what I might have attributed to error, when I say that Wetsten, and whoever so far exceeded Mr. Travis in knowledge, as to have read through Wetsten’s Prolegomena (Porson 4. 56.74.) knew perfectly that the whole which could be said with truth was “reclamantibus, ut fatetur, decem ex iis Codicibus manu-. scriptis, quorum variantes lectiones posuit in interiori margine.” {Latin: “rejecting, as is claimed, ten of those manuscripts, whose variant readings he placed in the inner margin.”}

Wetsten has himself distinctly stated that εν πασι, in the gospels meant this, where he is giving his celebrated demonstration of the falsehood of the Barberini readings. P. 62. (162 Seml.) Bengelius had instanced John i. 42. “ubi differentia articuli Vulgatum non tangit, et Stephani margo plane vacat” {Latin: “where differences regarding the article does not affect the Vulgate, and the margin of Stephanus has nothing at all”}; he replies, that Caryophilus would argue “Stephani codices decem i.e, omnes legisse ὁ Χριστος cum articulo;” {Latin: “ten book-form manuscripts of Stephanus i.e. all of them read ὁ Χριστος, ‘the Christ,’ with the article”}; not you see here “omnes suos,” {Latin: “all his”} but “decem i. e. omnes;” {Latin: “ten, that is, all of them”} and he shows that no man of common sense and the least knowledge, could make any thing more of it, than that ten of the MSS. of the margin, two thirds only of that one set had the reading. When, therefore, Wetsten inserted SUIS {Latin: “his”}, to make Stephanus’s omnibus refer to it, “all his MSS.” instead of, all those of the margin that have the passage, was it, I ask, according to his Homeric prayer, that he professed, Prol. 205. (508 Seml.) ποιησον δ αιθρην, {Greek: “Clear the sky!” Iliad 17. 646}—or the Horatian, that he gives to his opponent, “Pulchra Laverna, Da mihi fallere?” {Latin: “Fair Laverna, grant me to escape detection” Horace, Epistle LXVI. 60f.} Who will now wonder that Mr. Porson should be himself, as we have seen he says of Stunica (p. 45.) “so mild and tame in this particular instance,” that when he comes to the point, he should make it “all the MSS.,” not all his, and should depend for his proof upon Stephanus’s text agreeing with that of Erasmus?

But Wetsten was driven to the ratio ultima {Latin: “ultimate argument”} of Critics. He had no other way of making out his point, viz. “in memoriam revocandum est, omnes vulgatas editiones non nisi ex duobus non optimae notae Codicibus, uno Erasmi, Complutensium altero, prodiisse” {Latin: “it must be recalled, all the common printed editions, not highly regarded, on the basis of only two Book-form manuscripts, one that of Erasmus, and the other the Complutensian, have given that reading”}; Animadvers. et Caut. II. p. 870, or as it stands in Bishop Marsh’s Lectures, VI. p. 110, “The text therefore in [Specimen 31] daily use resolves itself at last into the Complutensian and the Erasmian editions. Griesbach, p. V. (or XVIII. Lond. 1809): “Editiones omnes Elzevirianis anteriores, immo ipsa etiam Elzeviriana, e duabus recensionibus fluxerunt, Complutensium scilicet editorum et Erasmi.” {Latin: “All the editions prior to the Elzevirs’ originated from two recensions, that is, those of the Complutensian editors and that of Erasmus.”} This, Dr. Griesbach, in his excellent prolegomena, has placed beyond controversy.” Butler Hor. Biblic. I. p. 167. 4th ed. Had Wetsten ventured to say on Matt. ii. 11. reclamantibus codicibus decem, i. e. omnibus, {Latin: “rejecting ten of those manuscripts, i.e. all of them,”} I think there is no one, I do not except Archdeacon Travis, who would not have made some hesitation respecting the proof that Stephanus’s “third edition often varies from all his MSS. even by his own confession.” And this too, even supposing him to be in the most profound ignorance of Stephanus having spoken in his preface of another set of XVI. MSS.—of his having spoken in his answer to the Paris divines, of XV. from the royal library—of Beza’s testifying, as Mr. Porson has shewn us, that he had in all XXV±.—and Henry, the principal collator for the 2d and the 3d ed. having stated them at more than thirty. No creature could have allowed that “ipsa Stephani editio palam testatur, editorem a lectione omnium suorum codicum recessisse, et aliam lectionem recepisse:” {Latin: “the edition of Stephanus itself plainly bears witness that the editor rejected the testimony of all his book-form manuscripts, and accepted another reading:”} every one must have seen that “εν πασι {Greek: “in all”} in omnibus Codicibus” {Latin: “εν πασι, Greek: “in all,” in all the Book-form manuscripts”} never, in any instance, could possibly mean all, even of the one set, but merely all those of the XV. that happen to have the passage.

But if Stephanus’s own evidence against himself is not sufficient to convict him, are there no means of supplying its defect? He very clearly shows, that his reading ἑυρον, {Greek: “they found”} Matt. ii. 11, was in none of the XV. MSS. that he collated with the text of the folio; are there no means of proving that ἑυρον {Greek: “they found”} was also not to be found in any of the first set of the XVI, nor in any MS., not contained in either of these two sets? The reader shall have the whole; and he must decide. Beza says, “In omnibus vetustis exemplaribus scriptum erat ειδον viderunt;” {Latin: “in all the ancient exemplars was written ειδον, Greek “they saw,” they saw;”} or as he afterwards gave it, “scriptum legimus ειδον.” {Latin: “we read what was written ειδον, Greek “they saw.”} This most certainly is primâ facie evidence for what Wetsten and Mr. Porson wanted. It seems [Specimen 32] to take in the whole XXX; to include every MS. of every set, that Stephanus ever had. It requires however much more knowledge than what I possess, to decide how far it actually goes. I have no means of ascertaining whether Beza had the collation of all Stephanus’s MSS. and whether he had all the three collations of the first set of the XVI. MSS. I cannot decide, whether he constantly availed himself of whatsoever he actually had of the collations, or was not sometimes contented with the collation of the XV. that were numbered for the margin; so as to be in such a case as this, possibly no more than evidence for what the whole of that set could say. Nor yet can I decide, supposing him to have possessed all the three collations of the XVI., and the collations of any others not included in either set, and to have made use of them, whether he regularly referred those collations to the new text of Stephanus’s folio, which he adopted at first implicitly, and afterwards with small variations. There is one point however which I esteem sufficiently plain. If Beza had been called here to witness against Stephanus’s text, from the collation that he possessed, it is obvious that he might also have been examined, from the same documents, in favour of Stephanus’s text, on another point: and that if he could testify to a negative, viz. that Stephanus had no MSS. for his reading here on Matt. ii. 11.; much more might he be able to testify to a positive fact, viz. that Stephanus had some MSS. in another place.

Mr. Butler, Horae. Bib. Appen. IX. p, 280, says, “Perhaps, nothing has contributed so much to the accurate knowledge which seems now to be obtained of the Greek text of the New Testament, as the discussions to which the verse has given rise.” I differ somewhat from this accomplished scholar. I am inclined to say positively, that nothing has contributed so much to the profound ignorance which seems now to obtain of the received text of the New Testament, as the discussion to which the two verses have given rise.

“Sunt hic etiam sua premia laudi.” {Latin, Vergil Aen. I. 461: “Here too the praiseworthy has its rewards.”} I think it only justice [Specimen 33] to observe, respecting that most ingenious and successful device of inserting “suis,” “in omnibus suis codicibus,” {Latin: “his,” “in all his book-form manuscripts”} that it is, as far as I know, the property of that excellent Papist, Le Pere Morin; whose object is thus expressed, “Quaeramus ergo divina oracula in Ecclesia et ab Ecclesia, eaque non de alienigenarum, neque hostium manibus sed de Ecclesiae Pastophoriis et Archivis promamus et excipiamus.” {Latin: “Let us seek therefore the divine oracles in the Church and from the Church, and bring them forth and take them out not from aliens, and from the hands of enemies, but from the Chambers and Archives of the Church.”} It is obvious therefore that heretical Greek was to be put out of the way. And since “all critics agree” with him, in pious zeal against “the Protestant Pope Stephens” as they style him, (Bentley to the Archbishop, Ap. 15, 1716. Ep. lxx, p. 233 in Burney). Morin is authority that cannot be disputed. It appears in his Exercitat II. cap. 4. p. 119. ed. Paris 1633, given by Wetsten II. p. 853, and Prolegom. Ist ed. p. 168; where he speaks four times of “omnibus codicibus,” {Latin: “from all the book-form manuscripts”} or “omnium exemplarium;” {Latin: “of all the exemplars”} but at last ventures on the insertion,—“Praeter ista loca multa alia ejusdem generis in eodem Matthei evangelio notavit Robertus Stephanus, quae cum exemplarium suorum nullo conveniebat, in textu tamen ab eodem relicta sunt, et in Hereticorum versionibus expressa.” {Latin: “Apart from those places Robert Stephens noted many others of the same type in the same Gospel of Matthew, which did not agree at all with his exemplars, but which he left in the text, and which were reproduced in the versions of Heretics.”} Wetsten has thought it right to cut out “Hereticorum” {Latin: “of Heretics”} in both places where he gives the quotation. Morin’s assertion is so gross, that Simon in recording it, Hist. Crit. N. T. xxix. p. 346 a. says, “Il observe en méme temps, que Robert Estienne a aussi laissé dans son Edition Grecque du Nouveau Testament plusieurs leçons qui ne s’ accordoient avec aucun des Manuscrits qu’il produit,” {French: “He observes at the same time that Robert Stephens had left in his Greek Edition of the New Testament, many readings which did not accord with any of the Manuscripts he brought forth,”} i. e. none of the MSS. of his margin. This truth forced itself for a moment upon Michaelis, who in summing up his statements respecting Stephanus, says Vol. ii. viii. Sect 6. p. 319. “It appears from the preceding accounts, a) That Stephens collated only sixteen codices, or at least that he has given no extracts from more than sixteen.” Morin, however, serves for Wetsten to say ii. p. 852. bott. “Ut paucis dicam, editores omnes, licet promisissent, se fidem Graecorum, quos habebant, Codicum religiose representaturos, promissis tamen non steterunt, sed audacter, neglecta Codicum suorum Lectione, aliam frequenter [Specimen 34] substituerunt, neque dubitarunt integros interdum versus de suo addere. Quae si cui durius fortassis dicta videbuntur, liberet is quaeso. mihi primum istos homines ab suspicione malae fidei, si possit: doceat deinde, unde suas illi omnes lectiones hauserint.” {Latin: “In short, all the editors, though they promised to reproduce faithfully and religiously the Greek Book-form manuscripts to which they had access, did not in the event hold to their word, but boldly abandoned the reading of their Book-form manuscripts and frequently substituted another for it, and did not hesitate to add in the mean time whole verses of their own. And if this seems to someone a little harsh, let me first ask such a one if he can possibly absolve these men of acting in bad faith, till he has shown the reason why they abandoned all their readings.”}

I am bound to notice, that Mr. Porson could speak only of Griesbach’s first edition, when he says, “Mr. Griesbach took this point for granted.” And we ought to consider what Griesbach says, when he had before him (as the Prolegomena of his 2nd ed. show that he had,) both this avowal of his friend; and the insult of his opponent. Here undoubtedly Mr. Griesbach will write the damning proof of Stephanus’s guilt, and make it plain, so that he may run that readeth it, (Hab. ii. 2.) In his first section ii. 7.) p. xviii. (xxx. ed. Lond. 1809.) after giving the “boast” of Stephanus, he says, “vanissima tamen haec omnia sunt atque falsissima. Suis quisque oculis cernere potest, Stephanum codicum suorum rationem habuisse paene nullam, nec testium aetatem, gravitatem, consensum, immo ne numerum quidem, curate expendisse—” {Latin: “However all this is vane and false in the highest degree. Whoever makes the effort to use his eyes, can see that Stephanus had almost no basis for his readings in his book-form manuscripts, and did not carefully take into account the age, weight, agreement, and least of all indeed the number, of his testimonies.”}

Observe “suis quisque oculis,” {Latin: “whoever … uses his eyes”} and “ne numerum quidem curate expendisse.” {Latin: “did not carefully take into account least of all the number.”} Now, so far from my being allowed to see with my own eyes, I have never yet been told, what was the exact number of Stephanus’s MSS.: and I have no conception how any one is to form the most vague guess what number of the unmarked MSS. he had in any particular part of the N. T. except by attention to the notices, which Beza has given in his commentary. Those words are then reprinted, in which he had in the 1st ed. “taken the point for granted,” “saepissime contra omnium codicum suorum fidem et auctoritatem.” {Latin: “quite often against the reliable authority of all his book-form manuscripts.”} And to this is now subjoined “quod qui negare vellet, nihil aliud efficeret rei notissime ignorantia, quam ut risum commoveret doctorum et prudentium.” {Latin: “Whoever wants to deny this, achieves nothing more than an exercise of the most remarkable ignorance, such as would occasion the mockery of the learned and wise.”} I well know how dreadful an engine the horse laugh of the “docti et prudentes” {Latin: “learned and wise”} can be. I am perfectly aware that it can mow down whole ranks of opponents. But “fortem hoc animum tolerare jubebo.” {Horace, Sermones II. 5. 20, Latin: “I will command a strong mind to endure this”} I avow the “rei notissimae ignorantia;” {Latin: “exercise of the most remarkable ignorance”} and I beg leave to say that the “risus doctorum et [Specimen 35] prudentium,” {Latin: “mockery of the learned and wise”} is no proof of it. Mr. Griesbach seems sensible of this; so at last he is driven to give what both he and Mr. Porson had hitherto avoided with such admirable skill. It is the margin of the folio, by which the suicide is to be effected. “Stephanus ipse textum, quem edidit, a codicibus suis omnibus plus centies dissonare, ingenue in margine suo professus est—” {Latin: reproduced immediately following, Bishop Marsh} or, as it is given by Bishop Marsh, Lectures VI. in Part I. p. 107.; “In fact Stephens himself has openly contradicted his own declarations: for in the margin of this edition, there are more than a hundred places, in which he has quoted all his authorities for readings different from his own.” The Right Reverend Lecturer had just before asserted that “The text of this folio edition, printed in 1550, was once supposed to have been formed entirely on the authority of Greek manuscripts, which Robert Stephens, in the preface to it, professes to have collated for that purpose a second and even a third time.” His Lordship does not inform us who these persons are, that have “supposed it to have been formed entirely on the authority” of that set of MSS. I am aware of plenty of wretched dupes who have asserted, that it was “formed entirely on the authority” of the other set—the XV, that was collated once for all with the text of this folio: but I never before heard of any one imagining it to have been formed solely from the first set, which was collated three times, first for the purpose of the first edition, and “a second and even a third time,” evidently, for the second and the third edition. I have no conception of any creature so intensely stupid as to suppose this, when he might see, “suis quisque oculis,” [Latin: “each with his own eyes”} the various readings of the second set of the XV in the margin. But let this pass: these distinctions are nothing in the eyes of his Lordship or of Griesbach.— “There are more than a hundred places in which he has quoted all his authorities for readings different from his own.”—“Stephanus ipse textum, quem edidit, a codicibus suis omnibus, plus centies dissonare, ingenue in margine suo professus est.” {Latin: reproduced immediately preceding.} Now what is there here, but a repetition of Father Morin’s ex- [Specimen 36] pedient of inserting “suis;” {Latin: “his”} that omnibus {Latin: “all”} may be referred to it, instead of those of the margin that happen to have the place that may be in question; and so, the text may be made “a codicibus suis omnibus dissonare;” {Latin: “to disagree with all his book-form manuscripts”} where has Stephanus made the ingenuous profession, that “he has quoted all his authorities?” Griesbach himself shewed only two pages before at 3) that εν πασι {Greek: “in all”} in the margin could never convey the whole even of that one set, which was collated with the text of the folio. He has proved that it must denote a different number of them in every different division of the Sacred Writings; that at most there were only ten, merely two thirds of this set of MSS. and sometimes only two MSS. thus to disagree with the text.

After all; the insertion of the possessive pronoun will not alone serve the purpose of the critics. This set comprehended print as well as manuscript. Griesbach therefore justly says “codicibus,” {Latin: “book-form manuscripts”} and his Lordship “authorities.” Archdeacon Travis, in the same manner, expounds εν πασι {Greek: “in all”}, in all my authorities, twice over, (174, 2nd edit. 380, 3d.) Even he could see this,—he, who in 2nd ed. same page, could describe Stephanus’s notation as showing “where his reader might find the MS. or MSS. particularly specified, on the authority of which he had made the insertion;” though, in his 3d edit. p. 308, after the castigation that he had received, it is corrected to “MS. or MSS. in which such word or words were wanting.” I am warranted, then, in saying, that it was impossible for Mr. Porson not to have been aware that any confession of Stephanus in his margin, must have been of “all his authorities,” and not merely “of all his manuscripts,” as he is pleased to confine it. And the Archdeacon, in the note we have given above, accommodates Mr. Porson, by not merely inserting the possessive pronoun, but also by leaving out printed documents; when he says that Stephanus “tells us frankly ειδον εν πασι {Greek: “‘they found’ in all”}, All my MANUSCRIPTS read ειδον {Greek: “they found”}” (189, 3d). There is much greater praise than Dr. Hales thinks of, when he adopts Griesbach’s censure, (ii. p. 29, as above.) Allow it and S. in reality “candidly confesses” all my authorities read ειδον {Greek: “they found”}. He [Specimen 37] is to be “justified in rejecting the authorities of all his Greek,” whether print or manuscript. Now to those who are of opinion, that it is not such very great praise to Stephanus, to say that “his third edition often varies from all his MSS.”—to those who are of opinion, that this would be deserting them in a culpable sense; I say, why might not I as legitimately contend, that his quoting “all his authorities for readings different from his own,” proves that he had no more printed copies, and therefore must have had the reading from MS.—as you can, that he had no more manuscript copies, and therefore must have had the reading from print? I am aware that you may point to Mr. Porson’s quotation from Beza, at p. 56, and tell me of “omnibus paene impressis:” {Latin: “almost all the printed copies”} but I shall take the liberty then of quoting the words immediately preceding “viginti quinque plus minus manuscriptis codicibus,” {Latin: “more or less than twenty-five book-form manuscripts”} and shall remind you of the other set, the XVI from which the first edition was entirely formed, and which was collated again for each of the other editions. And if, as I have allowed it to be probable, the royal MSS. of the margin of the folio formed part of the XV royal MSS. used for the first edition; I shall ask you, whether you can show the slightest ground for believing, that Stephanus had not other MSS. which were neither included in the XVI of the first edition, nor in the XV, whose various readings are given in the folio—viz. MSS., used for forming the text of the folio, but not used for the text of the first edition, nor for the margin of the folio. If then we can mutually agree to give over cheating, and take what is said in the margin, as referring merely to the documents of the margin; what can εν πασι {Greek: “in all”} possibly convey more, than that the reading of the text was not to be found in that particular set of documents, whether printed or manuscript, whose variations from the folio edition are given there. And if the question had been of any other book, but an old critical edition of the N. T.; and the editor had in one single instance thus distinctly declared, that the reading of his text was not supported by any one of the authorities of his margin, I ask, would not “all critics agree,” [Specimen 38] that he must have had some other authorities besides all those of his margin, to supply him with that reading.

But how different is the case now? It is not as we have been putting it, in one single instance, that Stephanus tells you he has given a reading not to be found in any of the marked authorities, where “all critics” would have agreed instantly, that the devil had deserted him in that one instance, and that he had there let out the truth; but they have looked all through the margin, and upon examination had, they avow that their hypothesis calls upon you to believe, that “Stephanus ipse textum quem edidit, a codicibus suis omnibus, plus centies dissonare ingenue in margine suo professus est.” {Latin: translated below, “In fact, etc.”} (Prol. p. xviii. or xxx. 7.) “plus centies” {Latin: “more than a hundred places”} and “ingenue in margine suo professus est,” {Latin: “openly in the margin declared”} “In fact, Stephens himself has openly contradicted his own declarations; for in the margin of this edition there are more than a hundred places, in which he has quoted all his authorities for readings different from his own” Lecture vi. 107. This, I should have thought, would have been experimentum crucis; {Latin: “the crucial test”} and would have put an end to the blessed expedient of inserting “suis;” {Latin: “his”} even if it could stand the avowal, that it makes Stephanus’s confession amount to declaring that his third edition often varies from all his authorities, printed as well as manuscript. Yes; I should have thought, that this would at last, after a century and a half, have shown whether εν πασι {Greek: “in all”} in Stephanus’s margin meant all those documents of the margin that happen to have the passage, and those only, or “all his authorities.” I should have thought that this, at last, must have enabled any one to decide, whether Stephanus had other MSS. besides those which he tells you contained no such reading; or whether this marked set of the margin contained “all his MSS.” I should have thought that this would have forced inadvertence itself to see, that the “docti et prudentes” {Latin: “learned and wise”} had been taking it for granted that Stephanus had only the XV MSS. of the margin, on the very point, which demonstrates that he must have had others—that they drew their inference of his contradicting all his MSS. from [Specimen 39] the very words which prove that he had more than all those (“qu’il produit” {French: “which he produced to the public”}) whose various readings he has given. Maittaire Hist. Steph. p. 144, in reply to Chevilier’s charge of duplicity against Stephanus, says, “Novum profecto et hactenus inauditam erat illud mentiendi genus, eum, qui studebat fallere, suam opinionem typis suis ultro prodere! Eumne dissimulare, qui suo indicio perierit?” {Latin: “A further point is that the aforementioned device was a hitherto unheard-of kind of mendacity, for him to apply himself to deceive others while broadcasting his thoughts to the whole world in print! For him to dissimulate, whilst destroying himself in the process.”} But this was said almost a hundred and twenty years ago; Maittaire could form no conception of this enlightened age.

His Lordship proceeds—“With this glaring evidence, evidence which requires no collation of MSS., but only a superficial view of the edition itself, in order to be perceived, it is extraordinary that credit was ever attached to the pretensions of the editor on the formation of the text,” p. 108. “With this glaring evidence”—glaring indeed; rather too much so, we see for the eye of Griesbach, till it had been pretty long habituated to contemplate it, and which Mr. Porson was utterly unable to face. At that time, no one of the “docti et prudentes” {Latin: “learned and wise”} ventured to show what was the full effect of the device of inserting the pronoun and making it “all his authorities.” But the veteran critic Griesbach, as Dr. Carpenter styles him, (ag. Magee, 416) now become a veteran, and that Divine, who, as Dr. C. says, (Ditto p. xxxiv.) “holds the first rank among our English critics,” with consummate judgment, saw at length what might be done.

It was said of old, that it was a wonder, quod non rideret haruspex, cum haruspicem vidisset. (Latin: “that the haruspex did not smile when he saw the haruspex;” Cicero de nat deor, I. 26.) I should marvel much more if a “doctus et prudens,” {Latin: “learned and wise”} after all his horse laugh at me, could forbear a smile, upon meeting a brother, at seeing their success still more complete than ever, when the delusion seemed to have become so glaring—at seeing the first quarter of the nineteenth century, still believing, with the most implicit faith, that Stephanus’s third edition often varies from all his MSS., when it has been blazoned forth, that if it were so, Stephanus, with all his solemn professions, both before and after this edition, “with all this ostentation,” as Bishop Marsh had just called it, [Specimen 40] p. 117, top, must have “openly contradicted his own declarations, and must have quoted all his authorities (printed and manuscript) in more than a hundred places for readings different from his own:”—and still more, although malice was ever lying in ambush for him, with an eye that never winked,—though they consider “with what jealousy R. Stephens was watched by the Paris divines” (p. 55)—that, notwithstanding all “this glaring evidence,” the utmost credit was ever attached to the pretensions of the editor on the formation of the text,” for fourscore years, till Morin “arose a father in Israel.”

Griesbach, to clench the nail, adds “nec quidquam sive ab ipso sive ab admiratoribus ipsius prolatum legimus, quo servile excusari posset obsequium,” {Latin: “nothing we read brought forth from him or from his admirers can at all excuse that servile deference”}—No, most certainly. Nor will he have any thing from me, nor, as I trust, “ab admiratoribus prolatum,” {Latin: “brought forth from his admirers”} to excuse my killing my Father. And I beg to have it observed, that I can hardly feel more abhorrence of the crime, than Stephanus did of murdering the Greek text, as it has been imputed to him. But notwithstanding all the overbearing authority, the “risus doctorum et prudentium,” {Latin: “mockery of the learned and wise”} with which the world has been driven to give up every ancient critical edition, I confess that I do feel some little surprise, that nothing of the kind has ever been demanded from contemptoribus ipsius {Latin: “his contemporaries”}. Bengel and Wetsten has each his theory, when they paint, in such glowing language, the “servile obsequium,” {Latin: “servile deference”} which, according to their sense of εν πασι, {Greek: “in all”} “posthabita codicum suorum auctoritate—Erasmo altisve editoribus prestitit;” {Latin: “abandoning the authority of his book-form manuscripts—he gives the precedence to Erasmus or other editors”} or, as Mr. Porson, from whom this was taken, has it at p. 89, “in his folio edition, Stephens was so servilely addicted to Erasmus.” It will be entertaining, to any one who will take the trouble, to compare these theories; they are stated by Griesbach, and the reader may see what “the veteran critic” thought of them, when he comes himself to “velut caeco impetu tantum non semper, presertim in tertia sua editione, amplexum esse, quecunqne Erasmus porrigeret.” (p. xviii. 7: or xxx. as above:) {Latin: “just as if by a blind impulse, but not always, he chiefly in his third edition embraced whatever was given forth by Erasmus.”}

The nineteenth century is to come at last to a “coecus im- [Specimen 41] petus;” {Latin: “blind impulse”} and Stephanus, under the secret influence, I presume, of the devil and Dr. Faustus, abandons those MSS. that “ipsa vetustatis specie, paene adorandos fuisse narrat” {Latin: “he says by their very aspect of antiquity were almost worthy of veneration”} (as above) and addicts himself wholly to Froben’s print.

P. 59. “I can only excuse Stephens by the universal custom of dealers, who think it an innocent deceit to cry up the value of their wares.”

This is said of the man who never gives you a hint of the number of MSS. that he had for forming the text of his folio: but contents himself with merely enumerating those, whose various readings he gives in the margin, and telling you, that he had now collated a third time the XVI. with which he had set out in his critical labors. And we see, that if nothing but “coecus impetus” {Latin: “blind impulse”} can be found to have induced Stephanus to commit the crime laid to his charge, of giving a text at variance with “all his authorities;” still Mr. Porson is able to devise an apology for his “boast,” of having always acted differently. As however I hold that Stephanus would not “openly contradict his own declarations”—more than a hundred times, but that he fulfilled this boast—as I hold that he acted up to “all this ostentation,” in not giving a text which was not supported by his manuscript authority—I beg to decline all Mr. P.’s excuses. I say, keep them for those that want them. Let the conspiring critics be delivered, if they can, “by the universal custom” of opposition dealers and their retainers, “who think it an innocent deceit,” to blast the character of the honest old shops, to give a value to their own wares.

P. 59. “Stephens inserted nothing in his text (mistakes excepted) which he did not find in the Complutensian edition, or in Erasmus, or in his MSS.”

Well! And may not this be said of Griesbach and Matthaei? “Stephens inserted nothing in his text” but what perhaps you may find in the Complutensian edition, or in Erasmus, or in those few of his MSS. that his margin has ascertained. But does this [Specimen 42] prove, that he did not find the whole in some of his MSS.? I take leave to deny the consequence. Bishop Marsh has made the assertion with respect to Colinaeus, Lecture VI. p. 105. “The text of this edition was formed partly from the Complutensian edition, partly from the editions of Erasmus, and partly from Greek manuscripts.” The original accusation against Colinaeus was, that he gave a text by retranslating from the Vulgate: against this Wetsten defends him. If then Colinaeus might have MSS. that furnished him with the readings that were consonant with the Vulgate, why might he not also have MSS. according with Erasmus or the Complutensian? Mill says, 1144 “Apocalypsis enim Complutensis, aut Frobenianae, aut saltem Exemplarium cum istis congruentium vestigiis fere insistit.” {Latin: “The Complutensian Apocalypse mostly rests on that of Froben or at least on remnants of Exemplars agreeing with them.”} He adds, with respect to the passages that he most suspected ,—not that they exist in no Greek MSS., but “nullum apparet in Codicibus, quos hactenus videre contigit, vestigium.” {Latin: “Not a trace appears in the Book-form manuscripts, which have so far come our way.”} and 1145 “Fieri potest ut etiam in istis habuerit vir doctus Exemplaria que sequeretur.” {Latin: “It is possible the learned man had Exemplars which he followed in these instances also.”} Take now the lowest estimate of Stephanus’s MSS., that which Mr. Porson himself gives, “exemplar ex Stephani nostri bibliotheca cum viginti quinque plus minus manuscriptis codicibus—collatum;” {Latin: “the exemplar from the library of our Stephanus with twenty-five hand-written book-form manuscripts more or less—in collation”} and tell me, if you can, why I may not urge for Stephanus, what Mill has said for Colinaeus. Why might he not find in his MSS. what you can find only in the Complutensian or in Erasmus?

P. 59. “But he frequently quits all his MSS, to follow his printed guides, and frequently follows Erasmus without attending to the rest, of which partiality I have already given a specimen,”

The received theory is, that the text of Stephanus’s folio follows the Complutensian in the book of Revelations, and Erasmus every where else, without any attention to his MSS. Bishop Marsh states it, Lecture VI. p. 107,“But it is so far from having been formed on their authority, that, except in the book of Revelation, it is hardly any thing more than Erasmus’s fifth edition reprinted. And even in the book of Revelation, where he often [Specimen 43] departs from Erasmus, he departs only for the sake of Complutensian readings.” See also Griesbach (Prol, 1st. Section ii. p. xv or xxvii. ed. Lond. 1809) with his reference to Wetsten, who, p. 145. 2. (Seml. 374) is pleased to make “Millio supputante, vix vicies ab eo recederet.” {Latin: “According to Mill’s reckoning he hardly departed from it twenty times.”} Of which partiality,” says Mr. P., “I have already given a specimen.” It will be for the reader then to decide where “partiality” lies; whether the crime lies with the despised printer, or with his illustrious accuser; it will be for him to say whether it be shown, that Stephanus followed Erasmus without attending to his MSS. But whatever that decision may be, let it be remembered, that Mr. Porson has not attempted in this, to prove any thing against our passage. That was given in its new form four years before this “partiality”—this “coecus impetus,” {Latin: “blind impulse”} was supposed to have befallen Stephanus, in an edition that was not infected by ἑυρον on Matt. ii. 11.

P. 59. “Let us be no more pestered with the stale common-places of honour, honesty, veracity, judgment, diligence, erudition,” &c.

I can perfectly understand, why “all critics” should “agree” in deprecating a hint about “honour, honesty, veracity,” in this question. As for “judgment, diligence, erudition,” I will readily allow that the whole rests with them exclusively; saving one little exception here, with respect to the first, where Mr. Porson ventures upon Stephanus’s text in our passage: “melius non tangere clamo,” {Latin, Horace, Sermones II. I. 25: “I cry out, better not touch!”} I shall have no great apprehension, that any man of common sense will seriously contend that Stephanus had no manuscript authority for our passage,—if I can once be believed in my assertion that the new form in which he gave it, appeared in his two small editions,—if I can beat the conspiring critics, so far as to make the world think that the XV MSS. which he collated with the text that he had formed at last for his folio, were not the XVI that he had for the purpose of forming the text of his first edition; and that the VIII royal MSS. of the margin were not the XV that he had from the royal library,— above all, if I can beat the defenders of Stephanus, so far as to make them withdraw the praises, they have been lavishing upon [Specimen 44] him, for having printed a text differing from “all his MSS.”; and to infuse into their minds a doubt of the logic of the conspiring critics in drawing such an inference from his words, when they see that it would make him to have formed his text in contradiction to Erasmus’s edition as well as to his own MSS.; and that the critics themselves are constantly producing various readings from the very MSS. which they profess to prove never had existence.

P. 59. “If R. Stephens’s MSS. all omitted the controverted passage, he would still retain it in his edition; because he has the same vicious complaisance for many other passages, without having equal seeming authority.”

There were three critical editions; and I have said that Mr. Porson did not dare to touch the two first. “Edition,” in the singular number, is no typographical error; it stands so in Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1789, p. 387 b. But let this pass; only mark the word “retain;” and remember “that Stephens inserted nothing in his text (mistakes excepted) which he did not find in the Complutensian edition, or in Erasmus, or in his MSS.;” and now, “Hear what the unjust judge saith.” (Luke xviii. 6.) We have it ruled, that if he had “quitted all his MSS. to follow his printed guides,” he would have retained, in the controverted passage, what is given by the printed guide whom he follows in that part of the N. T. But has he retained what any printed guide in the world ever gave? No. “The Complutensian editors gave it in one form: Erasmus in another form: Robert Stephens again in another form.” I quote Bishop Marsh’s Lecture XXVII. part VI. p. 27; for although the whole is plain, so that a child must see it, and nothing but falsehood itself can misrepresent it; yet I love to take the words of these great men, to cut off all suspicion of my giving a false colouring. “Such,” to proceed with the Right Reverend Lecturer’s words, “is the origin and progress of that celebrated passage, which men of learning and talent have taken,”—or as I say, men of learning and talent think of making you take, to have never existed in any genuine Greek MS. You see three separate testimonies, as dis- [Specimen 45] tinct as can possibly be conceived,—not one single act, only carried on by different conspiring hands, as the pious and upright historian, with exquisite skill, and still more admirable judgment, delicately instils into your mind*.

{Footnote (*) p. 45 bottom: The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the Complute editors; the typographical fraud or error of Robert Stephens in the placing a crotchet; and the deliberate falsehood or strange misapprehension of Theodore Beza. Chap. xxxvii. Note 119. It would take many pages to point out all the merits of this τετραγωνος εργασια [Greek: “four-cornered work”]}

If then the poor Archdeacon could have been disabused of those XV “phantoms bodiless and vain” of the margin of the folio, so as to receive instruction from Mr. Porson; what inference could have been easier and more indisputable, than that Stephanus (let him have followed printed guides as much as you please any where else) had here quitted them, to follow his MSS.? So it stands, taking the whole, as the conspiring critics themselves state; on their assumption that Stephanus’s boast was utterly false. And I ask whether any person can entertain a doubt of Mr. Travis’s two illustrious correspondents, and the “veteran critic,” whom he insulted, being perfectly satisfied in their own minds, that Stephanus, when he thus gave the passage “again in another form,” could have had it only from some of the first set of the XVI MSS. out of which he formed that edition, where the passage first appeared, as it stands in the received text? Where else was the superior incantation, the more potent spell, that here overpowered the “coecus impetus,” {Latin: “blind impulse”} which made him take “quaecunque Erasmus porrigeret, praesertim in tertia sua editione?” {Latin: “chiefly in his third edition whatever was given forth by Erasmus.”} If you wish to see a Samson in agonies read on:

P. 59. “Here he had the consent of both editions for his warrant; in other places he follows Erasmus alone.”

I do not very clearly understand how he could follow at the same moment two guides, when they each take a different route. If I read Bishop Marsh rightly, the Complutensian gives the passage in one form, and Erasmus in another form. I am not then exactly aware, how he could retain both; and in point of [Specimen 46] fact, he follows neither one nor the other. “Robert Stephens again in another form.” So that, in flat contradiction to Mr. Porson in every way, he has not the consent of either edition for his warrant; but the dissent “of both editions.”

Now observe the wretched subtlety to which Mr. P. stoops, to induce you to say that Stephanus retains the reading of both editions, when he really differs from both.

P. 59. “You, Sir, prove, with admirable conciseness, in something less than six pages (p. 78—81; 172—177) that Stephens did not take this verse from the Complutensian edition. Granted.” P. 60.

It was the theory of Simon, as far as he dared to speak out, that Stephanus copied here from the Complutensian *.

{Footnote (*) p. 46 bottom: “We now proceed to consider the assertion made by Griesbach and other opposers of the controverted clause, that the Complutensian editors translated it from Latin into Greek; and that from their edition it was transferred into the other editions of the Greek Testament.”—Horne’s Introduction, Part II. ch. IV. sect. V. 2. Vol. IV. p. 461. ed. 3.}

“Les editions au contraire qui ont suivy celle de Complute ou Alcala, qui est de 1515, ont toutes ce verset. C’est pourquoy on le lit dans la belle edition de Robert Estienne.” {French: “The editions on the contrary which have followed the Complutensian or Alcala, of 1515, all have this verse. That is why one finds it in the beautiful edition of Robert Stephens.”} N. T. xviii. p. 216 a. “C’est pourquoy je me trompe fort, si ces anciens livres de ce savant Imprimeur ne se peuvent réduire a la seul édition Grecque du Cardinal Ximenes.” {French: “That is why I am very much mistaken if these ancient books of this scholar Printer cannot be reduced to the sole Greek edition of Cardinal Ximenes.”} Sur les MSS. p. 14.a. Mr. Emlyn’s Inquiry. Ch. iii, Vol. ii. p. 135, “’Tis probable he put it into his own edition from the Complutensian, and we from his into ours.” Though this probability began to be a little improbable, in his Answer, Sect. iv. p. 212, “’Tis enough that we can answer in the negative upon good authority, that he had ’em not from any of his Greek manuscripts, [having proved that the passage was not in the one set of the XV of the margin] and then ’tis no great matter where else he found ‘em. Probably he took ’em, as he did the words εν τῳ ουρανῳ from the Complutensian edition;”—In the same tone, Dr. Benson, p. 152, ed. 1749. “And, finally, as to the Complutensian,—which (though printed) Stephens has numbered as the first of his MSS. And from whence, most probably, he took this disputed passage, and inserted it [Specimen 47] into the sacred text.” Sir Isaac Newton discovered a different authority for him to copy. Having told us, xxiv. vol. v. p. 515, of Erasmus, giving the passage in his third edition, he adds, as neatly as Simon or Emlyn, “And so it continued in his two following editions. And at length Robert Stephens, anno Christi 1550, [not a word about anno Christi, 1546,] reprinted Erasmus’s edition, with some few alterations, and various lections, taken”— And Wetsten, with none of this hesitation, but with all the manliness that we had before, says “Stephanus editionem Erasmi, 4 et 5, secutus est, nisi quod in prima editione pro verbis και το, aberratione typothetarum expressum fuit το και, in editionis vero ora”.—p. 724, in loc. {Latin: “Stephanus followed the edition of Erasmus, 4 and 5, except that in the first edition for the words και το, Greek “and the,” by a printer’s error it was represented as το και, but in the same language as the edition”}; or as he had given it Prolegomena, 1st ed. p.190, “Erasmum Stephanus, frustra contradicentibus omnibus quos habebat MSS. Codicibus, secutus est,” {Latin: “Stephanus followed Erasmus, all the Book-form MSS. which he had access to having in error contradictory readings.”} though it should be told to his honour, that he withdrew the whole of the paragraph, vol. ii. p. 864. Bengel and Griesbach, emulating Mr. Gibbon’s liberality, “give their readers the option between” Erasmus. and the Complutensian: Stephanus may have copied from either the one or the other, if you will but allow it to be fraud, frustra contradicentibus omnibus quos habebat MSS. codicibus, {Latin: “all the Book-form MSS. which he had access to having in error contradictory readings.”} and not from any one of the XXV±. “Stephanicas editiones et reliquas citare, plane supervacaneum est. Erasmicas et Complutensem in omittendo vel exprimendo Dicto, omnes ceterae sunt secutae.” {Latin; “It is a complete waste of time to cite the editions of Stephanus and the rest. All the others followed Erasmus or the Complutensian in omitting or retaining readings.”} Bengel end of § 5. “Primum ediderunt illud comma Complutenses, dein Erasmus in tribus postremis editionibus; ex his propagatum fuit in Stephanicas, hinc in Bezanas, inde in Elzevirianas caeterasque.” {Latin: “The Complutensian first gave the [Johannine] comma, then Erasmus in his three last editions. From these it passed into Stephanus’s editions, thence into Beza’s and thence into the Elzevirs’ and the rest.”} Griesbach, p. [7] or 691 ed Lond. 1810. Now after these contradictions of the Newtons and the Wetstens to the Simons the Emlyns and the Bensons—and the Simons and Emlyns to the Newtons, and Wetstens,—now when the “prudence” of the Bengels and the Griesbachs makes them hold their tongues; we most certainly have “dignus vindice nodus.” {Latin, Horace, Ars 192 : “A knot worthy of such hands to untie.”} Let Mr. Porson then speak; “Deus intersit.” {Latin, Horace, ibid.: “May the Deity be introduced.” This is a reference to the whole line of Horace, ibid.: “May the Deity not be introduced, unless there is a knot worthy of such hands to untie.”} It will not do for the man who has avowed that “Stephens inserted nothing in his text—which he did not find in the Complutensian edition, or in Erasmus, or in his [Specimen 48] MSS.,” to say with Mr. Emlyn, “’Tis enough that we can answer in the negative upon good authority, that he had ’em not from any of his Greek manuscripts and ‘tis no great matter where else he found ’em;” Mr. Porson must speak out; and I think “it will not be enough for him” here, as he has described his office at p. 16, “if he can collect what is scattered through many works;” he must draw solely from his own mighty mind.

P. 60. “Granted. He did not take it wholly from the Complutensian. He took it partly from the Complutensian and partly from Erasmus. He differs from Erasmus in adding the article thrice, and in transposing the word ἁγιον; and in these four differences he followed the Complutensian edition and the genius of the language.”

Taking Mr. Porson’s own statement, I ask, can you have any thing that could carry honesty more on its face? Allow me to suppose for a moment that the two verses actually came from the Apostle’s pen; that Erasmus had received a manuscript from England, bad as ever you like, which gave them; and that Cardinal Ximenes had one from the Vatican, still worse if you please, that also gave them, but in another form. Now if Stephanus, when he was about to print his 12mo. edition, among the XV MSS. that he had from the king’s library, and the other private one, found one that came nearer to the genuine reading, than either the Britannic or the Roman MS.; what would you expect from it?—that it should give what existed in neither of the others,— that it should give different words from both; or, what Mr. Porson describes as the actual fact, that it should throughout the two verses, have nothing but what is to be found in one or other of them; though differing so materially from both? The simplicity of truth is, to my mind, so apparent in this, that I think our opponents could not help acknowledging it, if it were possible for them to divest themselves for a moment of the notion, that their characters are at stake, for their everlasting assertions that Stephanus had only the XV MSS. of his margin, and for the histories that they have written of the passage having its origin in the Latin.

[Specimen 49]

Now, on the other hand, let us see the theory of that great man, whose rule in this case was, as he himself states it, p. 225, “Wherever I set my steps, I stumble upon fresh examples of forgery.”

“He took it partly from the Complatensian and partly from Erasmus.” The thought itself is not absolutely new: Mr. Porson’s theory for the Complutensian was, p. 51, that they “patched up a motley text, and dexterously transplanted a clause;”—to make it genuine. This horticultural mode of criticism was there only in its infancy; it is here brought to perfection; and the variegation which he there makes for the Complutensian editors, is stupid sameness to the “motley text,” that he here patches up, by his transplantation, for Stephanus. First, he makes Stephanus go and dig up a bit of Erasmus, then a bit of the Complutensian, then again take his spade to Erasmus, and so on, according to his own account, four times from each: for he speaks here of “these four differences” from Erasmus; and in p. 62 he tells us “of four differences from the Complutensian upon this very place.” I ask, would Mr. Porson have ventured upon this, if he had not been certain, that the gentleman, with whom he was contending, raised to the third heaven on the “empty visions of the brain,” was infinitely above looking at the Text; and that when he had the splendid folio before him, he would never condescend to look back at a poor duodecimo? Would the Professor have ventured upon it, if he had not felt, that when he begged not to be pestered with the stale common-places of honour, &c. it was wholly unnecessary for him to proscribe common sense, with Mr. Travis; but that he could dress the Venerable the Archdeacon in motley whenever he liked? It answered with Travis, and it has served admirably in this our day; being good enough for a set of creatures, that can embrace the theory of Stephanus having no other MSS. than those marked by the numerals; when it is openly avowed that if you admit it, you must believe that “in the margin of this edition, there are more than a hundred places in which he has quoted all his authorities for readings different from his own,” and so must, according to this [Specimen 50] hypothesis, have “openly contradicted his own declarations” more, than a hundred times. It would be as little to my own credit, as to that of Mr. Porson, for me to attempt to expose his theory for Stephanus’s text in this passage, beyond what the mere statement of it effects. If more were wanted, I might remind you, that there was some difference between Mr. P. and his correspondent; and might ask you whether you think he was, like the Archdeacon, ignorant that the passage, as it stands in the received text, was given in the 12mo. editions. All, “who have taken any pains in comparing Stephens’s editions” (p. 58), must have instantly seen, that the folio could have nothing to do with the question, but as a confutation of the calumnies thrown upon Stephanus; and that if “the text of it is” to be “a reimpression of the fifth edition of Erasmus with a few alterations;” (Butler, ix, p. 274; Marsh’s Letters p. xx, Lecture vi. p. 110; Newton xxiv. p. 515) this passage most eminently shows, that, such alterations were made, where his own MSS, did not support it. But supposing that it were “Stephens’s celebrated edition of the Greek Testament, which gives rise to the present question;” (Butler ix.) I might remind you of the “servile obsequium,” {Latin: “servile addiction”}—of “Stephens being so servilely addicted to Erasmus in his folio edition;” (Porson 89) and ask you, what you think of this “coecus impetus” {Latin: “blind impulse”} having to remit, and act again, four times in the space of the two verses. I might remind you of Mr. Porson’s attempting to give a specimen of Stephanus’s partiality, in following “Erasmus without attending to the rest,” as he expresses it—such as is wanted for the theory of Newton and Wetsten; but that he has not attempted to give a specimen of what he himself charges here upon Stephanus,—of this intermission of the “coecus impetus” {Latin: “blind impulse”}— this aguish alternation, that shall make him follow Erasmus WITH “attending to” the Complutensian. No. Mr. Porson has not made an attempt to show that Stephanus ever “has the same vicious complaisance,” in any “other passage;” as that which he feels himself reduced to attribute to him here: his readers are to have the virtuous “complaisance” to take this for granted.

[Specimen 51]

And this is but a small part of what is expected from them. I might observe that in 1 John v. 7, 8. Stephanus is to have “printed guides,” in the plural; “He did not take it wholly from the Complutensian.” How comes he to take one atom from the Complutensian, in this part of the N. T., where “Erasmicam quintam—tam presse sequitur, ut—vix vicies ab eo discrepet” {Latin; “He so closely follows the 5th edition of Erasmus, as to hardly depart from it twenty times.”} (Griesbach xv. or xxviii.)—in this part of his folio edition, where he “was so servilely addicted to Erasmus.” Wetsten having laid this burthen upon Mill, who never said a word of the kind, (et Millio supputante vix vicies ab eo recederet, {Latin: “According to Mill’s reckoning he hardly departed from it twenty times”} 145. 2 Seml. 374) with consistency equal to his courage, makes Stephanus, as we saw above, take this passage “wholly from the” 4th or the 5th of Erasmus. What then did Mr. Porson depend upon, but “paltering with us in a double meaning;” {Shakespeare Macbeth, V, vii, 48} when he thus brought the two “printed guides” together, upon any one passage? What were his own private sentiments, when he was obliged thus to falsify their own false theory, that Erasmus printed after one edition in the Revelations, and another in the rest of the N. T.? What did he think of it, when having thus established the words “printed guides;” he was forced to depend upon our not being able to make the distinction, but carrying our “complaisance” so far, as to take the two together for Stephanus, where he himself must have it, that “he follows Erasmus alone?” Yes; after a good century of open falsifying, and bandying Erasmus and Complutensian, Complutensian and Erasmus—this is all that can be contrived by him, who was incomparably the most acute disputant the world ever saw. Who then will wonder that “the veteran critic” never ventured to give a hint of the origin of the received text, against which he levels his diatribe at the end of his work; but leaves you, in that most ingenious sentence that we had above, p. 47 from p. [7] to gull yourself with the notion, that it got into the Stephanicae {Latin: “editions of Stephanus”}, as it did from thence into the Bezanae {Latin: “Bezan”}, the Elzevirianae {Latin: “the Elzevirs’”}, and the caeterae, {Latin: “the rest”} i. e. that Stephanus was himself a mere copier, as others copied avowedly from him. Had not “all critics agreed” to keep the text of the first edition out of [Specimen 52] sight; it is scarcely possible that it should not have set some impertinent meddler upon enquiring, what MSS. Stephanus really had for forming that edition; and then all would have been lost. It would have been in vain to have attempted any longer to dupe the world with “omnibus suis,” {Latin; “all his [manuscripts]”} on the general question of Stephanus’s text; or by giving them their option here, whether it shall be the typographical fraud or error of Robert Stephens, that established the three heavenly witnesses in our Greek Testaments, by “the placing a crotchet.” “And the pious frauds which were embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at” Cracow (Gibbon, Ch. xxxvii. vol. vi. p. 290, ed. 8vo. 1802) would have stood flayed and split open {Greek, Hebrews 4. 13:} (γυμνα και τετραχηλιασμενα) to the eyes of all. For myself, if my own life merely were at stake, I would cheerfully let the case of Stephanus’s text in our passage, go upon this alone to the decision of any twelve men that might be impanneled; and would allow it thus to rest wholly on the refutation of the arguments of his opponents, without bringing forward that external testimony, which is as decisive as ever was offered at the bar of criticism; and without saying one word of that internal evidence; which could leave no doubt of its authenticity, not merely on the mind of a man, who looked into “the genius of the language” as the Professor did; but of any man who can pretend to the character of a Greek scholar.

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Printed by R. Gitpext, St. John’s Square, London.

(End of A Specimen Of An Intended Publication 1827)

FRANCIS HUYSHE

Vindication
of the
Early Parisian Greek Press

A Correspondence extracted from:
The British Magazine (London) Vol III. 1833:
pp. 283ff., 427ff., 548ff., 658ff.
and
The British Magazine (London) Vol. IV. 1833:
pp. 29ff., 161ff., 276ff., 411ff., 530ff., 632ff., 757ff.

An examination of the sources and methods of Robert Stephens in
his production of the Textus Receptus Editio Regia

VINDICATION OF THE EARLY PARISIAN GREEK PRESS.

[The British Magazine (London) Vol III. 1833. p. 283]

{Francis Huyshe}

To the Editor of the British Magazine.

Sir,—Mr. Greswell’s view of the Early Parisian Greek Press, in my opinion, makes a most valuable addition to English literature. The press, when it was first applied to Greek and Latin, had an effect, naturally to be expected, but very little attended to—the destruction of the documents which it followed.

The multiplication of the printed copies took away the value of those written ones; and when future editions wanted them, they were many of them no longer to be found; they existed only in the printed copies.

[Vindication III. 284]

Hence the high value of early edition, and the absolute necessity of a full investigation of the character and circumstances of the persons who superintended these editions. The learned have not been without this aid; but it has hitherto been confined to them, and has been made such a matter of dry detail, that few will make further use of such works than mere books of reference. Mr. Greswell, by mingling the history of the times, which really belongs to the subject, has the high merit of producing a book that will inform and please every reader.

In the “View,” however, “of the Greek Parisian Press,” there is one point which ought most deeply to interest all—viz., its editions of the Greek Testament. And this concerns not only those who read the received Greek text, but all who accept the authorized version as the Word of God. I was pleased, therefore, at observing so large a portion of Mr. Greswell’s work employed in the lives of Robert Estienne and his son Henry; to whom sacred criticism is under such deep obligations; but to whom such a measure of black ingratitude and foul aspersion has been repaid. In this work of unceasing defamation, it is with feelings of deep shame I say it, England has been pre-eminent. The prince of critics, who once dreamt of taking an incomparably higher place in sacred criticism than even that which he obtained in classical, could say (Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, xxxii) “The present text was first settled, almost 200 years ago, out of several MSS., by Robert Stephens, a printer and bookseller, at Paris,” and in his celebrated letter to Archbishop Wake, April 1716, “After the Complutenses and Erasmus, who had but very ordinary MSS., it has become the property of booksellers. Robert Stephens’s edition, set out and regulated by himself alone, is now become the standard. That text stands as if an apostle was his compositor,” (p. 232, Burney.) The last and still greater Richard, can talk of “the craft of a printer and editor,” Letters to Travis, p. 56; and again, p. 58, of editors and printers practising, “the tricks of their profession.” His Vindicator, Crito Cantabrigiensis, p. 396, speaks of “the old printer.” Bishop Marsh, also, (Lectures, vi. p. 106) of the editions of Robert Stephens, “a learned bookseller and printer at Paris.” I have no more wish for “a protestant pope” in sacred criticism, than any of these great men. I have no more desire for “Prescription” than Wetsten had, vol. ii. p. 852, 1st ed. p. 166; but I deprecate the wilful rejection of any one of the means of obtaining the true text; and I feel deep obligations to Mr. Greswell for letting the world see “what a printer and editor” was in 1546—1550; by which, perhaps, they may be induced to examine on which side the tricks of trade actually lie; and when I observed Mr. G.’s undertaking, in the contents of his thirteenth chapter, I turned to it in high hopes that his commendation of the Parisian Greek Press would be no longer confined to classical literature, when he so justly says, (Preface, p. v.) “Many of its primary productions commend themselves to the learned of our times, as the representatives of MSS. now no longer found.” When I was told that we should have the “honesty of Robert vindicated from the imputations of Mr. Porson,” I expected to see the fact distinctly [Vindication III. 285] shewn that more than one half of the MSS. out of which “the printer and bookseller” “settled the present text, almost three hundred years ago, have never yet been ascertained.” Such I distinctly and fearlessly say is the fact; for the story of Stephanus’s editions is simply this: Upon his petition to his high-minded patron, Francis I., he was accommodated with the use of fifteen MSS. from the royal library; out of these, and some one private MS., he formed the text of the “O mirificam,” of 1546. This stock he nearly doubled while he was preparing for the glory of his life, the folio of 1550; and when the text of that splendid edition had been formed from it, he selected seven of the fifteen royal MSS. and six of the private, numbered 2—14, to give opposing readings to his first volume (the Gospels and the Acts) which together with those of one of the previous editions, No. 1, are given in the inner margin. As a sufficient number of these thirteen MSS. contained the epistles of St. Paul, and the remainder of the third part of the sacred text (the catholic epistles) there was no alteration made in the opposing materials for giving various readings thus far, in the second volume. But in the Revelations (the 4th part of the sacred text) all the thirteen of the first selection failed. A new selection then became necessary, and No. 15 was taken out of the royal MSS., and No 16 out of the private MSS., with the printed edition, to furnish opposing readings to the new text, there. A reading or two was given from each of the two last selected MSS., in the previous part of the work, probably (as I have imagined) to shew that the royal MS., No. 15, contained the whole of this second volume; and that the private one, No. 16, contained the whole New Testament. The original set of MSS. then amounted to little more than half of what were obtained in the whole, for the text of the folio; and exactly half of that set, (viz., eight of the royal MSS.) and about one half of those that were obtained afterwards, together with the Complutensian print, made up the set that was taken first and last to oppose the text of the folio in the marginal readings. Such was the theory of a pamphlet entitled “Specimen of an intended publication &c.,” namely, that Stephanus had fifteen MSS, from the royal library, but that he had, in all, 16 MSS., “superioribus diebus,” {“in more recent times”} for the first edition of 1546; that these were increased, as might naturally be expected, by his keeping his son so long searching the libraries of Italy, to thirty, and more, for the folio; and that a selection was made out of the whole, to furnish opposing readings in the margin. This was so natural in itself—it so perfectly accorded with every fact that had been obtained from every source—it so perfectly corresponded with the internal evidence of the editions themselves, that Crito Cantabrigiensis and the rest of the families of the Critos, had no means of meeting the pamphlet, but by representing its theory to be that Stephanus had only two sets of documents, and that the documents of the one were wholly different from those of the other, one of these sets being for the margin of the folio, the other to furnish the varying text of all the editions. And it was easy for them to knock down this monstrous fiction of their own when they had set it up.

No critical reader can need to be told that the hypothesis which, [Vindication III. 286] by the zeal and ability of Stephanus’s enemies, has passed current during the 18th and the 19th century, if not earlier, makes him to have had the opposing documents of the margin for the formation of all his editions, and nothing else. I have never been able to discover any reason for this hypothesis, but that it serves to convict him of the most gross violation of the sacred text. It goes on the assumption that he could not select any documents, printed or manuscript, to oppose the text of his folio of 1550, but what he had used for forming that of the 16mo of 1546. And this involves another assumption, viz.—that he could not have added one single copy to his original stock during those four years. Moreover it carries falsehood upon its face: the very first document of the set selected for the margin was the newly-printed Complutensian, whilst that from which the text of the “O mirificam” had been compiled, consisted of 16 very old written copies.

Mr. Porson, however, proceeds upon this hypothesis in the heavy charge, which Mr. Gresswell records, p. 328—“Another instance of this management, says our learned professor, may be seen in the preface to the first edition of Robert Stephens’s Nov. Test. Gr. (anni 1546, in 18mo), where he says, that he has not suffered a letter to be printed, but what the greater of the better MSS., like so many witnesses, unanimously approved. This boast (adds Mr. Porson) is indeed utterly false, as all critics agree, who have taken any pains in comparing Stephens’s editions. They know that Stephens has not observed this rule constantly, because his editions often vary from one another, and his third edition often from all his MSS., even by his own confession.” p. 57.

“ As all critics agree,” says Mr. Porson. Yes; all our modern critics do agree that the solemn profession of Stephanus, of Erasmus, of the Complutensians, of all those who published the old critical editions, shall be “utterly false.” They cannot decide precisely what degree of authority is due to each of these editions, in their calculations of evidence for their own texts; so they solve the difficulty by determining to give none to any one. All critics agree that the boast of all the early editors is “utterly false.” I do not hesitate to say that the world never saw a more atrocious conspiracy than this; and I did hope that the historian of the early Parisian Greek Press would have enabled me to add—nor a more infamous one. How does he rebut it in the case of Stephanus?

“Now an advocate of Robert’s may be permitted to ask in reply, Can it then be fairly deduced, from the above cited words of that preface, that he either boasts, or pledges himself to a resolution never to vary at all in any successive edition from the first? Those words cannot surely be so understood.” p. 329.
Can an advocate of Robert content himself with this mere negative? When Robert pledges himself to a resolution “not to give a letter that is not sanctioned by the greater part of his best MSS., did he not pledge himself to vary whensoever the preponderance of his increasing evidence varied in favour of a different reading from that which he gave at first? Might not the advocate have said, with perfect [Vindication III. 287] justice, that in any case except that of old critical editions of the Greek Testament, the simple circumstance that the editions often vary from one another would have been held to be sufficient proof that the materials from whence they were formed had varied? Yes; the editions themselves say, that the hypothesis of the identity of the materials “is utterly false.”

Your’s faithfully,
Francis Huyshe. Talaton, near Honiton, Feb. 11, 1833.

[Vol III. 1833. p. 427]

We shall find another opportunity to consider Mr. Porson’s assertion, that the man who boasted that he never “suffered a letter to be printed but what the greater part of his best MSS. approved, himself confessed that his third edition often varied from all his MSS.”

Mr. Greswell proceeds, p. 329: If in the exercise of the deuterai phrontides {Greek: “second thoughts”} he was led to think less highly of some of his readings, and [Vindication III. 428] to adopt others, whether from MSS. or from printed copies to which he attributed the authority of MSS., ought this to be made the ground of such severe reflections?

Is this the way in which “the honesty of Robert is vindicated from the imputations of Mr. Porson.” Stephanus professes not to give a letter but from the best of his MSS., and Mr. Greswell intimates that he adopted readings from printed copies as well as MSS. Does not he then establish Mr. Porson’s position, that Stephanus’s boast is false? An advocate of Robert’s may be permitted to ask for some better proof of this, than the fact of the editions often varying from one another; he may decline taking the word of the conspiring critics; he may ask to see the wonderful confession of Stephanus; let it however be proved that, after all his professions, he did adopt readings from printed copies, and no reflections upon him can be too severe. Mr. Porson, indeed, having destroyed Stephanus by his three grand arguments, makes use of him, as lawful prey, to mask his battery against the Greek Apostolos, at p. 232. The Professor having at last ventured to say there, that the Apostolos “was interpolated in printing,” expects to be told by his correspondent, that this was making the editor to be a cheat. “But, says Mr. P., I do not accuse the editor of being a cheat. Who ever called R. Stephens a cheat, because he retains many readings in his edition, which he found in no MS.? Every editor, unless he makes actual profession to the contrary, is at liberty to follow the text of his predecessors.” Well, then, did not Robert “make actual profession to the contrary?” can words convey a stronger “profession to the contrary” than those of Stephanus, which Mr. Porson records, when he is pleased to say, that this boast is utterly false? When, therefore, the Professor asks “who ever called R. Stephens a cheat,”—why is there no Nathan to say, “Thou art the man”? Cheating there is somewhere—either on the part of Stephanus, by his giving “many readings in his editions, which he found in no MS.,” when he “made actual profession to the contrary” in such strong terms; or it lies with the critics, when they assert that he did so, if their accusation is “utterly false;” and no reflexion can be too severe against the party, whichsoever it be, that is guilty of the cheat.

I am well aware of the unparalleled triumph of Mr. Porson’s wit, in actually bringing his Cloten (as he calls him, p. 64 {Cloten is a spoiled brat, boasting of his abilities, but actually a fool, in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline}) to add a note to his third edition, at p. 188, saying, that it was Stephanus’s “plan to accept, by whatever hand it might be offered, that which appeared to him to be the genuine reading of Scripture;” and Dr, Hales (“Faith in Trinity,” vol. ii. p. 19) even surpasses Mr. Travis (see Specimen, pp. 26, 27). But where did Stephanus lay down any, but in the words referred to by Mr. Porson? and can words be found to declare more plainly, that his plan was not to accept of a single letter from any hand whatever, but that of the writers of the best MSS.? Mr. Greswell talks of “printed copies, to which he attributed the authority of MSS.” But where did Stephanus give the most distant hint of his taking a letter of his own text from them? He says, “Adjuti praeterea sumus cum aliis, tum vero Complutensi editione {Latin: “We were helped by others, as well as indeed by the Complutensian edition {viz. printed work};” but this is in [Vindication III. 429] the preface to the “O mirificam,” where he makes the boast that Mr. Porson records. Crito Cantabrigiensis observes, p. 397, that “Robert Stephens particularly mentioned the assistance which the Complutensian edition had afforded him in his undertaking.” Yes, he mentions the Complutensian and others, and I cannot at once admit Crito’a deduction, that it must have been used to furnish the text of 1546, because it was selected out of the other printed copies to oppose the text of the folio of 1550, which he lays down in the words immediately following :—“Since then the Complutensian edition was deemed a MS. in Stephens’ third edition; it must have been thought of equal value in his first edition,” p. 398. The opposing set of the margin actually does contain about half of the stock of MSS. ultimately acquired—and half too of the original stock; it contains also one of those printed editions, the assistance of which is particularly mentioned by Stephanus. But neither Crito, nor any other of the conspiring critics, has shewn me the least ground to say it was necessary that he should take for this purpose any one of the copies that had been used to furnish the text in 1546. My own opinion is, that he might have taken documents of any sort—print, manuscript, version (the Marquess Velez did afterwards take the Vulgate)—to furnish opposing readings to his folio; and this, if he had not seen one of them in 1546. And here I have Mr. Porson with me, who is pleased to assert, p. 89, that Stephanus ought to have given the 5th of Erasmus a place in his margin, which would make one more than his vindicator wants. It is plain what assistance these editions that had been printed from MSS. (cum aliae tum vero Complutensis {Latin: “others, as well as indeed the Complutensian”}) would afford a man who boasted that he gave not a letter but from the best MSS. of the Royal library. They would decide for him where the weight of his own MSS. was nearly balanced; and if, in the collation of his additional materials, he found that the preponderance was no longer against the reading of printed editions, which he had at first quitted, it would be his duty to return to those readings. But Stephanus valued those editions merely as proof that the MSS. which the editors used, accorded with his own; for he adds of the Complutensian, “quos cum nostris miro consensu saepissime convenire ex ipsa collatione deprehendimus.” {Latin: “we found from that process of collation that they most often agreed remarkably with our [manuscripts].”}.

Mr. Greswell’s concession is, I am aware, only hypothetical. But if he had said nothing to corroborate it, still this, as far as it goes, corroborates Mr. Porson’s assertion, that Stephanus’ boast is utterly false. And the conspiring critics will not fail to take it as an acknowledged historical fact, that Stephanus, in forming his text, attributed the authority of MSS. to printed copies, and adopted readings from those printed copies as well as MSS. This is exactly what the Ithacan of modern criticism would wish; its two princes [Wetsten and Griesbach] would have given the world for it. What else was the object of the mighty Porson himself in his “imputations”? The Professor had no personal pique to occasion his “many severe reflexions on Robert Estienne.” Mr. Gibbon himself was influenced by no hatred of heretic Greek at the time of his writing his inimitable note, which Mr. Porson undertakes to defend. All that was wanted [Vindication III. 430] was to cut out one hated passage; and with the concession that Robert “quits all his MSS. to follow his printed guides” (Por. 59), his pretended friends would have no interruption in chanting his praises. But, to apply Mr. Greswell’s own words, “a more exact inquiry into Robert’s history,” which he himself has made, ought to “have induced our historian to forbear” (p. 323). And before he made such a concession, he ought to have glanced his eye over the pamphlet that professes to examine the first part of Mr. Porson’s fourth letter, written whilst the work of Crito Cantabrigiensis, in vindication of Mr. P., lay suppressed. Mr. Hartwell Horne, iv., p. 487, of his sixth edition, for reasons which no one can be at a loss to guess who will collate this part of his sixth edition with the fifth and the preceding, asserts that Crito has “vindicated the Professor from the strictures of the Rev. Francis Huyshe.” But Mr. G, would have found, if he had looked at Crito himself, that he does not meddle with one of those strictures; though the little finger of the “Devonshire clergyman” is thicker than the loins of the amiable prelate, whose mild and temperate remarks excited so much of Crito’s wrath; and it might have been expected that the pen of every admirer of Mr. Porson, who could persuade himself that the Professor was delivering his own serious judgment, would have leaped into the ink to repel the scorpion lashes. The flood-gates of Billingsgate are opened upon the specimen and its author, to sweep them into the common sewer of oblivion, in the “Monthly Repository,” May, 1828, p. 330, &c.; in Mr. Oxlee’s P.S. to his “Letters to the Bishop of Salisbury; and in the “Memoir of the Controversy respecting the 3 h. w.,” by Criticus. But this should of itself have gained a hearing for the examination of what Mr. Porson had said “of the MSS. used by R. Stephens and Beza,” before such a stigma was branded on the “Early Parisian Greek Press,” in what is incomparably its highest glory.

Your’s faithfully
Francis Huyshe.

[Vol III. 1833. p. 548]

I HAVE not seized upon a mere single slip in one unfortunate passage to bring this charge against Mr. Greswell. At p. 32] he gives his assent to the slander which Mill, 1228, throws on the folio; where he makes the text to be taken in various passages from Colinaeus, the Complutensian, and Erasmus. I esteem Mill’s Prolegomena to be an invaluable store-house of learning; and I think that a real critic could not employ his talents more usefully than in publishing an edition of them with notes. But all Mill’s acuteness seems to have failed, when he came to speak of the old critical editions; and this the most lamentably upon those of Stephanus. With respect to Stephanus’s folio, the margin itself decides more than a hundred times over whether the documents, the various readings of which are there given, comprehended the whole of those from which the text had been formed; for—the critics themselves tell us,—and tell us truly,—that all the documents, both printed and written, there brought to give opposing readings, actually do oppose the text. I should think, then, that it required no mighty exertion of mind to understand, that the man who published this to the world, and had boasted that he did not give a letter but what was sanctioned by the greater part of his best MSS., had some other MSS. which would bear out his text against the whole of those that he himself brought to oppose it. No: Mill takes the contrary for granted; and upon the strength of that pretty assumption, vents the charge that Mr. Greswell records, of Stephanus taking the text of his folio from the printed editions of Colinée, Froben, Complutensian, &c. And let it be observed, he does this, furnishing his own confutation, 1258; where, speaking of Beza’s annotations, he tells you, that they give the readings of ten more MSS. than the fifteen of Stephanus’s margin; the readings of those ten being avowedly obtained from no other source than Stephanus’s book of collations. This is most wonderful; but it is nothing to the astonishment I feel at the world being held in the full conviction of Stephanus’s guilt, by the addition of the little possessive pronoun “his” to the word “all” in the margin, “his third edition often differing from all his MSS., by his own confession” —(Mr. Porson’s words, to which we stood pledged to recur)—an improvement this, which is religiously followed by Messrs. Travis, Hales, & Co.; who say for the “book-seller,” “All my MSS. are against my text.” And Griesbach, after he had been “insulted” by Travis, “because he took this point for granted,” (Porson, 58) says, in his 2nd ed., p. xviii. 7, Lond. xxx :—“Hujus vestigiis [Erasmi] saepissime contra omnium codicum suorum fidem ac auctoritatem in- [Vindication III. 549] haesit; quod qui negare vellet, nihil aliud efficeret rei notissimae ignorantia, quam ut risum commoveret doctorum et prudentium. Stephanus ipse textum, quem edidit, a codicibus suis omnibus plus centies dissonare ingenue in margine professus est.” {Latin: “He stuck to these traces [of Erasmus] quite often against the reliable authority of all his book-form manuscripts. Whoever wants to deny this, achieves nothing more than an exercise of the most remarkable ignorance, such as would occasion the mockery of the learned and wise. In fact Stephanus himself has openly contradicted his own declarations: for in the margin of this edition, there are more than a hundred places, in which he has quoted all his authorities for readings different from his own.”} εν πασι, {Greek: “in all”} says Stephanus; you have merely to add the possessive suis to omnibus; {Latin: “his” to “all”} and instead of his saying that he had other MSS. for the formation of his text, besides all those that he has here taken to oppose it, he makes this ingenuous confession. It is Mr. Porson himself who says, p. 147, “Would you have the writer of the MS. inform his readers, by a marginal note, that he had inserted a spurious verse in his edition?” I say then, would you have the editor inform his readers, by more than a hundred marginal notes, that he had inserted a reading in violation of his most solemn engagements? Mr. P. adds, “ An editor would hardly be mad enough to become such a felo de se. {Latin: “felon of himself”}’ (1217.) I shall hold my disbelief, then, of Stephanus having ingenuously professed to have cheated more than a hundred times. I shall think that the “Docti et Prudentes” {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} have done this, once for all, by the addition of the possessive to the word all—“all his MSS.” The word all (εν πασι or π.) never occurs in the 4th part of the sacred text (the Revelations); but only in the three first parts. I have never seen any attempt made by the learned critics to account for this. But the reason is obvious, from the fact of the first selection of the thirteen written copies having none of them gone beyond those three parts; and a new selection, viz., of No. 15 and No. 16, having been made for the Revelation. It could only have tended to perplex and mislead the reader, to refer any longer to them, when you had the reading of two others, besides all of them. Where the text is against all the three documents (α, ιε, ις) selected to oppose it in the 4th part (the Revelations), the expression is εν τοις ἡμετεροις αντιγραφοις {Greek: “in our copies”}, as at Rev. vii. 5. In the former parts, where the first selection continues, when the expression is given at full length, it is, as at the end of Rom. xiv., εν πασι τοις αντιγραφοις. {Greek: “in all the copies.”} But Stephanus never combines the two words πασι and ἡμετεροις,—he never says, εν πασι τοις ἡμετεροις αντιγραφοις, {Greek “in all our MSS.”} as the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} do for him—“All my MSS.” The words that he does use could not any where mean more than the documents that are collated in that place; and they themselves distinctly lay it down, that in the gospels, where the number was the greatest, it amounted only to ten. In the gospels, therefore—the part most favourable to them—the “ingenue in margine suo professus est” {Latin; “openly confessed in his margin”} was really saying, that his text there was contrary to all the ten opposing MSS. Wetsten knew, and every one who has read what Wetsten said on the Codd. Barberini, knows, that en pasi never could signify more than this. This collation of Caryophilus was to be set aside, like all the old editions; and the means that Wetsten takes to effect this, is by making the Barberini Codd. to be nothing more than those of Stephanus’s margin. The number that Caryophilus had in the gospels, and in the epistles, exactly coincided with those of Stephanus’s margin. This was enough for Wetsten. Though Caryophilus had four in the Revelations, while Stephanus’s second selection of MSS. was only two, this was easily settled, by assuming that Caryophilus took in two errone- [Vindication III. 550] ous references there, whilst he was supposed to have corrected all the similar errors in both the former parts. The number, then, in the different parts, for Stephanus and Caryophilus, thus becoming the same, Wetsten makes no difficulty in assuming that the number of the different MSS. must be the same for each; and from the identity of number it is nothing to assume the identity of the MSS. Now, from the lucky circumstance that Wetsten thus took Stephanus for getting rid of Caryophilus, arises his own testimony against himself, and the rest of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”}, in favour of Stephanus. Bengel made an objection to Wetsten’s theory, in answering which the truth was elicited. No. 112, p. 62,162 Semler, he says, Dissentit hic a nobis I. A. Bengelius, ratione tamen non satis firma usus, “Unum” inquit Introd. in Crisin, p. 440, [sec, xxxix. p. 76,] “dabimus exemplar. Io. I. 42, citantur Bareriani {sc. Barberiani} decem, ubi differentia articuli Vulgatam non tangit, et Stephani margo plane vacat.” Fateor Stephani marginem vacare, at hoc ipso argumento Caryophilus ductus putasse videtur, inde consequi, Stephani codices decem, i. e., omnes legisse ὁ Χριστος cum articulo, uti in textu editum est—contra editionem Complutensem et Erasmi que legunt Χριστος sine articulo.” {Latin: “I. A. Bengel disagrees with us, but without having any sure reason, he says (Introd. in Crisin, p. 440, [sec. xxxix. p. 76,]), “We will give one example. John I. 42, there is a citation of ten Barberiani, where the difference respecting the article does not affect the Vulgate, and the margin of Stephanus has a blank.” I admit the margin of Stephanus is blank, but by this very argument Caryophilus seems to have been led to think in consequence that ten book-form manuscripts, that is, all of them, read ὁ Χριστος, Greek: “the Christ,” with the article, as is printed in the text, contrary to the Complutensian and Erasmus who read Χριστος, Greek: “Christ,” without the article.”} Here we have the fact, under the hand of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} themselves. It is, decem, i. e., omnes.” They set the man down to be “mad enough to become such a felo de se {Latin: “felon of himself”}” as to vary in his third edition often from all his MSS., even by his own confession—“contra omnium codicum suorum fidem et auctoritatem; {Latin: “against the reliable authority of all his book-form manuscripts”} and in their exultation over the confitentem reum {Latin: “confessing defendant”}, they add, “nec quicquam sive ab ipso sive ab admiratoribus ejus prolatum legimus quo servile excusari posset obsequium.” {Latin: “nor do we read anything put forward either by him or by his admirers by which servile submission could be excused.”} And what is infinitely beyond this, the “servile obsequium” {Latin; “servile submission”} is admitted, and prolatum legimus ab admiratore ejus, A. D. 1833, {Latin: “put forward by his admirer, A. D. 1833”} — “If in the exercise of the δευτεραι φροντιδες, {Greek: “second thoughts”} he was led, &c., ought this to be made a ground of such severe reflections?” (329.) When the peal of laughter has abated, with which the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} will salute the man who still thinks that Stephanus’s boast was not utterly false, he will whisper the words of Wetsten, “decem, i. e., omnes,” {Latin: “ten, that is all of them”} and, “he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Push the conspiring critics a little, and they are themselves forced to admit, that the bookseller’s hundred-fold confession of guilt is no more than “decem, i. e. omnes;” {Latin: “ten, that is all of them”} and in other cases, no more than octo, i. e., omnes. {Latin: “eight, that is, all of them.”} Stephanus’s words tell you—and by no possibility can they tell you more—that ten out of the first selection for opposing the folio—or eight of them, as the case may be—are against his text,—that is, at the utmost, not one-third of the whole number that he had to form the text of that edition, and only two thirds of those that were taken, at both the selections, to oppose it. Curcellaeus, misled, I suppose, by good father Morin’s insertion of the possessive “suis,” {Latin: “his”} missed this, at the fourth page of his Preface. “Imo aliquando observavi, et miratus sum, ipsum in textum recepisse lectiones quibus nullum prorsus istorum xvi. exemplarium favebat.” {Latin: “Nay, I observed at one time, and was astonished, that he himself had received into the text the readings which none of these sixteen copies favored at all.”} This is rather more than any one can assert; say the first xiv. of them, if you please. Wetsten makes use of Curcellaeus as a decoy duck, “Observavit atque suo jure miratus est,” {Latin: “He observed and was surprised in his own right”} (p. 142, first edition, [Vindication III. 551] and continued Prol. 145, Semler 374,) after he had himself said, “decem, i. e., omnes.” {Latin: “ten,that is, all.”} But let it be observed, to the honour of Curcellaeus, that he says, “Nec facile possum conjicere quaenam istius rei fuerit causa.” {Latin: “Nor can I easily guess what was the cause of this thing.”} We have no horse-laugh from him, because Stephanus “ipse textum quem edidit, a codicibus suis omnibus plus centies dissonare ingenue in margine suo professus est.”’ {Latin: “but the text which he published, he frankly professed in his margin to be at variance with all his book-form manuscripts more than a hundred times.”}

Michaelis, I suppose, thought it rather too much to make the man ingenuously confess his guilt more than a hundred times over, by his expression εν πασι {Greek: “in all”} in the margin, with his first selected thirteen MSS.; so he takes his words on the second selection, in the fourth part of the sacred text. He says, (ii. 323,) “This, at least, is certain, that in places where he had less temptation to interpolate, than in the celebrated passage above mentioned, (1 John v., 7, 8,) he has inserted words in the text which are warranted by no manuscript. (“Quae cum exemplarium suorum nullo conveniebant.” {Latin: “which did not agree with any of his manuscripts”}, Morin, p. 119.) We may even produce him as evidence against himself. Rev. vii. 5, 6, 7, 8—both in the first and third editions, he has inserted in all these verses, εσφραγισμενοι {Greek: “sealed”} after ιβ χιλιαδες, {Greek: “12 thousand”} though in the margin of the edition of 1550 he himself testifies that the word εσφραγισμενοι {Greek: “sealed”} was contained in none of his MSS., from φυλης ῤυβην {Greek: “tribe of Reuben”}, v. 5, to the end. He expresses himself as follows, “ουτε ενταυθα, ουτε εν της εξης γεγραπται το Ἐσφραγισμενοι εν τοις ημετεροις αντιγραφοις” {Greek: “neither here, nor in the following, is it written Ἐσφραγισμενοι, ‘Sealed,’ in our copies.”} Nor is it found in the Complutensian Bible, his codex α, and yet he presumed to obtrude it on the text.”

Whatever might be the “temptation to interpolate,” which made Stephanus “insert words in the text” at Rev. vii. 5, &c.; which, according to this representation, “are warranted by no MS.;” it proved also too strong for the virtue of Bengel, Wetsten, and Griesbach, who agree with him. And this alone, I think, might have served to moderate Michaelis’s severity. But for the charge, as it concerns him, Michaelis himself tells us immediately afterwards, that “Stephens, as being a bookseller, of course avoided what might prevent the sale of his publication.” Well then, would you have him “inform his readers, by a marginal note, that he had inserted a spurious word in his text,” if it were but this once? Could Michaelis really believe that “we may produce him as an evidence against himself” in this palpable manner? Michaelis’s opinion how a bookseller must act so perfectly accords with that of Mr. Porson for an editor, that I shall still think he “would hardly be mad enough to become such a felo-de-se;” {Latin: “felon of himself”} but that the murderous blow to the character of his publication is directed by the hand of some other assassin. Is it he, or is it some other, who says for him, “that the word εσφραγισμενοι was contained in none of his MSS.”? What was Stephanus’s business in his margin, but to give the opposing readings of the MSS. with which he was immediately concerned?—in the three first parts of the sacred text, to state those of the thirteen first selected MSS., together with those of the printed document; and in the Revelations, those of his last selection? The first selection, indeed, is so numerous, and its collation extends over so large a space, that the man who has faith enough to bear a hundred-fold confession of guilt, might be brought to believe [Vindication III. 552] that all of them were “all his MSS.” that had the passage in question. But a glance shews you that, in the Revelations, the margin contains no other document but α, ιε, ις (except a universally acknowledged erratum or two.) Add to this the marked difference of expression in the second selection, and, I think, every one must see here, that Stephanus could refer to nothing beyond those three. The least consideration here must bring you to what Bengel’s objection elicited from Wetsten in the gospels, “duobus, i.e. omnibus.” {Latin: “two, that is, all”} And how did Michaelis extend the expression, to make him say “in none of his MSS.” Where did he find the word none? Not in the second selection; but he went back for it to the first; the rest of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} came to this part for the word “his.” He inserts πασι {Greek: “all”} here, where Stephanus says, εν τοις ημετεροις αντιγραφοις, {Greek: “in our copies”} as they do ημετεροις, {Greek: “our”} in the first selection, when S. says, εν πασι τοις αντιγραφοις {Greek: “in all the copies”}.

Michaelis adds, 824, “A man who acts in this manner would surely make no scruple to interpolate 1 John v. 7, which is actually in the Complutensian Bible, though he found it in none of his MSS.”

The object of cutting out 1 John v. 7, 8, has sharpened the wits of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} against the “bookseller;” from the time that they took first to the scheme of having a Latin origin for it : ex uno disce omnes. {Latin: “from one learn all”}. “A man who acts in this manner would surely make no scruple” to invent any charge to get rid of such an evidence of its actual existence in the Greek—a man, let it be observed, who no more followed the “Complutensian Bible” in that passage than he did any of the first thirteen selected MSS.

“An advocate, then, of Robert’s may be permitted to ask” (329) that the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} shall be debarred from the privilege, that they have exercised, of adding the word “his” where the man tells us that “all the documents” (i.e. those of his first selection that had them were against his text—and again, that of adding the word “all” where he tells us that “his documents” (i.e. those of his second selection) omitted what his text gave. This request being granted, the margin of the folio presents an unanswerable confutation, more than a hundred times over, as far as that edition is concerned, of the assumption of these conspiring critics, that Stephanus must have precisely the same copies for the formation of editions which varied so much in their date and in the text which they exhibit; and again, that these copies must be the exact documents, printed as well as written, which were taken to oppose the new text of the folio. With respect to the “O mirificam” of 1546, that could not itself give a collation of its text with the documents that were selected for the margin of the folio four years after. But Mill has done the work, 1177—1187; and the result of his collation is precisely such as might be expected from the fact, which we have before stated, that the set for opposing the folio contained exactly one-half of the set for forming the 16mo in 1546. The assumption of the critics, who all agree that Stephanus’s boast shall be utterly false, (Pors. 57,) is here again weighed in the balances, and is found wanting. If ever there was a point clearly made out by a man against himself, it is here seen that Mill had been collating the text of 1546 with the wrong set. And I am unable to [Vindication III. 553] conceive how Mill could be under such a delusion as not to see this from his own words. Having described the printed and written documents, selected first and last to oppose the folio, he says of the “O mirificam” 1177, “In textu ad hos codices formando ita se comparatam ait Robertus, ut religiose ac plane ad literam sequeretur plures ac meliores e Regiis.” {Latin: “In the text of these book-form manuscripts, Robert says that he prepared himself in such a way that he followed religiously and clearly to the letter more and better those from the Royal Library.”} He takes a set of documents, one-half of which exactly consist either of print or of private MSS., and says that Stephanus formed his text out of them, so as to follow religiously the majority of the best copies that he had received from the royal library. Did a man of Mill’s judgment and acuteness ever before write any thing so inconsistent? He was right in saying, that Stephanus declared, his text of that edition “religiose ac plane sequeretur plures et meliores e Regiis.” {Latin: “he followed religiously and clearly to the letter more and better those from the Royal Library.”} As he had justly observed, 1156, “Sola Regia memorat in hac praefatione:” {Latin: “He only refers to the Royal Library manuscripts in this preface”} therefore he must be wrong in taking the documents of the margin as being those which Stephanus had, “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} for forming the text of the “O mirificam.” And if Stephanus’s boast was not “utterly false,” the result of his collation of the text with the other set of documents (those of the margin), must necessarily be what he found it. The Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} are prudent enough to avoid Mill’s self-contradiction; but they cannot give the words of Stephanus without giving their own confutation. Wetsten, 142, first edition, continued Prol. 145, Seml. 374, says, “Quicquid Stephanus in prima et secunda editione jactet, nempe ad Regias codices recensitas esse, revera tamen nonnisi rarissime, et ubi omnes aut plerique codices contra Erasmianam conspirabant, in textu emendando illos adhibuit.” {Latin: “Whatever Stephanus boasts in the first and second editions, that is to say, that they were edited by reference to the royal book-form manuscripts, in reality very rarely, and where all or most of the book-form manuscripts conspired against the text of Erasmus, he used them in the text by correcting them.”} Griesbach xviii. 7. Lond. xxx. 100, “Etsi suam in constituendo textu summis laudibus ipse praedicat, eumque e codicibus, quorum copiam Bibliotheca Regia suppeditaverit, ita recensuisse se profitetur, ut nullam omnino literam secus esse passus sit, quam. plures tique meliores libri tanquam testes comprobarent {Latin: “Although he himself preaches his own text with the highest praises, and he professes to have revised it from the book-form manuscripts, an abundance of which the Royal Library supplied, so that he suffered no letter at all to be otherwise, than more and better books would testify as witnesses.”} [Observe, this is the Preface to the “O mirificam”], vanissima haec omnia sunt atque falsissima.” {Latin: “this is all utterly fatuous and false.”} Now, if I admit that Wetsten and Griesbach ascertained those seven of the royal MSS. which came into the first selection for the margin, and the other which was taken in the second selection, where are the remaining seven? They do not avow it like Mill; but, instead of them, they actually take the seven private MSS. of the margin. Which then is it that is “vanissima atque falsissima,” {Latin: “utterly fatuous and false”}—the boast of the old editor, or the audacious contradiction of the modern ones? The one or the other is empty and “utterly false,” and I boldly ask, which is it? Under these circumstances of extreme difficulty, it is delightful to observe Mr. Porson: by his management, (to adopt his own expression,) he avoids the self-contradiction of Mill, and the self-confutation of the two others. The Professor effects all, without specifying “e Regiis,” {Latin: “from the Royal Library”}—“not a letter,” says he, “but what the greater part of the better MSS. unanimously approved.” “The better MSS.” will serve equally for the meliores e Regiis {Latin: “better ones from the Royal Library”}, and for the private MSS. of the margin, which are to be slipped into the room of seven e Regiis. {Latin: “from the Royal Library.”} I have hitherto left Mr. Porson in full possession of this advantage, by using an expression equally vague, and saying merely “his MSS.” But, having learnt of Mill, [Vindication III. 554] and Wetsten, and Griesbach, from whence his MSS., that were used “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} actually came, I crave leave to add to Mr. Porson the words “from the royal library;” so that it may stand Stephanus “says that he has not suffered a letter to be printed, but what the greater part of the better MSS., from the royal library, unanimously approved.” Mr. Porson does not undertake to shew that this boast is utterly false. Will any of those persons, who profess to believe that Mr. P. was doing any thing more than playing the advocate in his attacks on the old critical editions, undertake to shew that Stephanus’s boast was false, when he solemnly declared that he had not suffered a letter to be printed in the “O mirificam,” but what was warranted by the royal MSS.? I think not; because his professed vindicator, Crito Cantabrigiensis, has not meddled with “plures et meliores e Regiis.” {Latin: “more and better those from the Royal Library.”} Crito decides that he may neglect all other evidence whatsoever that bears upon Stephanus’s editions, if he can only manage Stephanus’s own testimony. And, having proved to his own satisfaction and that of his brother critics, that a newly-printed edition was one of the sixteen very old written copies [vetustissima sedecim scripta exemplaria {latin: “sixteen very ancient manuscript copies”}] which Stephanus had “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} for the “O mirificam,” he concludes (p. 402) “that the said Robert Stephens had but one single set of MSS., consisting of sixteen copies, for his various readings as well as for the text of his three editions,”—not, you will observe, “one single set of sixteen manuscripts;” but “one single set of MSS., consisting of sixteen copies [print and MS.]” And not a word does he say respecting what the greater part of the better MSS. from the royal library approve. No attempt to solve any difficulty his readers might have about the seven private MSS. and that very old written copy, the Complutensian, coming from thence.

[Vol III. 1833. p. 658]

AND this deference of Crito to the “plures et meliores e Regiis” {Latin: “more and better those from the Royal Library.”} is not more than what Bishop Marsh had paid to it, whatever may have been the case, since, Letters to Travis, App. I. p. 170, Note 25, the Archdeacon is rebuked for a mistake which he is told runs through his whole book: “You constantly take it for granted, that R. Stephens adopted no reading in his edition of 1550, which was not supported by good authority; that the readings of his MSS. were his guides in the formation of his own text; and that it is allowable, therefore, to argue from his readings of the latter to those of the former.” What! had Mr. Travis ever the sense to find out the truth? No, no. If he had, woe to the dealers in historical facts. (Pref. to Letters, p. xv. Lecture xxvii, p. 23.) We have seen Mr. T’s Note (p. 188), in which he said, it was Stephanus’s “plan to accept, by whatever hand it might be offered, that which appeared to him to be the genuine reading;” and that “he did not, in any culpable sense, desert his MSS.” Instead of taking his stand on the impregnable text of the O mirificam, formed, every letter, from the majority of the best Royal MSS., and on that of the folio, for which there were those fifteen Royal MSS., and a still greater number of private MSS., chiefly collected by Henry in Italy, he could (p. 186) accept the enumeration of Dr. Benson, who said, that in settling the text of the New Testament, R. Stephens made use of sixteen ancient MSS. [vetustissima sedecim scripta exemplaria. {Latin: “sixteen very ancient handwritten copies.”}] Instead of those that Stephanus made use of for settling the text, he accepts those that were taken, in the two selections, to oppose it; and thus, in fact, for all the three first parts of the sacred text, he accepts seven of the Royal MSS. and six of the private. Let it be observed, that Mr. Travis’s learned correspondent does not proscribe here the rest of Stephanus’s editions in general, but that of the folio alone. In conformity with this, the note proceeds to state Stephanus’s boast, that the text of the O mirificam had been religiously formed from the majority of the best of the MSS. from the Royal Library; and it adds, p. 171, “This declaration he repeats in the preface to his second edition, printed in 1549 [no great wonder, as this is the very preface to the [Vindication III. 659] first edition of 1546]; but in the preface to the edition of 1550, which contains a very different text from the two first editions, the whole sentence is omitted.” * * * * * *
Observe, “a very different text.”—Such was the language of all the critics from the time of Mill’s collating them: thus Wetsten, 146, 5, Seml. 376—“tantopere a se ipso dissensit Stephanus.” {Latin: “Stephanus disagreed so greatly with himself.”} But so very different a text is not quite convenient for a writer who decides “that a pretty good defence may be made for those persons—though held by Mr. Huyshe, as we have seen, in great contempt—who have hitherto believed that the said Robert Stephens had but one single set of manuscripts, consisting of sixteen copies [printed and manuscript] for his various readings, as well as for the text of his three editions.” (Crito Cantab. p. 402, as above.) A reader who thought that “tantopere a se ipso dissensit Stephanus,” {Latin: “Stephanus disagreed so greatly with himself,”} might believe him when he boasted that he had religiously followed the best of the Royal MSS. in his first edition; and also believe the declaration of his son, after he had made the collations for the third, that he had more than doubled them—“plusquam enim triginta vidi, partim in Regis Gallie bibliotheca …. partim in Italicis.” {Latin: “I inspected more than thirty, some in the Library of the King of France …. some in Italy.”} So, either the fact of the diversity of the texts of Stephanus’s editions, or the theory of the identity of the materials, must give way. No wonder, then, that Crito should have found the critics to have been all wrong in this; and that he should lay it down, as the basis of his theory, (389,) “The three editions, with a few variations, gave the same text throughout.” If such be the fact, undoubtedly Crito’s theory of the same MSS. for all of them, is in perfect accordance with it. But the pamphlet, which certainly does treat it with great contempt, takes for granted, as Bishop Marsh here states it, that “the edition of 1550 contains a very different text from the two first editions;” and follows the collator’s mode of accounting for it, viz. that it had nearly, if not quite, double the stock of MSS. for its formation that the first edition had. The bishop, we see —admitting the boast, that there was not a letter of the O mirificam which was not warranted by the best of the MSS. from the royal library—contends, that “Stephens does not even pretend to have formed the text of his third edition from his Greek MSS.” But what, I ask, if he had not made any formal assertion respecting the folio, in particular, was it not sufficient for him to have made it once? If he was bound by it to form his text in his O mirificam from his Greek MSS., that he then had from the royal library, had not the readers of the folio a right to consider him bound, in like manner, to form the text of that edition from the increased stock, unless he distinctly warned them to the contrary? He expressed his sense of this duty most strongly at first, where he refers to his past conduct— “Quo quidem in opere excudendo, eandem quam in caeteris solemus diligentiam, majorem etiam, ut par erat diligentiam praestitimus” {Latin: “Thus, in printing the work, we took the same care as we usually do in other things, and even greater care, as was just.”}—and I think the more of these words, because they are never quoted by his accusers. And I cannot believe that, when he embraced a religion which refuses to take what any power on earth might think fit to propound as the will of God, this awful feeling of the sanctity of his written word would be diminished. What was to alter his [Vindication III. 660] feelings with respect to “the greater part of the better MSS.” from the Royal Library, but his finding the reading of the smaller part of them so strongly supported by his new materials, that it could no longer be allowed to stand against that of the old editions. Then again, for what purpose did he keep his son in Italy, if he did not intend to make due use of those that should be discovered “in Italicis?” {Latin: “in Italy.”} And assuming, with Mr. Porson, that Stephanus’s “editions do often vary from one another,” though his Vindicator so flatly contradicts him, I contend, in direct opposition to the Professor, that he has “observed constantly the rule” which this sacred awe made him lay down; “because his editions often vary from one another.” Yes; the extraordinary deviation of the folio from the first edition, which had been formed so scrupulously from the majority of the better MSS. that he had received from the royal library, affords the stronger presumption of his having followed the more than doubled stock which he had then acquired, And let it be observed that Stephanus held firmly to the text of his folio, in his fourth edition, where Mill (1234) notices only the variation of one word in Matthew and Mark, in which he returns to the reading of his first edition against his second and his third, and against Erasmus.

All this, I think, might serve to convince the most prejudiced; even if Stephanus had made no particular declaration respecting the folio. But when the note says, “Stephens does not even pretend to have formed the text of his third edition from his Greek MSS.,” it must be taken to mean that he does not pretend to have formed it from the MSS. of the margin, i. e. those that were taken in the two selections, to oppose it. But if it be really meant, that Stephanus never made any declaration that it was formed from the set out of which these were selected, it is a complete mistake. It accords admirably with the hundred-fold confession extracted from the margin, “textum quem edidit, a codicibus suis omnibus plus centies dissonare.” {Latin: “but the text which he published was at variance with all his book-form manuscripts more than a hundred times.”} This, however, is just as much founded on fact, as that is on the words of Stephanus. What Mr. Gresswell says, p. 322, of the other mighty correspondent of Mr. Travis, is equally applicable to both. We have here a “reflection upon Robert Estienne, which a more exact inquiry into Robert’s history would probably have induced our great modern critic to forbear.” The fact is, that Stephanus’s own testimony of his having “formed the text of his third edition from his Greek MSS,” is stronger than even that which he gave of the O mirificam. (See Specimen, p. 19.) But take it from the Historian, p. 324—“Let the impartial reader consider what Robert has incidentally recorded in his Responsio ad Censuras, p. 35, seq. “This work (his N. T. Gr. of 1550, folio) I carry to Castellanns (Du Chastel). He sharply reproves me for not having submitted it to the examination of the divines, and accuses me of contumacy. I defend myself by observing that the senior judges of this body knew little or nothing of the Greek language; and that the sacred book of life could not be suspected of heresy; mentioning also, as an additional motive for declining such a measure, that some of them had required from me an alteration of that passage, 1 Cor. xv. 51, ‘We shall not all sleep, [Vindication III. 661] but we shall all be changed.’ Here Du Chastel again blames me, because l had not complied; pretending that the question was merely about a various reading; but I declare to him, that no consideration could ever induce me to change any thing contrary to the faith of all the MSS., and thus to be found a falsifier.” Mr. Greswell has justly observed, that this was incidental; we are indebted for it entirely to the attempt made to seduce Stephanus. But, powerful as it is, he gave us something much beyond it. Mr. Greswell (p. 331) informs us that “the bishop [Du Chastel] now divested himself of all moderation towards Robert; and informed the faculty that his former protection of him had been the effect of misconception; he had been deceived in the man, and now abandoned him; that it was their province to consider what measures ought to be adopted in consequence of this impression of the New Testament.” The measures that the Sorbonne did adopt, when he had thus lost his last patron, proved that there was ground for all his fears; and if he was so obstinate that no consideration could ever induce him to change anything contrary to the faith of all his MSS., there was a consideration that would induce him to change the air of Paris for that of Geneva. Nothing but the abandonment of his situation and his country could save him, after such contumacy. And when he did thus pretend to have formed the text of his third edition from his Greek MSS., as well as that of the O mirificam, and thus acted upon these pretensions, I cannot easily believe that it is he who will be found the falsifier.
The note proceeds (171)—“Nor could Stephens have repeated this declaration in the third edition, without transgressing the bounds of truth.” No; most certainly. Not, however, for the reason here assigned,—“for his third edition is little more than a re-impression of the fifth of Erasmus.” A pretty notion, this,—that a man who had himself published a critical edition from the best MSS., of which he says, “quorum copiam nobis bibliotheca regia facile suppeditavit,” {Latin: “of which the Royal Library easily supplied us such an abundance,”} and who had kept his son from that time searching for farther MSS. “in Italicis,” {Latin: “In Italy”} would make the glory of his life “little more than a re-impression of the fifth of Erasmus.” His lordship here trusts on the staff of a broken reed—on Bengel, who contradicts himself afterwards, and on Wetsten, whose “verba hyperbolica” {Latin: “words of hyperbole”} can be softened by no “commoda interpretatione,” {Latin: “manner of interpretation”} so as to bring them within sight of truth. Just look at the declaration in question. When Stephanus’s boast in his first edition was, that he “had not suffered a letter to be printed, but what the greater part of the better MSS.,” from the royal library, “unanimously approved;” there was, I think, no great want of Bengel and Wetsten’s assistance to discover why Stephanus could not “have repeated this declaration without transgressing the bounds of truth,” in an edition, for the text of which these fifteen royal MSS. made not half the stock of materials. Notwithstanding however it cannot be said that it does not contain a letter which the majority of the royal MSS. does not warrant, I shall still believe that Stephanus adopted no reading in the edition of 1550, any more than in that of 1546, “which was not supported by good authority;” that the readings of his thirty MSS. and more, that he had now obtained, “were [Vindication III. 662] his guides in the formation of his own text,” and that it is allowable therefore to argue from the readings of the latter to those of some of the former. And when Mr. Porson, at p. 59, bids us no more pester him with the stale common places of honour, honesty, veracity, &c., and asserts that Stephanus would have the “vicious complaisance” to “quit all his MSS. to follow his printed guides,” I have not the virtuous complaisance to take the Professor’s word for it, though I see this servile obsequium {Latin: “servile compliance”} (as Griesbach justly styles it) admitted “ab admiratoribus ejus,” {Latin: “from his admirers”} and I am told by some that “this censure is praise,” by others, that it ought not “to be made a ground of such severe reflections.” I ask, whether accusers or admirers can pretend to have ever had the collation of more than half of Stephanus’s MSS. for either of his editions. How much do they know of the sixteen MSS. for the O mirificam, beyond the eight royal MSS. of the margin of the folio? how much do they know of the thirty and more for the folio, beyond the fifteen of the margin? and have they had the “honour, honesty, veracity, &c.,” to bring to account the little that they do know? There was a man, who had the means of judging, who had the whole of Stephanus’s collations before him, which his own work made him examine in all its parts. This was Theodore Beza. Mr. Greswell gives his testimony, from his Icones, at p. 398; where, after speaking in the highest terms of Robert’s exertions in classical literature, he adds, “Sed haec sua praecipua laus est, quod non inanis gloriae, non lucri cupidus, officinam suam sacris preasertim excudendis Bibliis consecrasti, quo in opere toties recudendo, emendando modisque omnibus illustrando teipsum quoque superasti.” {Latin: “But this is his chief praise, that, not vainly desirous of glory, not greedy of gain, you consecrated your sacred workshop to the printing of Bibles, in which work you often surpassed yourself by recreating, correcting, and enlightening all manner of things.”} If ever there were old critical editions of any ancient work that carried with them proof of being executed with integrity, Stephanus’s editions do so. He makes distinct appeal, in his O mirificam, to the MSS. from whence he took his text; they were from a great public library, where, of course, they were open to inspection, and he was fortunately driven himself to record the number of these royal copies. In pursuit of farther MS. stores, he sent his son to Italy, and kept him in that country during far greater part of the interval between that edition and the folio; and his son has incidentally recorded his success “in Italicis.” {Latin: “in Italy.”} He has expressed the highest feeling of the duty of an editor of the sacred text. He made the strongest professions of having performed that duty, both with regard to the O mirificam and the folio. These professions were tried to the utmost; and rather than make shipwreck of a good conscience, he abandoned his honourable and advantageous situation, together with his native country. FRANCIS HUYSHE.

[Vol. IV. 1833: p. 29]

But Mr. Greswell furnishes still stronger ground than any of the quotations we have yet seen for our denying that Stephanus had the “vicious complaisance” which Mr. Porson ascribes to him, and that he would be ready to adopt readings, “whether from MSS, or from printed copies.” Mr. G. distinctly records the fact, which at once confutes those who depend on the number of the MSS. of the margin, and presume to assert that “Stephanus’s boast was utterly false,” when he declared that the text of his O mirificam was, every letter of it, taken from the royal MSS. At p. 332, Mr. G. records an interview of Robert with the Sorbonne when he lays his folio before them. This leads to the important information of the number of the MSS. that he had received from the royal library; and Mr. Greswell thus tells us that they amounted to fifteen :—

“They demand, however, that the original copy or MS. shall be laid before them. Robert answers that it was impossible; that the original was not one MS. merely, but fifteen; which had been already carried back to the royal library, whence he had been indulged with the use of them.” And Mr. G. quotes unexceptionable authority for his statement—what Robert himself published in his Responsio, p. 37.

[Vindication IV. 30] “Postulant afferri vetus exemplar, scilicet in quo legerent. Respondeo non posse fieri, quod non unum esset, sed quindecim, relata in Bibliothecam Regiam, quee mihi precario data fuerant.” {Latin: “They demanded that an old copy be brought, that is, which thy could use to examine the reading. I answer that it cannot be done, because there were not one, but fifteen, returned to the Royal Library, which had been given to me temporarily.”}

How little conscious soever Archdeacon Travis was of the value of the fact here established, that the grant from the royal library amounted to fifteen; and how much soever he might have despised it, if he had seen it,—his two illustrious correspondents could not but be sensible that it establishes the authority both of the O mirificam and of the folio against all the ingenious substitution of the documents selected to give opposing readings in the margin for the MSS. that were used to furnish the text in either edition. “And, when Stephanus himself declared that the “copia” {Latin: “abundance”} amounted to fifteen, which “Bibliotheca regia facile suppeditavit,” {Latin: “which the Royal Library freely supplied”} I should have thought it utterly hopeless to have it still admitted that they were the eight royal MSS. of the margin, and the seven “quae undique corrogare licuit.” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} To. adopt Bishop Middleton’s words (on the article 653), “I contemplate with admiration and delight the gigantic exertions of intellect which have established this acquiescence.” Observe the exquisite “management” of Mr. Porson. He says, p. 75, “R. Stephens affirms two things: 1st, That he once had fifteen MSS. [not sixteen]; 2nd, That he now had them no longer, but had sent them to the King’s library. There is indeed a small inaccuracy in this account, but of no consequence.”

Thus speaks Mr. Porson, correcting the small inaccuracy. The same unrivalled skill, by which he steers clear of the “plures et meliores e Regiis,” {Latin: “more and better manuscripts from the Royal Library”} in Stephanus’s first boast, carries him safe from the quindecim {Latin: “fifteen”} in this. Stephanus is to be wrong in both boasts; only the “act, that roars so loud and thunders in the index,” in the first, here sinks into a small inaccuracy. By this inaccuracy, owing to his not having had Mr. Porson’s correction, he “affirms two things: 1st, That he had fifteen MSS. from the royal library; not the whole sixteen,” (vetustissima sedecim scripta exemplaria, {Latin: “sixteen very ancient hand-written copies,”}) out of which he formed his text “superioribus diebus.” {Latin: “at an earlier period.”} 2nd, “That he now had them no longer, but had sent them back again to the King’s library.” But if the inaccurate printer chose to mention the number fifteen, he ought not to have said that they came from the King’s library; and, of course, ought not to have said that they were sent back there. If he chose to state the circumstance of MSS. having been sent him from the royal library, and his having returned them, he ought either to have held his tongue about the number, or to have only told the number of those that he had selected out of them to furnish opposing readings to the folio. He ought to have said, “—non posse fieri quod non unum esset, sed octo, relata in Bibliothecam Regiam,—” {Latin: “it could not be that there was not one, but eight, taken back to the Royal Library”} as the “small inaccuracy” of the quindecim {Latin: “fifteen”} stands corrected, Musch’s Le Long, p. 208, s. xxix., “codices nacti aliquot ipsa vetustatis specie plane adorandos, quorum (octo) copiam nobis Bibliotheca Regia facile suppeditavit.” {Latin: “a number of manuscripts have been obtained, which by their appearance of antiquity are worthy almost of veneration, of which (eight) the Royal Library has freely supplied us with an abundance.”}

If there is a small inaccuracy in this account of Stephanus’s, there is a small omission in that of his corrector. Mr. Porson has forgotten to inform us how he discovered that there was any inaccuracy. And neither he nor Le Long, when they correct him, and say eight, though he says fifteen, has told us what renders the correction necessary; [Vindication IV. 31] whether it be because fifteen MSS. from the royal library is inconsistent with what Stephanus himself has said elsewhere, or with certain inferences that have been drawn from the assumption that he had only fifteen in all. But, assuming the inaccuracy, Mr. Porson has undertaken to shew how it might take place.

“Stephens probably spoke from memory.” Yes. Though he had his book of collation, which would have shewn the whole of the fact, there can be no doubt that he would speak from memory respecting the number of the royal MSS. which he had thrice collated, and just then returned. And from what do his correctors speak?

“The MSS. bad been long returned.” Qu. How long? They could not have been returned till they had been collated (now the third time) for the folio that was just then printed.

“And it concerned not his examiners, who required him to produce them, to know the exact history of every MS., its quondam possessor, &c. It was enough to tell them, in general terms, that he was unable to comply with their demand; that the MSS. were gone out of his hands; that they belonged to the royal library, and were now restored.”

Stephanus was of a different opinion. He did not think it enough to tell them, in general terms, that he was unable to comply with their demand. Being now called upon for his authority, he thought it right for his own honour, and that of his different editions, not merely to repeat his former boast of having received MSS. from the royal library, but to come to particulars, and now to glory in the number that he had from thence. He could appeal to the royal library itself; and it was not one MS. merely, as they talked, but his copia amounted to fifteen. But whether Mr. Porson was right or Stephanus in this, it matters not. The man, in reality, acted upon this opinion; whether it was necessary or not, he did not content himself with the “general terms” of his former boast; but actually did commit himself to the particular number that he had received from the royal library. Now whatever may be said of the difficulty of detecting him in his first boast, of his not having printed a letter that was not sanctioned by a majority of the best of the royal MSS., if it were “utterly false;” when he now glories in having so many as fifteen of them, if he had been in the slightest degree inaccurate, he might have been confuted and exposed with no more trouble than that of a walk to the library. And I think the good Doctors of the Sorbonne might have had credit for zeal enough to make the inquiry. Stephanus too, in my opinion, had sense enough not to have laid himself open to be thus certainly exposed for having exceeded the truth, not only in his conference with the Sorbonne, but afterwards by publishing this boast of the number of the royal MSS. in his Latin Responsio, and again in French.

Mr. Porson could not but be aware that his hypothesis, with all its plausibility, might easily be confuted by considering thus the circumstances of the case; so he has another to succeed it. Stephanus, he suggests, might never have said quindecim {Latin: “fifteen”} to the Sorbonne. The Professor says, “Or he might, perhaps, forget the precise words of his answer to the examiners, and only retain the substance.”

Whatsoever Stephanus might forget, I think he might be able to [Vindication IV. 32] recollect, though at the distance of two years, whether or no he had told his examiners that he had received more MSS. from the royal library than the whole that he had taken, first and last, to furnish opposing readings to his folio;—and I am confident of his recollecting that, if his boast now of having seven more were inaccurate, they would not fail to expose him. Besides, with respect to this new plea, though Mr. Porson is fully justified in assuming that Stephanus would “speak from memory” when he told the Sorbonne the precise number of the MSS. that he had received from the royal library, he is not warranted in assuming now that the man wrote from memory in his Responsio. The treatise has all the appearance of having been written from notes, which it is reasonable to suppose he would make at the time of the different transactions; but particularly after this most momentous scene.

High, then, as my admiration is of the exquisite skill with which Mr. Porson prevails on his readers to take his account of the number of the royal MSS. in preference to that of Stephanus, I still hold to the statement of the “editor and printer,” who I think was, upon the whole, full as likely to know the real number, and who was so deeply concerned to be accurate, And I cannot agree with Mr. Porson in thinking it so “small an inaccuracy,” and of “no consequence.” It is, I think, of infinite importance to decide on which side the inaccuracy lies, Stephani “De morte et sanguine certant.” {Latin: “’they contend for the death and blood’ [Vergil, Aeneid 12. 765, which, however, has vita, ‘life’ for morte ‘death’] of Stephanus.”} If the inaccuracy is with Stephanus, so that he boasted of having had fifteen MSS. from the royal library, when Mr. Porson could shew that he had only the eight of the margin, then, although it be still impossible to make sense of Mill’s words, “In textu ad hos codices, &c.,” {Latin: “In the text following these book-form manuscripts, &c.,”} still the Professor was right in his charge that he would “adopt readings,” whether from MSS. or from printed copies to which he attributed the authority of MSS.,” (as Mr. Greswell gives it,) and after his solemn declaration in the O mirificam, repeated to Castellanus after the folio, and published both in Latin and French in his Reponsio, “falsarius deprehenditur.” {Latin: “he is found to be a forger.”} But, on the other hand, if it lies with his correctors, Le Long and Mr. Porson, so that Stephanus really had the MSS. that he claimed, then he had seven more royal MSS. than he took at both selections for the margin of the folio. Till the reading then of these seven is ascertained, there is not the shadow of any ground for questioning his having followed, to a letter, the “plures et meliores e Regiis;” {Latin: “more and better manuscripts from the Royal Library;”} then the declaration in the O mirificam accords perfectly with that in the folio, of his having had, at that time, “vetustissima sedecim scripta exemplaria;” {Latin: “sixteen very ancient hand-written copies”} there was only one private MS. to interfere with the majority of the royal—not as the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} have it, “editio quae fuit excusa,” {Latin; “the printed edition”} and seven written copies, “quae undique corrogare licuit;” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} then we see why Stephanus said, in that very striking manner, in his advertisement at the end of Beza’s notes, “ea omnia, quae in regis Gallorum bibliotheca extant” {Latin: “all those which are present in the Royal Library of France”}—an expression for which nothing else will account. Then there is an unanswerable reason why Mill must find those very great discrepancies that his collation exhibits. Then, even supposing that Stephanus never added a single MS. besides those of the margin to the royal MSS., these seven [Vindication IV. 33] of them will shew that, when he says any where in his folio that he has given a reading that was not found in any of the documents that he had selected to furnish opposing readings to the text of his first volume, he does not thereby ingenuously confess that he gave a text contrary to all his documents printed and written; whether the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} choose to laugh or to cry at this testimony. It is, in fine, not Stephanus who is either the fool or the falsifier.

Duly to appreciate Mr. Porson’s inimitable “management,” the reader ought to see the same difficulty, with the same mode of escape, in the hand of some other of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”}. This is fortunately to be found in the “Monthly Repository,” before referred to, No. XVII, May, 1828, p. 331. The editors say, “That it is difficult to reconcile with one another all the statements which Robert Stephens made respecting his MSS. is true.”

You will never find in Mr. Porson such a clear indication of the consciousness of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”}, that it is absolutely impossible to reconcile their theory respecting Stephanus’s MSS. with his plain distinct statements. With all due deference to the learned critics, I can furnish them with an infallible method of reconciling all Stephanus’s statements with one another, with all the facts recorded by others, and with the internal evidence of the editions themselves. Take his words in their plain literal sense, neither adding to them nor diminishing from them. When he says in his margin merely omnibus, {Latin: “all”} do not add nostris; {Latin: “our”} when he merely says nostris, {Latin: “our”} do not add omnibus {Latin: “all”}; when he says Regia, let them be royal MSS., and not those “quae undique corrogare licuit.” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} When he says scripta, let them be written documents, and not impressa; }{Latin: “printed”} and let vetustissima {Latin: “very ancient”} mean very old; and (putting them together) let vetustissima scripta {Latin: “very ancient hand-written”} not mean printed editions, published only twenty-four years before. Let quindecim mean fifteen, and not eight. And, as for “small inaccuracies,” since the greatest man amongst you admits them to be small and of “no consequence,” be so good as to let them stand without correction, and I will be answerable for the consequence. I am fully aware of the evils that will ensue from such a course; I simply say that all difficulties with respect to Stephanus will vanish. Follow the rule, and where is the slightest inconsistency in Stephanus’s statements?

The learned critics reply, “In the context of the passage which we have quoted from his answer to the divines of Paris, he says he has returned his fifteen MSS. to the King’s library; though, in his preface, he professes to have received only eight from it.” A reader, not well versed in such publications, will perhaps think it is “difficult to reconcile” with common sense, his being thus called upon to believe, that Stephanus laid before the Sorbonne a book just printed, in which he “professes to have received only eight” MSS. from the royal library; and that he would at the self-same moment tell them that he had received fifteen, and had returned them to the library. But he must admire the felicitous tact of Mr. Porson, if he will do—what he ought always to do upon such occasions—examine quotations for himself. He will find that Stephanus, in his preface, merely tells us what MSS. he has selected to furnish opposing readings to the text of his folio, eight [Vindication IV. 34] of which were from the royal library, so that our canon would cut off this profession of having received only eight, I have never yet heard of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} finding it “difficult to reconcile with one another all the statements that Robert Stephens made respecting his printed documents.” In the O mirificam he says, “adjuti sumus cum aliis, tam vero Complutensi editione;” {Latin: “we were aided by others, especially the Complutensian printed text;”} but we do not find any of the others quoted in the margin: still I have never heard it asserted that in the preface he professes to have had the Complutensian only. The critics are perfectly ready to admit that the Complutensian was selected out of the different printed editions to furnish various readings. It is only in the case of written copies, where Stephanus says that he had seven others from the royal library besides the eight of the margin, that the discovery is made of the impossibility of his having any documents but those that were taken to give opposing readings. The critics, having accomplished their object by representing the selection of eight out of the fifteen royal MSS. to be “professing to have received only eight,” add, “He had an evident motive for representing all his MSS. as completely gone out of his own power, as this afforded the best reason for refusing to gratify an inquisitorial curiosity.” “It is the usual support of folly,” says Warburton, in his own energetic manner, “to throw its distresses upon knavery.” Thus do these gentlemen argue, who chose openly, as Mr. Porson here expresses it, “to give Stephens the lie,” (p. 75.) But they have not thought fit to inform us how Stephanus’s asserting that he had received fifteen MSS. from the royal library, if he really had only eight, would stop inquisitorial curiosity respecting those which the preface (at that moment laid before the Sorbonne) distinctly mentioned, as “quae undique corrogare licuit.” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} And, with respect to those that belonged to the royal library, if they were “gone completely out of his power,” they were gone completely into the power of the librarian, who would have been able to state what the number actually was. Bishop Marsh justly observes (Michaelis, ii. 792, n. 289,) “As these very MSS. were at that time a subject of public controversy, it is wholly incredible, if he had asserted a falsehood, that it should have remained undetected.”

No one, then, will wonder that his Lordship himself took a different method with this most troublesome “Quindecim;” {Latin: “Fifteen;”} (Letters, p. 235, note 140,) and that he would lead his readers to believe that Stephanus never did boast of having had fifteen MSS. from the royal library. The success was complete on Dr. Hales, who (let it be remembered) esteemed Griesbach’s censure of Stephanus to be praise. Dr. H. (Faith in Trinity, ii. p. 159,) gives this translation of the words of the Responsio: “I answered, (says Stephens,) that there was not one, but fifteen: that those which had been lent me from the King’s library were returned …… ” It should be observed that Dr. Hales places a colon here after the word fifteen, so as to form a new sentence in the ensuing words; and that, at p. 161, where he reprobates poor Travis for omitting a comma, he himself makes this insertion of a colon, in Stephanus’s own words, after “quindecim,” {Latin: “fifteen,”} cutting it off from “relata,” {Latin: “returned,”} the word that agrees with it in construction: professing to give the sentence as it stands in the original, he still prints it, “quod non unum [Vindication IV. 35] esset sed quindecim: relata in Bibliothecam—.” {Latin: “that it was not one but fifteen: returned to the Library.”} But what is the most surprising is, that the good Doctor ventures at all on giving a translation, when it was so wisely omitted by the acute Letter-writer himself, and also by the critic who follows him, “Christian Observer,” No. 64, April, 1807, p. 225, note. It was sufficient for them to give their warrant to Dr. Hales’s colon by making a separate sentence out of the subjoined clause, “relata in Bibliothecam,” “which had been already sent back to the royal library,” as Mr. Greswell renders it; they would hardly commit themselves to the actual rendering of Stephanus’s words, as if they had been “Ex his autem relata esse in Bibliothecam Regiam ea quae.” {Latin: “Now from among these [texts] those were returned to the Royal Library, which.”} The very mode in which this cutting up of the quotation is introduced by the learned inventor might have served to save Dr. Hales from his translation. Letters 236, note 140, he says, “I own that it is obscure.” Yes; and a schoolboy would have been flogged for making such an obscurity. But the note adds, “But Stephens had good reason for not being explicit on this subject. If he made particular mention of the MSS. which he had procured from his friends, he might have exposed those friends to the same persecution as he himself underwent.” This is said when there was the sanction of the King himself in giving MSS. for the undertaking, as the Pope had done previously for the Complutensian; and Stephanus, at that very moment, laid before his examiners his folio, which actually “made particular mention of some of the MSS.” which he had thus procured; and this in a manner not, I think, very likely to commit any friend who had furnished him any MS. Then follows the obscurity which the learned writer’s plan makes for you. “He says, therefore, only in general terms that he had used fifteen MSS.; that he had returned to the King’s library those which [ea, quae] he had borrowed from it, and then suddenly breaks off without naming the rest.” Now take Stephanus’s own punctuation, and render the passage exactly as you would render it if they were not the words of an old editor giving a statement of materials that he had for his critical editions; and what can you have more plain and clear? Look at Mr. Greswell’s construction above; look at Maittaire, in his account, prefixed to the London edition of Stephanus’s Dictionary, which Dr. Hales had before him, “respondet fieri non posse; nec unum esse, sed quindecim in Regiam Bibliothecam relata, que ipsi precario data fuerant.” {Latin: “He declares that it cannot be done; that there was not one, but fifteen returned to the Royal Library, which had been given to him temporarily.”} And Maittaire is so far from finding any obscurity in thus following Stephanus’s punctuation, as the cutting the words into two different sentences does produce, that he says, Annales Typographici, tom. ii. parsi. p. 456, note(c.), “Hic attende lector, Robertus Stephanus disertis verbis aperit Exemplaria quindecim ex regia Bibliotheca ipsi precario data et in eandem relata.” {Latin: “Pay attention reader, Robertus Stephanus with these words shows that fifteen Copies were given to him from the royal Library and returned to the same.”} If you would prefer the opinion of a good staunch Humanitarian, take that of Mr. Lindsey. In his paper, signed Sosipater, in Commentaries and Essays, No. V., an. 1786, he gives a translation of a considerable part of Wetsten’s note on 1 John v. 7; and so is brought to this passage; for let it be noted, Wetsten gives the words of the Responsio, and, therefore, knew that Stephanus had seven more MSS. from the royal library, than those which he quoted in his margin. Mr. Lindsey, then, at p. 522, renders the passage [Vindication IV. 36] thus—“They require me to bring them my ancient MS.; I answer, that it cannot be done, because it was not one only, but fifteen, that I made use of, and which were lent me out of the King’s library, where I returned them.” Another writer, also, who has ranked, I believe, still higher with those gentlemen,—Mr. Belsham,—at p.8 of the highly extolled introduction of his Improved Version, at once gives testimony to Mr. Greswell’s rendering of Stephanus’s words, against one of Mr. Travis’s mighty correspondents, and to the accuracy of those words against the other. “A.D. 1550. Robert Stephens, a learned printer at Paris, published a splendid edition of the New Testament in Greek, in which he availed himself of the Complutensian Polyglot, and likewise of the permission granted by the King of France, to collate fifteen MSS. in the royal library.” There is, however, a work, which I think Dr. Hales was bound to have consulted before he inserted his colon in Stephanus’s words, or gave his version of them, because the learned author who suggested that version to him thus called his attention to it. Letters, p. 236, n. 140, as above—“Perhaps in Stephens’s Answer to the Paris Divines, which he himself published in French, at the very same time that he published it in Latin, the sentence is so worded as more fully to explain the matter.” If the reader wants to have the matter more fully explained, let him take the passage as it stands in the French: “Ils demandert qu’on leur apporte le vieil exemplaire, pensez que c’estoit pour y lire. Je respond qu’il ne se peut faire, pource qu’il n’y en auoit point vue tant seulment, mais quinze, qu’on auoit reportez en la libraire du Roy, lesquels i’ auoye eu par grand priere: les ayant bien deligemment conferez, que i’ auoye imprime cestuy ci selon le debuoir que i’ auoye tant enuers le Prince que la republique.” {French: “They asked for the old copy to be brought to them, thinking it was to be read in it. I replied, it cannot be done, because that was not the sole number, but fifteen, which had been brought from the Royal library, which I had received by solemn request: they made diligent enquiry and agreed that I printed this according to the order which I received both from the Prince and the republic.”} FRANCIS HUYSHE.

[Vol. IV. 1833: p. 161]

Upon the whole, then, when Le Long says (Letter to Martin, April, 1720; Journal des Sçavans, Ixvii. p. 650; and Emlyn’s Works, ii, p. 274), and so many of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} say after him,— “Robert Estienne declare, p. 36, de sa reponse au Theologiens de Paris, qu’il a remis dans la bibliotheque du Roi les MSS., qu’on lui avoit confiés,” {French: “Robert Estienne declares on p 36 of his Response to the Theologians of Paris, that he had returned to the Royal library the MSS. which hd been confided to him.”}—it is the truth, but not the whole truth. He makes no obscurity, but tells his readers fairly that Robert speaks in this place of MSS. which he had received from the royal library; and this contents him. He acts on Mr. Porson’s principle (p. 75), “It was enough to tell them so in general terms.” If he had descended to particulars, he might have told us the number that Stephanus said he received from the royal library. But the saying—“les quinze MSS., qu’on lui avoit confiés,” {French: “the fifteen MSS. which had been confided to him”} would hardly have suited Le Long’s undertaking, in this letter, concerning a certain text that stands in all Stephanus’s editions, viz., “J’assure seulment icy qu’il n’est dans aucun des MSS. dont Ro. Estienne s’est servi pour edition Grecque du N. Test. De 1550.” {French: “I assure you here that it appears in no MSS. which Ro. Estienne used for his Greek edition of the New Testament of 1550.”} Again, when we are told (Michaelis ii. 792, note 289, referred to above, et passim) “In his Answer to the Paris divines, p. 37 (Wetstenii N. T., vol. ii. p. 724), he declares that he [Vindication IV. 162] had returned all his MSS.,” this is rather more than the truth. Stephanus does not declare that he carried back to the royal library those MSS. that did not belong to it, but to either private persons or to other libraries; he declares that he carried back those fifteen which had been granted to him from thence upon his petition. Still farther, when we read—Letters, p. 235, note 140, referred to above, Michaelis, ii. 795, et passim—of “the eight which he borrowed from the royal library,” let it be remembered that these are not “ea omnia” {Latin: “all those”} of which Robert says in his advertisement at the end of Beza’s first edition—“quae in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant.” {Latin: “which are present in the Royal Library of France.”} You must bear in mind on the perpetual recurrence of this expression—“the eight which he had borrowed,”—that it means “eight of those that he had borrowed,” namely, those which he selected, first and last, out of the fifteen that he had received, to furnish opposing readings to the text of the folio. For I must hold Stephanus to have been accurate in his statements, till something more shall be brought against him than the bare assumption that he is inaccurate; and I correct the correctors. For Le Long’s “octo,” {Latin: “eight”} I take Stephanus’s “quindecim,” {Latin: “fifteen”} and say, “quorum copiam (quindecim) nobis bibliotheca regia facile suppeditavit—ea omnia quae in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant:” {Latin: “with an abundance (fifteen) of which the Royal Library liberally provided us—all which are present in the Royal Library of France.”} and I give to each his own: “the small inaccuracy” of saying eight when the man actually had fifteen, I give to Mr. Porson; the obscurity—the groping in the noon-day as in the night—belongs to Mr. Travis’s other illustrious correspondent; whilst I leave the wilful falsehood with its devisers, the gentlemen of the “Monthly Repository;” and I ascribe to Stephanus the intention of giving the actual number of the Regii {Latin: “Royal (manuscripts)”}, that he had before boasted of, ea omnia {Latin: “all those”}, which he followed to a letter in the text of his first edition; out of which he selected eight, just as he selected one printed edition out of “cum aliis tum vero Complutensi editione,” {Latin: “others, as well as indeed the Complutensian”})—or, as Beza expresses it, in all the editions of his Adnotationes,* “omnibus pene impressis,” {Latin: “almost all the printed copies”}—to furnish opposing readings to the text of his folio; in the same manner, also, as we now proceed to shew, he selected the seven other MSS. of the margin out of those “quae undique corrogare licuit.” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”}

{Note *: Adnotationes] The reader will do well to attend to this distinction; Beza himself very properly numbers his editions from his first Annotations, for these shewed sufficiently what text he would have given. Wetsten takes Beza’s own statement, as he ought. Succeeding critics have introduced sad confusion, by numbering the editions that he gave with a Greek text.}

Here Mr. Greswell assists us with facts, as he has with the express words of Robert himself, in the case of the royal MSS. It does appear to me most wonderful, that any one should believe he could be so long time preparing for his grand work of the folio, without adding one single MS. to the stock with which he began—with merely the general view that Mr. Greswell gives of our “printer and editor’s” conduct, of which, as Mr. Porson would express it, he himself boasts in his O mirificam—qua in caeteris uti solemus diligentiam.” {Latin: “where otherwise we are accustomed to use diligence.”} But I have declared, as I have always felt, that the opposite to what Wetsten says is the truth, though, as we have seen, adopted by [Vindication IV. 163] Mr. Porson—“Levitatis ejus hoc est indicium, quod nullo novo testimonio accedente, intraque triennium, tantopere a se ipso dissensit Stephanus.” {Latin: “This is an indication of his levity, that, without adding any new evidence, and within three years, Stephanus disagreed so much with himself.”}—Prol. 146, 5; Seml. 376. “Levitatis indicium” {Latin; “indication of levity”}—aye, lighter than vanity must the mind of Wetsten’s dupe be, who can actually be persuaded “nullum novum testimonium accessisse, tantopere a se ipso dissentiente Stephano;” {Latin: “no new evidence had been added, so much so that Stephanus disagreed with himself”} and I have exulted, I have triumphed, in the testimony that we have had from Crito Cantabrigiensis to this retort, where he so flatly contradicts the great man whom he undertakes to vindicate; and asserts, 389, that the three editions, with a few variations, gave the same text throughout, making this the groundwork of his “pretty good defence for those who have hitherto believed that R. Stephens had but one single set of MSS., consisting of sixteen copies [printed and written], for his various readings, as well as for the text of his three editions” (402).

The proof is greatly strengthened by the observation of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} themselves, that Henry Estienne boasts so much of what he had done tor his father in the work of collations. What time, and in what country Henry was thus employed; we may learn from Mr. Gresswell’s 22nd chapter. We find that Italy was the country where he was sent to make these collations, and that he was kept there almost the whole of the time between the first O mirificam and the folio, passing from one storehouse of MSS. to another. These collations “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”} were not made, as Griesbach represents, xvi. 4. Lond. xxviii., by “octodecim annorum puero,” {Latin: “a boy of eighteen years old”} adopting the misrepresentation of Wetsten, 143, 369, Seml.; Henry was not, as Michaelis (ii. 316) is pleased to say, “at that time too young, too impatient, and too little experienced in criticism, for an undertaking of that nature.” From these random assertions, we may appeal to the scattered notices which Henry has himself left of his collations, particularly in his Greek Thesaurus. Several of them are collected by Wetsten himself, Pro]. 143, 144; Semler, 370— 372; and let the reader judge whether Wetsten could actually believe that the collations were made by “tunc temporis octodecim annorum puero,” {Latin: “at that time a boy of eighteen years old”} and whether Michaelis could really have thought they betrayed the impatience and inexperience that he is pleased to charge upon their author. These specimens, brought together by no friendly hand, may serve to shew that he was not unworthy of being sent to Italy upon such a work, but that he deserved the encomium which Beza bestowed on a book given him by his father: “ab Henrico Stephano ejus filio et paternae sedulitatis haerede quam diligentissime collatum.” {Latin: “a very diligent collation performed by Henry Stephanus his son and heir to the careful work of his father.”} And let it be observed, that the productions of “the Early Parisian Greek Press,” under his superintendence afterwards, proved that he had enough of the “paterna sedulitas” {Latin: “careful work of his father”} to extend his inquiries beyond his father’s present object, and to embrace the Greek classic writers also. The exertions, then, of Henry in Italy, might, I think, have saved his father and the intended folio from the apology that Mr. Gresswell offers, i. 330, if we could speak of them only in these general terms. I am aware of the persecutions that Thuanus records, in the passage quoted by Maittaire, Hist. Stephan., p. 71. If these, however, made him remit his own personal exertions in despair, he recovered his spirit and pursued [Vindication IV. 164] his grand object with renewed ardour. As Maittaire says, quoting Robert’s own Responsio, “Theologis obmutescentibus, opus interruptum repetit, editionem scilicet Novi Testamenti Graecam, majore forma, quam anno sequente perfectam emisit.” {Latin: “When the Theologians were put to silence, he took up the work that had been interrupted, that is, the printed Greek New Testament, in a larger format, and having finished it the following year, published it.”} And let it be observed, that he did not recall his son from Italy; the collator steadily pursued his work, safe from all these storms.

By singular good fortune, however, we are not left to form guesses of our own, what must be the effect of such a man being so employed, and in such a country. It is from Henry’s own testimony that we are warranted in what has been already stated; viz., that the original grant of the fifteen MSS., “ea omnia, quae in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant,” {Latin: “all which are present in the Royal Library of France.”} was more than doubled at last. A fact snatched from oblivion, so fortuitously, and so undesignedly—a fact, which speaks so highly to the honour of those, whom Mr. Greswell loves to honour, the Stephani, father and son—so deeply interesting to all who profess to value the writings of the New Testament, ought to have graced the pages of the “View of the Early Parisian Greek Press.” Though Henry published a small Greek Testament in 1576 (Greswell, ii. 325), he gives no notice whatsoever of the materials from which his text is formed. At the end of his learned preface, he offers some conjectures of his own, which are animadverted upon by Mill, 1264, 1265; and he contents himself with solemnly assuring his readers, that he had admitted no such alteration in his text—See 6th vol. Critici Sacri, p.xxxi. But Henry published another edition in 1587 (Greswell, ii. 353). Speaking in the preface of the summaries or headings, κεφαλαια, of old MSS., he is fortunately led to say, “Plusquam enim triginta vidi, partim in Regis Galliae bibliotheca (quorum autoritatem et fidem pater meus in illa cujus paulo ante memini editione secutus est) partim in Italicis, qui eadem iisdem in locis κεφαλαια habebant.” {Latin: “for I have seen at least thirty, partly in the library of King of France (whose authority and faith my father followed in the edition of which a little before I made mention) partly in Italy, which had the same headings, Greek κεφαλαια, in the same places.”} This was known to his father’s modern accusers. It is referred to by Wetsten, Prol. 143 and 144; Semler, 369 and 373. In the next paragraph, Henry proceeds to speak of κεφαλαια, {Greek: “headings”} in Greek hexameters; where he says, “Eos ego cum nuper in mea bibliotheca reperissem potius quam invenissem (vix enim recordabar ex eorum numero que pater meus ex illis exemplaribus describenda curaverat, hos etiam esse versus)….” {Latin: “I had lately retrieved them in my library rather than found them (for I hardly remembered from the number of them which my father had taken care to copy from those copies, that there were these verses also)….”} This so decidedly brings into Robert’s possession what the “paternae sedulitatis haeres” {Latin: “heir to the careful work of his father”} had been investigating “in Italicis,” {Latin: “in Italy”} in the interval between the publication of the O mirificam and the folio, that Wetsten does not meddle with this part of Henry’s testimony, to which, however, his attention had been distinctly called by Bengel, Introd. in Cris. s. xxxix. 13; Appar. p. 82. How then does Wetsten meet the inference that Robert had for his folio this accession to his original stock of materials? He had luckily got an anonymous censurer, who dated these collations of Henry in Italy, “post editionem an. 1550,” {Latin: “following the edition of 1550”} (Prol. 143, Seml. 370), i. e., after Henry left Italy, and when the collations could be of no use. Wetsten has an easy task in demolishing such an absurdity; and this is to pass as a proof of his old assumption, that there never were more than the MSS. of the margin of the folio—never but one collation—and that this single collation of this single set was made by Henry “tunc tem- [Vindication IV. 165] poris 18 annorum puero.” {Latin: “then a boy of 18 years old”} “Si Henricus Stephanus codices bibliothecae regis Galliae et Italicos contulit, et si pater ejus Robertus ea collatione usus est cum N. T. Greecum et parvo et magno volumine excuderet, manifestissime consequitur illam collationem non post annum 1550, sed ante annum 1546 fuisse factam,” {Latin: “If Henry Stephens brought the book-form manuscripts from the Royal Library of France and the Italian ones, and if his father Robert used that collation when he printed his Greek New Testament in a small and large format, it very obviously follows that that collation was not done after 1550 but before 1546”}——Prol. 144, Seml. 372, where it will be observed that Wetsten repays his critic in his own coin. His sapient opponent makes Henry collate the MSS, “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”} after he had left the country; Wetsten is even with him, by representing Henry to have collated the MSS. “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”} before he had ever seen the country. “Italicos contulit …. ante annum 1546.” {Latin: “he brought the Italian ones … before 1546.”} And you are to take this as a good and sufficient answer to what Bengel quotes from Henry’s Preface, “Haec cum partim sciret, partim facillime scire potuisset J. A. Bengelius, nescio qua de causa ad veterem cantilenam rediens, xvi., inquit, Codices contulerat Robertus; igitur ix. plus minus Henricus.” {Latin: “Since J. A. Bengel partly knew and partly was able very easily to find out these things, I do not know why, returning to the old tune, he said Robertus had brought 16 Book-form manuscripts; and so Henry 9 more or less”} [Bengel takes Beza’s reckoning, “xxv. plus minus,” {Latin: “25 more or less”}] “Nescio qua de causa,” {Latin: “I do not know why”} says Wetsten, with all possible simplicity. Why, then I will tell you; it was because he took Henry’s word for his having seen these MSS, with the same κεφαλαια {Greek: “headings”} in the royal library and in those of Italy; and as for the time of Henry’s seeing those in Italy, Bengel would take it to be whilst he was in Italy. “Ad veterem cantilenam rediens,” {Latin: “returning to the old tune”} says Wetsten. Aye, you must come back at last to the old tune. Robert declared to the Sorbonne, that the “copia” {Latin: “abundance”} which the royal library supplied was fifteen; and as he had sixteen for his text, “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} he must have added one to them. As these were collated “iterum et tertio,” {Latin: “a second and third time”} Henry might be concerned in that work for the second O mirificam, “parvo volumine;” {Latin: “in a small format”} indeed, he has left proof of his knowledge of those royal MSS., which were not taken, first or last, for the margin. But the examinations “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”} were, except in one instance, entirely his own, and they were made (“inter utrumque tempus” {Latin: “between the two periods”}) neither before he went to Italy, nor after he had left it, but during the time that he resided in that country, and whilst they could be available for the purpose that carried him to search for such MSS.,—as Bengel observes, “memorat nonnulla, quae ipsius pater ex his exemplaribus describenda curaverat.” {Latin: “He mentions some things which his own father had taken care to copy from these exemplars.”}

We may regret that Henry’s statement is so jejune; let us remember, however, that he had no intention of furnishing us with an account of the materials of his father’s folio. He is speaking only of the summaries or headings (κεφαλαια) of ancient MSS. But if there could be any doubt that his knowledge of those “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”} was obtained by making preparations for the folio, the succeeding statements of transcripts being made for his father, cuts off that doubt completely. Whatsoever, then, was Robert’s own personal acquisition, between the editions of 1546 and 1550, the exertions of his son alone, in Italy, had more than doubled the original fifteen of the royal library. Neither the fact, then, of there having been fifteen royal MSS. for the first edition of 1546, nor that of these being more than doubled “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”} for the folio, are given in that full manner in which they would have appeared, if it had been the object to state them. But the value of the testimony, which is thus casually obtained, [Vindication IV. 166] is incomparably greater; malignity itself cannot assert that they were given for the purpose of enhancing the authority of these editions. They lie so much out of all regular information respecting Stephanus’s editions, that it is in my opinion clear that neither Mill, nor Curcelleus before him, nor Father Morin himself, had the slightest suspicion of either of these testimonies; nor, indeed, do they appear to have been sufficiently acquainted with the history of the Stephani to be aware of Robert having sent his son into Italy to obtain materials for his folio. It is nothing more than justice to mention this distinctly, as it tends so much to extenuate the fault of the earlier critics in the erroneous statements which they have given respecting Stephanus’s editions. But what is to be said of those, who can persevere in inculcating the inconsistent slanders of these men, when the facts which so decidedly confute them have been brought to light. But so it is. Robert, in the most solemn manner, declares respecting his first edition, that “he had not suffered a letter to be printed but what the greater part of the better MSS. from the royal library unanimously approved.” The Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} agree that this shall be “utterly false;” they give Robert’s words—“e codicibus quorum copiam bibliotheca regia suppeditaverit” {Latin: “from the book-form manuscripts, an abundance of which the Royal Library supplied”}—and say, “vanissima haec omnia sunt et falsissima:” {Latin: “utterly fatuous and false”} and thus they have not merely the honour of keeping up the absurdity of their predecessors, in applying a set of documents selected four years afterwards, for a totally opposite purpose, half of which consists either of private MSS. or of print—to an edition professing to be formed from royal MSS.,—but they do this knowing that there were seven more royal MSS. than the eight which they have applied to that edition. Again, with respect to the folio, Robert holds so firmly to his first pledge of giving his text from MS. only, that he declares, under the most trying circumstances, “no consideration could ever induce him to change anything contrary to the faith of all the MSS., and thus be found a falsifier.” Yet we are to be told that he shews a “partiality” for printed editions—“vicious complaisance”—“coecus impetus”—that, “in the exercise of the δευτεραι φροντιδες, {Greek: “second thoughts”} he was led to think less highly of some of his readings, and to adopt others, whether from MSS. or from printed copies, to which he attributed the authority of MSS.” And in this the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} do not merely adopt the palpable absurdity of ascribing the text of two editions, that vary so much from each other, to the self-same materials; they do not merely adhere to this, when they see the folio itself declaring, more than a hundred times, that the text in those passages was formed out of MSS., different from every one of those which they assign to it. They not only assume, with their predecessors of olden time, that such a man as Robert Estienne could be four years in preparing for his folio, without adding a single MS. to his original stock, but they can do this with their own actual knowledge of the fact, that the man had kept his son almost the whole time searching the Italian libraries for MSS.; and that his son was thus enabled to say he had seen above thirty MSS. in those libraries and that of the King of France, with the same summaries κεφαλαια {Greek: “headings.”}; so that no doubt could exist what collations Henry was [Vindication IV. 167] sent to make; nor could there be any doubt for whom they were made, when he speaks of extracts “quae pater meus ex illis exemplaribus describenda curaverat.” {Latin: “which my father had taken care to copy from these exemplars.”} Henry’s edition of 1587, in which this decisive testimony appears, was reprinted in the same year in London, by Vautrollier, which, we are told, was the first time the Greek text issued from an English press. But the reader may satisfy himself without procuring either edition. The preface is given in the 6th vol, of the Critici Sacri, p. 2063, and the κεφαλαια {Greek: “headings.”} follow, which, I suspect, would alone decide whether Robert has been “found a falsifier.” I have not been informed that any one of the marked MSS. of the margin has these old metrical κεφαλαια. {Greek: “headings.”}

Here our discussion might terminate. This is my case. Thus does it stand between Stephanus and his accusers; both those of the old school and those of the new. Nothing, however, ought to be omitted to give full assurance of understanding on a point of such vital importance to every one that nameth the name of Christ, and does not abandon himself to what others may choose to propound. Dr. Cardwell, in his masterly exposure of misrepresentations respecting our printed Bibles (Brit. Mag., March, 1833, p. 329), justly holds that “there is nothing more deserving of respect and protection, than the confidence with which an unlettered peasant looks upon his English Bible, as expressing to him the genuine word of God.” What then ought to be our feelings respecting those editions of the Greek Testament, upon which not only our English Bibles but those of every Protestant church are founded? I may be pardoned, then, for still requesting the reader’s attention to the testimony of Stephanus’s accusers against themselves. I may be allowed to hammer a plate or two for the covering of the altar, out of the censers of these critics, which are hallowed, against their own souls.

FRANCIS HUYSHE

[Vol. IV. 1833: p. 276]

TURN first to Michaelis ii, p. 861, note 43, where you will read this avowal— “We sometimes say [Nos Docti et Prudentes {Latin; “We Learned and Wise”}] that the number of manuscripts quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen, at other times we say that they amounted only to fifteen, according as we include the Complutensian edition or not.” An honest Irishman might talk of sixteen printed copies, in which he included fifteen that were manuscripts; or sixteen MSS., in which he included one that was printed. But what motive could induce men of the highest acquirements, and the most brilliant abilities, to imitate him? Besides, Paddy would be consistent in his diction. He would not, for one particular occasion, always include the printed edition, and assert that Stephanus took sixteen written copies to give opposing readings to this text of his folio; and, on all other occasions, contend that he never had but fifteen written copies in all, for furnishing the text either of the O mirificam or the folio itself. But what say the Docti et Prudentes? {Latin: “Learned and Wise.”} “We sometimes” have to identify the different kinds of authorities, “quoted by Stephens,” for his marginal readings (viz. the edition, selected from “omnibus paene impressis,” {Latin: “almost all the printed copies”} and the written copies, selected out of the thirty and more that were obtained at last) with the materials from which the text of the first O mirificam was obtained, (viz. the fifteen royal MSS. and the other private one.) Then “we include the Complutensian edition,” and “say that the [Vindication IV. 277] number of manuscripts quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen; at other times” we have to speak only of the accompaniments to the folio, and do not want to confound them with the materials for the O mirificam: then Je ne puis rien nommer, si ce n’est par son nom {French: “I can’t name anything except by its name”}; (Porson, p. xxiii.) manuscript is manuscript, and print is print: we tell the truth, and “say that the number of manuscripts quoted” “amounted only to fifteen.” Now, courteous reader, without stirring from the preface of the folio, if you are not satisfied respecting the charges of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise.”}, from this their own avowal, “much learning” has affected your mind also; and if I had, not merely all Stephanus’s books of collations to lay before you—“quae describenda curaverat,” {Latin: “which he had taken care to copy”}—but all the Italian MSS. themselves, that Henry collated, all the private MSS. in France, which he himself obtained—and “ea omnia (all the fifteen) quae in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant”— “all those, as Mr. Porson says (Kidd, 353), which are extant in the King of France’s library,”—and none of these Cod. MSS. “mutilatos ant laceros” {Latin: “mutilated and lacerated”}—(Griesbach, ii. p. (3) note, Lond p. 687)—so that I could shew you in them all the hated readings of Stephanus;— still, not one word should you hear from me, to disturb your most holy faith, that “Etienne a été un fourbe, un homme digne du dernier mepris, un infame;” {French: “Stephens was a deceiver, a man worthy of the utmost contempt, an infamous person”} no attempt would I make to stop your laughter at the man, “qui negare vellet.” {Latin: “who wished to deny it”} I shall only weep at seeing a Barnabas also carried away with their dissimulation. Yes, I say it with shame, second only to that which I feel when Mill, having given the seven MSS. “quae undique corrogare licuit,” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} and the printed Complutensian, says, “in textu ad hos codices formando ita se comparatum ait Robertus, ut religiose ac plane ad literam sequeretur plures ac meliores e Regiis,” {Latin: “in the text formed from these book-form manuscripts, Robert says that he prepared himself in such a way as to follow religiously and quite to the letter the greater and better of the Royal manuscripts”} Mr. Greswell can say, i. 320, “Robert professes to give in the margin of this splendid book select various readings (for so, I conceive, his words imply) of sixteen MSS., of which, however, the printed Complutensian was to be reckoned as one.”

It is not only from Michaelis’s Rt. Rev. translator that we have such decided testimony respecting the Preface to the folio. Michaelis is scarcely less explicit himself: ii. p. 317, in his own note, he says, “from the expression scriptis exemplaribus {Latin: “written exemplars”}, Martin attempted to prove that Stephens had sixteen manuscripts beside the Complutensian bible, not merely fifteen, as is generally supposed.” Martin was able to read. And as he read “superioribus diebus……N. T…….cum vetustissimis sedecim scriptis exemplaribus …. collatum …. excudimus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period ……we printed…..the N. T……collated……with the very ancient sixteen written copies”} he saw that Stephanus had sixteen ancient written copies to form his text in 1546; but, as unfortunately he was a component part of Mr. Porson’s “couple of Clotens,” (p. 64,) he did not conclude that these sixteen, of 1546, could not be the fifteen selected to oppose the text of 1550; but, following Stephanus’s accusers in identifying the two sets, he adds one to the documents of the margin: and the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise.”} make good use of this piece of wisdom in him and his brother Cloten. But mark what Michaelis is obliged to admit:—

Note continued ii. 317—“Now it cannot be denied, that if we abide by this expression alone, the inference deduced by Martin is [Vindication IV. 278] very natural.” “It cannot,” you see, “be denied, that if we abide by this expression alone”—even without referring to the “plures et meliores e regiis,” {Latin: “more and better manuscripts from the Royal Library”} the “quindecim,” {Latin: “fifteen”} that were sent back to the royal library, “ea omnia,” {Latin: “all those”}—and to the “plus quam triginta” {Latin: “more than thirty”} of Henry; the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise.”} are stopped in limine. {Latin: “at the threshold.”} Michaelis admits, what I have so pertinaciously maintained, viz. that a newly printed edition cannot be said to be a very old written copy; so that “if we abide by this expression” vetustissimis {Latin: “very ancient”} and by scriptis {Latin: “written”}, Stephanus in fact declares that he had sixteen very old written copies, for the text of his O mirificam, “superioribus diebus;” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} and that alone will be rather against a set which contains the Complutensian edition, “editio….quae fuit excusa.” {latin: “the edition….which was printed.”}

Just however as I am crying “ Io triumphe,” {a Latin exclamation of triumph} Michaelis checks me, and shews why we must not “ abide by this expression.” He adds “—but as Stephens explains himself soon after more clearly, it is certain that his codex a signifies the Complutensian bible, and that he had only sixteen copies, inclusive of that bible; an inaccurate expression therefore cannot be used as an argument in favour of an assertion which contradicts itself.” Michaelis “explains himself” very “clearly,” when he thus decides, that what Stephanus says of a set of documents selected in 1550 to give opposing readings to the folio, is to explain the account he had given of the MSS. that he had for the formation of his O mirificam of 1546. Michaelis, like the rest of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise.”}, has omitted to inform us why Stephanus must (as they assume) select for opposing his text, in 1550, precisely those documents, out of which he formed his text in 1546. Nor has he explained how it was possible for Stephanus to have had, in 1546, the MSS. “quae undique corrogare licuit,” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} between that time and 1550. “It is certain,” says Michaelis, “that he had only sixteen copies, inclusive of that bible.” It is certain that he selected only sixteen in all, print and manuscript, to oppose the text of the folio: but I again ask, what has the selection of documents for opposing the text of the folio in 1550, to do with the forming the text of the O mirificam in 1546? Michaelis himself saw this distinctly. At p. 319 a. he says, “It appears that Stephens collated only sixteen codices, or at least that he has given no extracts from more than sixteen.” Again, “an assertion,” says he, “which contradicts itself.” The assertion of Stephanus, that he had sixteen very old written copies in 1546, pretty flatly contradicts his slanderers, who say he never had, in all, but fifteen. But neither this nor his son’s assertion, that he had about double the number at last, contradicts his selecting only fifteen to give opposing readings to the folio—any more than the assertion that he had almost all the printed editions, contradicts his selecting one of them only for that purpose. And Michaelis, when he talks of contradictions, has not informed us what he makes of “Quindectm” {Latin: “Fifteen”} in Stephanus’s second boast respecting the royal MSS., where he brags of the number—nor yet how he disposes of “plures et meliores e Regiis” {Latin: “more and better manuscripts from the Royal Library”} in the Preface to the O mirificam. I say to those who talk of contradictions and inaccuracies, take the whole of Stephanus’s assertions, and shew, if you can, any inaccuracy, any improbability. For one [Vindication IV. 279] moment suppose “quindecim” {Latin: “fifteen”} to be no “small inaccuracy” for eight; and “vetustissimis scriptis” {Latin: “very ancient hand-written manuscripts”} to be no “inaccurate expression” for denoting newly printed editions. I ask then, is the number of MSS. in the royal library so small, that Stephanus’s boast of having had fifteen of them must be “verba hyperbolica,” {Latin: “hyperbolic words”} as Wetsten would say when he meant to give you the lie? Having fifteen “e Regiis,” {Latin: “from the Royal library”} might not Stephanus be able to boast that he had not given a letter in his O mirificam, “but what the greater part of the better MSS. from the royal library approved’? Having made such a boast in his first edition, would he not continue it, when speaking of that edition in the preface to the folio; and so use that expression (vetustissima scripta {Latin: “very ancient hand-written manuscripts”}) which our modern critics “cannot abide?” Again, having fifteen from the royal library, might he not have had sixteen very old written copies in all, for the O mirificam? and if he kept his son for years searching “in Italicis,” {Latin: “in Italy”} might he not have increased the number, so as to be able to select seven from those, “quae undique corrogare licuit,” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} as well as eight from the fifteen royal MSS., when he thought proper to give opposing readings to the new text of the folio? I have never found any one of the correctors of small inaccuracies who has ventured thus to pit his own accuracy against that of Stephanus.

Dr. J. Pye Smith manages to make Stephanus contradict himself in a more skilful manner than Michaelis. The Eclectic Review, Jan. 1810, p. 68, says, that Stephanus, in the margin of his folio, “professed to mark the various readings of sixteen very ancient MSS. (vetustissima scripta exemplaria {Latin: “very ancient hand-written copies”}), but to shew us that this expression was not meant to be very exact, he soon subjoins that the first in the list was the Complutensian printed text.” Mark Dr. Smith’s happy expedient. “Vetustissima scripta exemplaria” {Latin: “very ancient hand-written copies”}—that is what Stephanus says of the materials that he had “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} for forming the text of the O mirificam: and Dr. S. substitutes this, for what the man actually does say, in his account of the documents that he took in 1550 for the margin of his folio. By this piece of dexterity, Dr. S. can abide by Stephanus’s actual expression, and still identify the documents selected to oppose the folio with the MSS. from which the O mirificam was formed. No matter that the “vetustissima scripta” {Latin: “very ancient hand-written copies”} were used superioribus diebus {Latin: “at an earlier period”}; that is easily slipped. No matter that Dr. S.’s comment makes his text to be a heap of inconsistencies; that is settled by saying, that the “expression was not meant to be very exact.” If, however, Dr. Smith’s “expression was meant to be very exact,” when he is pleased to assert that Stephanus “professed to mark the various readings of sixteen very ancient MSS.,” then Stephanus has the impudence to contradict him flatly. Dr. P. Smith would have been perfectly safe if he could have been content with asserting, “that the number of manuscripts quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen.” He would have had plenty of learned and skilful gentlemen to bear him out. We have just seen their scheme in Michaelis, ii. 861, n. 43. And Dr. S., I think, might have seen from their statements, that he ought not to have talked about what Stephanus himself professed. There stand the man’s own words to speak for themselves. As if he had foreseen that the conspiring critics [Vindication IV. 280] would not abide by his expressions vetustissimis {Latin: “very ancient”} and scriptis, {Latin: “hand-written copies”} in his account of the materials that he had for the O mirificam, when he came to speak of the various readings in the margin of the folio, he professed to take them from fifteen written copies, and one which he particularly described as “editio” {Latin: “(printed) edition”} and “quae fuit excusa.” {Latin: “which was printed.”}

Allow the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} thus to dispose of expressions by which they cannot abide, and what is the consequence? Michaelis gives it at p. 319—“It seems as if the learned Robert Stephens degenerated in this instance to a mere printer, whom pecuniary motives induced to have his edition ready as soon as possible; and who, directing his chief attention to the beauty of the types, and the neatness of the impression, neglected the accuracy of a critic, not expecting so severe an examination before the tribunal of the modern literati.” Observe, Stephanus is induced by pecuniary motives to have his edition ready as soon as possible.—This is said of the man who was between three and four years preparing for this edition, and who kept his son, during almost the whole time, searching the Italian libraries for MSS. I can readily believe that Stephanus could not expect such “an examination before the tribunal of the modern literati.” He could hardly be prepared for literati who themselves admit that they must “sometimes say, that the number of manuscripts quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen,” when “at other times” they assert, in the most decided manner, that the whole stock out of which the quoted MSS. were selected, “amounted only to fifteen.” I, who know them, I imagine, tolerably well, am utterly at a loss to say “quo teneam nodo,” {Latin: “With what knot shall I hold this person?” from Horace, Epistles 1. 90, “With what knot shall I hold this Proteus, who so often changes his countenance?”} either for Stephanus or Cyprianus; either for the editors at Alcala, or for the confessors at Carthage. By what possible means was Stephanus to establish his innocence before a tribunal that will call his statements “small inaccuracies,” and judge him from their own corrections,—that will not abide by his expressions; or if they do, will substitute what he says of the materials that he had for forming the text of one edition, in the statement that he makes of the documents selected for giving opposing readings to the different text of another?

We have these distinct avowals “of the modern literati,” that the preface to the folio alone would be destruction to them, if our canon could be enforced: that they cannot “abide by the expression,” either of vetustissimis {Latin: “very ancient”} and scriptis {Latin: “hand-written copies”}in the account of the materials used “superioribus diebus” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} for the formation of the O mirificam—or of “editio….quae fuit excusa” {Latin: “edition which was printed.”} in the enumeration of the documents that were now selected to oppose the text of the folio.

But “the modern literati” are not merely obliged to admit that they are confuted, if they abide by the expressions of Stephanus: they are confuted by what they themselves lay down. According to them, the whole work of collation was performed “ab Henrico filio octodecim annorum puero” {Latin: “by Henry at that time a boy of eighteen years old”} (Gries. xvi. 4,) This has led them to declare, with one voice, that the first MS. of the margin (marked β) was collated by Henry: “a filio ipsius Henrico tunc temporis Italiam perlustranti in ipsa Italia repertus,” {Latin: “discovered in Italy itself by his son Henry, who was at that time searching all over Italy”} says Wetsten, p. 22, 1st ed., continued Prol. 28, Seml. 79, who assumes that it is the same as his own D; and he is followed by Semler himself, n. 45 & 46, by Porson, p. 57,—and [Vindication IV. 281] by the notes on Michaelis, ii. p. 690, n. 113; note.114, p. 694, 696, 699; note 116, p. 703; nofe 122, p. 712. In vain Robert assigns other collators of this MS. As Michaelis observes, ii. 238, note (m), “his father says expressly” in Italia ab amicis. {latin: “in Italy by friends.”} But Michaelis’s translator can no more “abide by this expression,” than Michaelis himself can abide by vetustissimis scriptis {Latin: “very ancient hand-written copies”}, (see ii. 690, note 113)—nor yet can Mr. Travis’s other mighty correspondent: here again Mr. Porson is obliged to make an exception to his rule that he lays down at p. 232 (as we have seen) of not making “R. Stephens a cheat.” Henry is to be “sole collator of the MS.,” (p. 56,) and his father disguises the fact, not fairly confessing, or openly violating the truth, (p. 57, note.) Well then, see an exemplification of the admonition addressed to St. Paul, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” The Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} establish that β was collated “a filio ipsius Henrico tunc temporis Italium perlustranti; {Latin: “by his son Henry, who was at that time searching all over Italy”}” but Henry never went to Italy till his father’s O mirificam had been published. Why then, at the moment that they are contending pedibus atque unguibus, {Latin: “with paws and nails”} that the fifteen MSS. of the margin of the folio, and the edition that had been printed only a few years before, were the sixteen very old written copies, which Robert had “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} and that he never had any MSS. but those,—they were themselves distinctly laying down, that one of the MSS. of the margin had been acquired afterwards. To refer then again to Crito’s pretty good defence that he says may be made for those persons who have hitherto believed that Robert Stephens had but one single set of MSS., consisting of sixteen copies, for his various readings, as well as for the text of his three editions (402), though “tantopere a se ipso dissensit Stephanus.” {Latin: “Stephanus disagreed so much with himself.”} These believers, as Crito justly observes, are held by Mr. Huyshe in great contempt. “Horum simplicitas miserabilis;” {Latin: “the miserable simplicity of these men;”} they are at the beck of “the modern literati” at one moment to “say that the number of manuscripts quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen;” and at all other times to say that the whole stock “amounted only to fifteen.” But what defence will Crito find for those who make the assertion he speaks of, and never believed a word of it?—who by their own theory represent Henry to have acquired one of the marked MSS. of the margin for his father, while be was searching for MSS. “in Italicis,” {Latin: “in Italy”} after the publication of the O mirificam; and can still identify the fifteen marked MSS. with the “vetustissimis sedecim scriptis,” {Latin: “very ancient sixteen written copies”} from whence Stephanus took his text “superioribus diebus” {Latin: “at an earlier period”}? The reader may judge what Crito thought he could do, when, at p. 403, he expressly declines to enter on the question, either of the MS. β, or of Henry’s collation, which make so large a part of the six pages of Mr. Porson’s IVth Letter that are examined in the Specimen, and avowedly leaves the Professor to its tender mercies: these are questions which “the reader will easily forgive him, if he does not attempt to determine.”

But it may be said that the fact of β having been added to Stephanus’s stock after the publication of the O mirificam, is a deduction of my own, from the doctrine of the opposing critics, of which they themselves might not have been aware,—and that I have engaged to [Vindication IV. 282] give their concessions. Take then their own avowal, (Michaelis, ii. p. 856, note 37)—“Now it is generally supposed, and it is likewise asserted by our author, in treating of the Codices Stephanici, that all the sixteen manuscripts (including the Complutensian edition) which are quoted in R. Stephens’s edition of 1550, had been collated previous to the first edition of 1546. But we must except at least the codex β, which could not have been collated till after the year 1547, because this MS. was collated in Italy, and H. Stephens did not go into Italy before that year.” I beg the reader to consider this, and then say, whether I am not warranted in my assertion, that the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} give only their exoteric doctrine, when we read as follows: “Stephens had only sixteen copies even inclusive of the Complutensian edition,” (Letters to Travis, by the Translator, p. 134, note 16.) “It is certain that Stephens had only sixteen including the Complutensian edition,” (Michaelis, ii. p. 666, note 47;) and upon particular parts of the sacred text—“in the Catholic epistles, Stephens has quoted only seven MSS.: consequently, in these epistles he collated only seven, for, if he had collated more, he of course would have quoted more.” (Letters, Pref. p. 20.) Griesbach, too, p. xvi. 3, Lond. p. xxviii., bringing his courage to the sticking place, asserts “codices quidem manuscriptos eum consuluisse, sed quindecim tantum,” {Latin: “but he consulted hand-written book-form manuscripts, but only fifteen”} where he had timidly given it in his first (p. xxv., c.) only thus—“sed satis paucos;” {Latin: “but few enough”} though Wetsten had tried the ground for him, and, with his characteristic boldness, had ascribed to Beza, of all men that ever existed, the knowledge of this “xv tantum,” {Latin: “15 only”} 148. Seml. 380. When the learned critics were unanimously pronouncing this, were they not as well aware as Michaelis himself, that the giving extracts in the margin of the folio could not shew what MSS. were collated for the text of the O mirificam,—much less what was the whole stock amassed for the folio? And was not Crito most judicious in avoiding β, as carefully as he does Stephanus’s solemn declaration in the preface to the O mirificam,—that every letter of it was printed after the “majority of the best MSS. from the royal library?” What could he do more than give a smile of complacency at the biting, insulting sarcasms thrown out, Specimen, p. 17, on the abject necessities of Mr. Porson, which placed him on a level with his Cloten, in construing Stephanus’s words? When Crito still holds to the old assertion that α and the seven copies, “quae undique corrogare licuit,” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} were half of Stephanus’s materials for an edition, in which he boasted that he had not given a letter but what was sanctioned by “plures et meliores e Regiis,” {Latin: “the majority and the better from the Royal Library”}—he certainly did his part in undertaking to prove that the Complutensian was a very old written copy. It might fairly be left to some other Vindicator to commit himself by denying, that “if β is to form one of the sixteen copies in the gross,” as Mr. P. calls that set of MSS. from which the first edition was formed, (p. 63,) and it was collated for that edition by Henry, in 1546; then “in Italia,”{Latin: “in Italy”} by an easy substitution of Cis-Alpine Gaul for Trans-Alpine, must be construed “at Paris.” Specimen, p. 18.

The note 37 (Michaelis, ii. 857) after telling us, that codex β could not possibly have come into the “vetustissima sedecim scripta exem- [Vindication IV. 283] plaria,” {Latin: “sixteen very ancient hand-written copies”} from which the O mirificam was formed “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} adds, “nor does R. Stephens say a syllable about any MS. collated in Italy, in the preface to his two first editions, though he particularly mentions the MSS. borrowed from the royal library.” No, most certainly. It was not till after he had published his little edition of 1546, that he began to think of his folio, and of making use of his son; whom he sent into Italy, to search for MSS. “in Italicis.” {Latin; “in Italy.”} He could not at that time talk of what “describenda curaverat,” {Latin: “he had taken care to copy”} from the stores of that country. But as fifteen, out of the sixteen, that he had “superioribus diebus” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} had been “borrowed from the royal library,” “he mentions them so particularly,” as to declare that he had not given a letter but what was sanctioned by the best of them. Hence the accurate expression in this note—“we must except at least the codex β:” for all but one, of those that were used for the first edition, were particularly mentioned, as being borrowed from the royal library, we must except five at least, as well as the codex β, of those “quae undique corrogare licuit,” {Latin: “which permitted corroboration from all sources”} that could not have been “collated previous to the first edition of 1546.”

The note proceeds-—“It is true, [It is false,] that in the preface to the edition of 1550, he pretends to have regulated the text of his two first editions by the extracts from all the MSS. which he quotes in the third.” I take the liberty of substituting the word false for true, because the preface of 1550 is perfectly consistent with what was said in the O mirificam, respecting the “copia” {Latin: “abundance”} (the quindecim {Latin: “fifteen”}) which “bibliotheca regia facile suppeditavit.” {Latin: “the Royal Library liberally provided.”} There is not a word in it which can be distorted by the utmost art into any thing like an intimation that the text of the two first editions was regulated by extracts from all the MSS. which he quotes in the third. There is nothing to lead you to a suspicion, that any of the documents of the margin, but the eight royal MSS., had been used “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} in forming the O mirificam. Who the pretenders are, may be seen from Michaelis’s acknowledgement, (ii. 317, note,) which we have just considered, that they cannot identify the MSS. for the formation of the O mirificam, with the documents selected to oppose the folio, if they abide by his expression of vetustissimis scriptis {Latin: “very ancient hand-written texts”} alone; and not less decidedly from Dr. P. Smith’s ingenious transplantation of these words, from Stephanus’s account of what he had done respecting his text, “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} in the room of what he actually says in his statement of the opposing documents of the margin of the folio. And I am supported in my decision, that Stephanus is not the pretender, by the Monthly Repository, May, 1828, (quoted above,) p. 330— “It is true that, speaking afterwards of his various readings, he says ‘in margine interiori varias codicum lectiones addidimus,’ {Latin: “we added variant readings from the book-form manuscripts in the inner margin”} and does not expressly say, eorundem codicum {Latin: “from the same book-form manuscripts”}.” No, gentle critic, and I am inclined to say, that when you made the observation, you and I did not differ much in our private opinion, viz. that if the materials used four years before, and for such a totally different purpose as the forming the widely different text of another edition, had been pretended to be the same as those taken now to oppose the text of the folio, the man must have said “eorundem codicum,” {Latin: “from the same book-form manuscripts”} or something like it. As [Vindication IV. 284] you well observe, he does not say eorundem {Latin: “same”}, and I will tell you what he does say, to every reader who will abide by his expression; he says that they were not the same. It is some other pretenders, who can “say that the number of manuscripts quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen,” and we have seen how they justify such a pretence (Michaelis, ii. 861, n. 43.) The man himself tells you that he took “editio—quae fuit excusa” {Latin: “an edition—which was printed”} (words which do not find their way into any of these criticisms), and he has thus as decidedly proved to you by his statement that you must at least except the codex α, as Bishop Marsh has shewn you, that, by your own, you must except at least the codex β.

FRANCIS HUYSHE.

[Vol. IV. 1833: p. 411]

We have observed that the “modern literati” are never at a loss for a motive to induce a printer and bookseller to any thing that they [Vindication IV. 412] are pleased to lay to his charge. The note 37 concludes p. 857, “but this was probably done with no other view than to enhance the value and promote the sale of his former publications.” There are those who have “no other view” in their statements than to depreciate these publications. I can easily understand how this latter object would be promoted by assigning a false set, as that by which “he regulated the text.” How such a cheat should “enhance the value” of them I have yet to learn.

But whether the giving these false statements would serve to enhance the value of the two O mirificam editions, or to damn then—whether it be Stephanus who “pretends to have regulated the text of his two first editions by the extracts from all the MSS. which he quotes in the third,” or it be the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} who set up such pretension,—the learned and acute note writer has shewn, that by their own theory the fact is, as I have always contended, that the pretension is “utterly false.” They themselves “must except at least the codex β, which [by their own hypothesis] could not have been collated till after the year 1547.” Well then, whether the learned writer would agree with me, that nothing could be more absurd than Mill’s “in textu ad hos codices….ut religiose ac plane ad literam sequeretur plures ac meliores e Regiis,” {Latin: “in the text with reference to these book-form manuscripts, ….to follow religiously and quite to the letter the greater and better of the Royal manuscripts”}—still he agrees with me in deciding it to be false that Robert actually did form the text of his O mirificam “ad hos codices;” {Latin: “with reference to these book-form manuscripts”} and, consequently, the vast discrepancies that Mill found between them and the O mirificam, only proved the magnitude of his own mistake. Under this conviction, the learned writer, as we saw in the note that we considered (Letters, p. 171, note 25) gave Robert full credit for his solemn protestations of having formed the text of the O mirificam religiously according to the greater and better part of the Royal MSS., and set aside the folio because it contained no such asseveration. “Stephens,” says he, “does not even pretend to have formed the text of his third edition from his Greek MSS., and therefore you cannot argue to the text of that edition from a declaration made only of the two first.” Now turn to Lecture VI. pp. 106, 107. In the preface to the first edition which was printed at Paris in 1546, says Robert Stephens, “having obtained from the royal library several MSS., which, from their appearance of antiquity, are almost entitled to adoration, I have formed from them this edition in such a manner, as not to print even a single letter which is not confirmed by the greater and better part of them.” “But with all this ostentation, Robert Stephens’s first edition is little more than a compilation from the Complutensian and the fifth edition of Erasmus,” Where “the greater and better part” of the “copia” {Latin: “abundance”}—the fifteen royal MSS.—gave readings in accordance with the Complutensian, the fifth, or any other of Erasmus, the Aldine, Colinaeus, it is in the true spirit of modern criticism to assert, that Stephanus copied from any of these editions, to the accuracy of which in reality his MSS. bore testimony. As half of the royal MSS. have never been ascertained, it might have appeared very safe to make such charges. The same game, however, had formerly been played with Colinaeus; but Mill had the good judgment and good feeling, in that case, to keep to the words [Vindication IV. 413] of truth and soberness. Upon Colinaeus’s accordance with former editors Mill speaks thus, 1144— “Apocalypsis enim Comptutensis, aut Frobenianae, aut saltem exemplarium cum istis congruentium, vestigiis fere insistit;” {Latin: “For the Apocalypse of the Computensian or of Froben, or at least of the copies corresponding to these, the reading is almost determined by what we have before us”} and mentioning some readings that he deemed suspicious, he says of them, 1145, “Fieri potest, ut etiam in istis habuerit vir doctus Exemplaria quae sequeretur.” {Latin: “It is possible that even in these the learned man had copies which he followed.”} Even for this however Mill receives a castigation. Colinaeus’s edition was not likely to “commend itself to the learned of our time, as the representative of MSS. now no longer found,” (Greswell, VI.) Wetsten had discovered two of his MSS, to be amongst Stephanus’s selection for his margin; moreover, he was won by the modesty which Colinaeus displayed on a particular passage, that shall be nameless,—“ea fuit modestia ut locum,…..textui suo inserere non auderet,” {Latin: “Such was the modesty that he did not dare to insert the place into his text.”} Prol. 142, Seml. 366. There was a wide difference between him and the man who had between fifteen and twenty MSS, that have never yet been ascertained; besides, Stephanus was so immodest as to follow those MSS. in that passage, and give it in his O mirificam, as Bishop Marsh tells us, (Lect. xxvii. p. 27,) in a different form from any preceding edition. Colinaeus therefore is vindicated; and Wetsten adds, “in hac sententia multum fui confirmatus, ex decem locis, quorum nullum in codicibus apparere vestigium Millis, sed timide, suspicatus est, sex in codicibus Stephani ια et ιδ legi deprehendissem,” {Latin: “in this opinion I was much confirmed, from ten passages, of which Mill suspected, but timidly, no trace could be found in the book-form manuscripts, but six of which I had discovered in the book-form manuscripts of Stephanus, ια and ιδ,”} 141, Seml. 366. With respect to Stephanus and the O mirificam, Mill gives no such intimation as that which we have had respecting Colinaeus; he never says, that as the man solemnly declared that he had not printed even a letter in it which is not confirmed by the greater and better part of the MSS. from the royal library, the passages where his text accorded with an Alcala, a Basil, a Parisian edition, might have been taken out of “exemplarium cum istis congruentium” {Latin: “copies agreeing with them”}; and where Stephanus has adopted a reading that might have seemed peculiar to some edition, it is not touched with the “timid suspicion” that admits “fieri potest, ut etiam in istis habuerit bibliopola iste exemplaria quae sequeretur;” {Latin: “it is possible that in these instances also this bibliophile had models which he followed;”} but because the O mirificam does not accord with a set of documents, one half of which consisted either of print or private MSS., Mill comes to the distinct positive accusation against it, of being copied from all the preceding editions, and this decision was never controverted till the year 1827. Bengel, Apparat. 3. xxxvi. p. 71, singles out the Complutensian; Wetsten takes Erasmus’s editions for Stephanus to have copied; the Right Rev. Lecturer, we see, takes both together :—“little more than a compilation from the Complutensian and the 5th of Erasmus.” Now what led to this extraordinary change in the Lecture, from the admission in the Letters (p. 171) of Stephanus’s boast, that he had given every letter in the O mirificam after the best of the “copia” {Latin: “abundance”} (15) which the royal library supplied? Had the learned writer, in the time that elapsed between the Letters and the Lecture, ascertained the whole copia {Latin: “abundance”} of royal MSS. that had been granted to Stephanus— “ea omnia, quae in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant” {Latin: “all those which are present in the Royal Library of France.”}? We have not been told of any examination having been made; and if any other valid reason can be assigned, it ought to be stated. If none be stated, “his utere mecum.” {Latin: “use these with me”; from Horace Epistles I. 6. 67: “Si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum”: “If you have come to know any precept more correct than these, share it with me, brilliant one; if not, use these with me.”} Take it that it was in deference to Griesbach, [Vindication IV. 414] who suffered the two first editions of Stephanus to escape unscathed in his first edition, but gave the criticism that we have already considered, in his second edition, (p. xviii. 7) Lond., p. xxx. And what induced Griesbach to change his tone in his second edition?—why, his bringing himself, as we saw, at last, to do, what he could not do in his first edition—repeat Wetsten’s “quindecim tantum.” {Latin: “fifteen only.”} Now if this be all that can be assigned for the Right Rev. Lecturer’s change, and for his joining in the cry of “vanissima atque falsissima,” {Latin: “utterly fatuous and false”} on the O mirificam; see how it is refuted by himself. Turn back to the note, Michaelis, 11. 856, n. 37, and you see the falsehood of this “quindecim tantum” {Latin: “fifteen only.”} demonstrated, upon Griesbach’s own hypothesis. Crito’s dupes, whose creed is, “that Robert Stephens had but one single set of MSS., consisting of sixteen copies, for his various readings as well as for the text of his three editions,” may learn from thence, that they “must except at least the codex β.” Let the instructors have all the advantage of sometimes saying, that the number of manuscripts quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen, and at other times saying that they amounted only to fifteen; and let the pupils be brought to talk of one single set of manuscripts, consisting of sixteen copies, printed and written; still, by their own shewing, the “editio … quae fuit excusa” {Latin: “an edition—which was printed”} and the fifteen manuscripts, which were selected to oppose the folio, were not the “vetustissima sedecim scripta exemplaria” {Latin: “sixteen very ancient hand-written copies”} out of which Stephanus formed the O mirificam.

And it is not merely in respect to the O mirificam that this compliment is paid to Griesbach. Mr. Porson, having spoken of the charge that Stephanus has given a text in his third edition which differs often from all his MSS., says, p. 58, “But because Mr. Griesbach took this point for granted; (i. e. in his first edition;) not foreseeing that a man would be found so hardy or ignorant as to deny it, you insult him.” The Archdeacon’s insults would, I presume, hardly have moved Mr. Griesbach; but when this observation came from his correspondent, it was impossible for Mr. Griesbach any longer to pursue the plan that he had so judiciously formed, of taking this point for granted. Wetsten had adopted Morin’s felicitous expedient, of inserting the possessive pronoun in Stephanus’s words, where he wanted to chastise the fellow’s immodesty; and had said, ii. p. 724, “Primo ipsa Stephani editio palam testatur, editorem a lectione omnium suorem codicum recessisse, non solum quoties ipse lectionem ab ea quam recessit diversam in ora notavit εν πασι {Greek: “in all”} in omnibus codicibus reperiri sed saepissime alias.” {Latin: “First, the very edition of Stephens openly testifies that the editor withdrew from the reading of all his codices, not only whenever he himself noted at the margin εν πασι {Greek: “in all”} that a different reading from that which he had withdrawn was found in all the codices, but very often in others.”} But Wetsten “in the eagerness of his zeal, partly against the verse, and partly against” [Stephanus], (Porson, p. 207,) had given, with this, the proof from the Responsio, that Stephanus had seven more royal MSS. than the whole of the eight that were taken first and last, whose readings “in ora notavit,” {Latin: “noted at the margin”} in any of the divisions of the sacred text. Griesbach, however, was now driven to offer some proof, and he came at last to this in his second edition, Prol. xviii. 7, Lond. xxx., where it is certainly brought forward with all that boldness that a man assumes at his last expedient, and with success proportioned to that boldness. And this is adopted by the Right Rev. Lecturer. Indeed, when the change was made [Vindication IV. 415] respecting the O mirificam, which we have noticed, the old ground that had been taken in the letters could not well be maintained. The letters, p. 171, note 25, as we saw, condemned the folio, on the sole plea, that it did not contain the same engagement for the genuineness of its text that we find in the other. But what became of this, when the O mirificam was to be made “vanissima atque falsissima”? {Latin: “utterly fatuous and false.”} And where was there any other reason to be found for condemning the folio? Nothing remained but this old popish trick of Morin, which bold Wetsten himself did not venture to produce after all, in his Prolegomena; and which Griesbach only ventured upon, at his utmost need, when bearded not merely by the poor archdeacon, but by the archdeacon’s mighty correspondent. What however was to be done? It was this or none—Stephanus’s guilt could no longer be taken for granted; and if his own confession of it cannot be extracted from εν πασι, {Greek; “in all”} the culprit must be dismissed. His Lordship seems now to think that the engagement in the O mirificam to form his text “entirely on the authority of Greek MSS.,” would bind the “printer and editor” in his future editions; and says, lect. vi. p. 107, “In fact, Stephens himself has openly contradicted his own declarations; for, in the margin of this edition, there are more than a hundred places in which he has quoted all his authorities for readings different from his own. With this glaring evidence, evidence which requires no collation of manuscripts, but only a superficial view of the edition itself, in order to be perceived, it is extraordinary that credit was ever attached to the pretensions of the editor on the formation of the text.” I agree with his lordship in calling this “glaring evidence,” yea, the most glaring I happen to have ever witnessed; and the reader has my reasons for this,—Brit. Mag. p. 548, &c., and Specimen 26, &c. I am willing to leave him, with that, to say whether this scheme of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} for extracting a confession of guilt from π. {Greek π. for pasi, “all [viz. the manuscripts]”} be a whit less flagrant than their calling the newly printed Complutensian a very old written copy. But no man can safely despise the “risus Doctorum et Prudentium,” {Latin: “mockery of the Learned and Wise”} especially when Griesbach leads the band; and when the evidence is produced as the palmarian argument, in such glowing terms, ex cathedra, by that divine who holds the first rank among our English critics, as Dr. Carpenter so justly admits, one word more must be addressed to such honoured names. Morin, let it be remembered, actually and honestly thought that all Stephanus’s MSS. contained the whole of the sacred text; therefore he firmly believed what the critics so firmly assert—that Stephanus “quoted all his authorities for readings different from his own,” when he applied his little possessive pronoun in the service of holy mother, catholic and apostolic, to get rid of heretic Greek, and (let it be well noted) with it, of all the heretic versions: “quae cum exemplarium suorum nullo conveniebant, in textu tamen ab eodem relicta sunt, et in haereticorum versionibus expressa;” {Latin: “which did not agree with any of his copies, yet were left in the text by the same, and expressed in the versions of the heretics”} these are the words of Morin, p. 119, ed. Paris, 1633, (25 years before Curcellaeus’s N. T.) where you have “Haereticorum” {Latin: “Heretic”} with “versionibus,” {Latin: “versions”} though it does not find a place in Wetsten’s quotation, either Prol. Ist ed. p. 168, or at ii. p. 853. But suppose that I, or any other indoctus {Latin: “unlearned”} who should presume to suspect [Vindication IV. 416] that Stephanus might have been an honest man, could, with respect to any one place whatsoever out of the “plus centies” {Latin: “more than an hundred places”} where he has affixed εν πασι to a reading, have asserted that “he has quoted all his sixteen marked authorities for” that reading, would not these learned men have exclaimed at the consummate ignorance of such a notion? Would they not have found out that Stephanus’s notation could never mean more than all those authorities which he has quoted in that division of the sacred text where the reading occurs —“Lecons qui ne s’accordoient avec aucun des MSS. qu’il produit,” {French: “Readings which do not accord with any of the MSS. which he supplied,”} says Simon, N. T. ch. xxix. p. 346, even where he is stating Morin’s argument. Would they not have instantly discovered that it was worse than Travisian stupidity to say in these days that the reading was in those qu’il ne produit pas {French: “which he did not supply”}. Again, suppose that when Stephanus’s accusers say that there are more than one hundred places in which he has quoted all his manuscript authorities for readings different from his own, and conclude that he must have taken his text there from print, I was to turn upon them, and say, in a tone of equal triumph, that in those identical “plus centies” {Latin: “more than an hundred places”} he has quoted all his printed authority for readings different from his own, and therefore must have had his text from manuscript: would either Griesbach or his lordship have been so dazzled with my “glaring evidence,” as to have been unable to see a way to answer me? Should I not instantly have been told that the print which Stephanus quoted in the margin, was selected out of “omnibus paene impressis” {Latin: “almost all the printed copies”}? Should I not have been told that the man who could argue that this was all his printed authority, “nihil aliud ageret, nisi ut risum commoveret doctorum et prudentium ” {Latin: “achieves nothing more than to occasion the mockery of the learned and wise?”} There are those, I doubt not, who have been fully convinced by the “glaring evidence,” having been drilled into calling the newly printed Complutensian a very old manuscript; and having been assured with respect to the written manuscripts of Stephanus’s margin, that “if he had collated more, he of course would have quoted more.” But if I am right in my opinion, that εν πασι hardly affords a strict demonstration that Stephanus had no printed edition but the Complutensian, and it should still be admitted to have been possible for him to have been assisted in deciding between the conflicting testimony of his MSS., “cum aliis tum vero Complutensi editione,” {Latin: “with others, and indeed with the Complutensian [printed} edition”} I would ask these gentlemen whether they think that their laughing instructor can forbear an occasional smile on their docility? After all, I refer back for the folio, as I did for the O mirificam, to the decision of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} themselves, as it stands in the note, Michaelis, ii, 856, note 37. Suppose me to be wrong on the point that I have held with so much pertinacity, viz., that the Complutensian was not a very old manuscript, but new print,—suppose me to be unjust in my protestations against the popish insertion of “suis” {Latin: “his”} with “omnibus,” {Latin: “all”}—still I am not wrong in the inference itself that I have drawn, namely, that when Stephanus gives εν πασι in the margin, he does not say that all his written authorities have there a reading different from his own, whatever may be the case with respect to printed documents. By the authority of the conspiring critics themselves, in identifying the “set of MSS., consisting of sixteen copies,” (as, according to Crito, we are to call the Complu- [Vindication IV. 417] tensian and the other fifteen documents of the margin,) with the set of sixteen manuscripts, used “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} “we must except at least the codex β.” There was then at least one of the set of sixteen manuscripts, qu’il ne produit pas, {French: “which he did not supply”}—one at least,—which was never cited in the margin. If the laughing critics then could make good these words, and shew that every one of the sixteen documents of Stephanus’s margin gave readings different from his own, there was still this one at least which, by their own theory, might have given the readings in accordance with the text. Here then was fresh cause for Crito’s declining to say a word upon β, and the reader will not wonder that the “glaring evidence” passes equally without notice, though it occupies so much space in the Specimen. A vindicator, who intimated that Mr. Porson’s letters shew “the most pure and inflexible love of truth,” could not have been very well pleased with the observations (Spec. p. 21—26, and 39) on his usual consummate skill in coming to “all the MSS.,” (i. e. “all the MSS.” that the Professor had himself ascertained,) in the instance which he produces to prove what he had asserted after Morin, and what he himself had observed “Mr. Griesbach took for granted,—namely, that Stephanus, in his third edition, often varies from all his MSS., even by his own confession.” But the man who makes the observations escapes with the simple notice from Crito, that his decisions are “accompanied with the most unwarrantable reflections upon the living and the dead.”

FRANCIS HUYSHE.

[Vol. IV. 1833: p. 530]

But there is a marked MS. of much more importance to us than β,—I mean α, because it testifies on that division of scripture, where [Vindication IV. 531] the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} make their grand attack, viz. the Acts and the catholic epistles.*

Note * See particularly Michaelis, on the Acts, at ii. 496-498; see also 271, 444, 509. See him also passim on the major part of two verses in the Cath. Ep.; wherein he is joined by his learned translator, though so justly corrected by him, ii. p. 888, n. 14: “By our author’s assertion that Acts, x. 6, is contained in no manuscript whatsoever, must be understood, that it has hitherto been quoted from no manuscript.”

It proves what I have asserted, that so far from Stephanus having taken all his MSS. to furnish opposing readings in his first volume, where 96 out of the “plus centies” {Latin: “more than an hundred places”} occur, he did not take the whole even of the marked MSS.; that he took only the first thirteen of them, β—ιδ, which he continued in the second volume, as far as they lasted, i. e. in the remaining part of the third division, and in the second; so that if either the fourth part (the Revelation) had been printed, as in previous editions, without opposing readings in the margin, or any two of the first selected thirteen MSS. had happened to have contained that part, the margin would have given no more of ιε and ις (the 15th and the 16th document) than it does of the other MSS. that did not come into the first selection. The avowal that we have already had from Griesbach, xxiii., Lond, xxxiii., might be sufficient for this. “Ex Actis, epistolis catholicis, et epistolis ad Romanos, Ephesios, Thessalonicenses, Timotheum, Titum et Philemonem [add to these, ad Hebraeos] plane nullas, e reliquis Paulinis perpaucas lectiones decerpsit;” {Latin: “and he selected almost no readings from the Acts, catholic epistles, and the epistles to the Romans, Ephesians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, [add to these to the Hebrews], and a very few from the rest of the Pauline texts.”} the same may be said of ις, with the exception of the 1st ep. to Timotheus. It is true that the critics, making, as we have observed, the third part the object of their grand attack, have pretty sturdy declarations that Stephanus had no more MSS. of it than those seven which furnished the opposing readings to the folio in that division. Thus Wetsten, ii, p. 724, “Observandum, secundo, non xvi. MSS. codicibus epistolae Johannis Stephanum fuisse usum sed non nisi septem,” as it is rendered by Mr. Lindsey. “I would observe, that Stephens had the use, not of sixteen MSS. of the first epistle of St. John, but only of seven.” Bengel on the same passage (1 John v. 7) §. v. “Stephanus ad epp. Paulinas et Canonicas non alios cod MS. habet, atque δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, nam Steph. α est ed. Comp.; in reliquis codd. Steph. non erant epistolae.” {Latin: “Stephanus had no other book-form manuscripts for the epistles of Paul and the Canonical epistles than δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, for the Stephanic α is the Complutensian [printed] edition; in the other book-form manuscripts of Steph. the epistles are absent.”} Dr. Benson, in his Corrections on vol. ii. p. 149, “But upon examining the matter more narrowly, it has been found that none of those eight MSS. [the other marked MSS. not cited in Acts and Cath, Ep.] had any part of the epistle of St. John.” Michaelis ii. 316 bott. “—the seven MSS. quoted by Stephens, δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, which were all the MSS. he had of the first epistle of St. John —.” And Griesbach, 1st ed. p. 226, continued in his Diatribe, p. [6] Lond. 690, “——extra omnem dubitationem positum jam est Stephanum non habuisse codices epistolarum catholicarum manuscriptos plures quam septem illos, δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ——.” {Latin: “——Beyond all doubt it is now established that Stephanus had no more book-form manuscripts of the catholic epistles than those seven δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ——”} And who can wonder at this hardihood of assertion, which pervades the writings of all the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”}? It was a case of no trifling urgency; for if you admit that Stephanus [Vindication IV. 532] had one marked MS. which contained this division of the sacred text, but did not come into the original selection to furnish opposing readings, it is evident that the other, which stood in the same circumstances, might contain it also; and what was still worse, why might not five unmarked MSS. that came into neither of the selections for the margin, have contained this division, so as to double “septem illos”? {Latin: “those seven”} The declarations, then, of these learned men are as decisive as possible against us; and I am undertaking to bring them forward as supporting us. Turn then to Griesbach, Proleg. xxii., Lond. xxxiii., and I think you will find that Stephanus had even a marked MS., containing this division, which was not taken to oppose the text of the folio. “Steph. ιε, auctoribus Le Longio et Wetstenio, regius quondam 3869, nunc 237; nobis in Actis et catholicis epistolis 10.” {Latin: “Stephanus’ manuscript ιε, for the authors Le Long and Wetsten, once regius 3869, now 237, for us in Acts and Epistles number 10.”} Turn to Wetsten, “De codicibus junioribus Actorum Apostolicorum et epistolarum catholicarum;” {Latin: “On the younger book-form manuscripts of the Acts of the Apostles and catholic epistles;”} and to Griesbach’s catalogue on this division, “codices minusculis literis scripti;” {Latin: “book-form manuscripts written in miniscule letters”} and look at this same No. 10, and what do you see there? If I have not erred—“Steph. ιε,” {Latin: “Stephanus’ manuscript ιε”} to which Griesbach adds, “Ex Actis et Epist. Cathol. nullas lectiones decerpserat Stephanus; denuo contulit Wetstenius;” {Latin: “Stephanus took no readings from the Acts and Catholic Epistle; in recent times Wetsten went along with that.”} no possibility therefore of mistake. Are you satisfied? are you convinced that Stephanus had, in no division of the sacred text, more MSS. than those which he cited in the margin? If it be not yet placed “extra omnem dubitationem, Stephanum non habuisse codd. epistolam catholicarum manuscriptos plures quam septem illos, δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ” {Latin: “beyond all doubt Stephanus had no more book-form manuscripts of the catholic epistles than those seven δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ”} turn to the disputed part of the two verses, 1 John v. 7, 8, both in Wetsten and Griesbach
and think how the “risus Doctorum et Prudentium” {Latin: “mockery of the Learned and Wise”} will be moved at you, when you see this same ιε, No. 10, quoted as having the epistle, but without the passage. Seriously I would ask the true disciples of the Docti et Prudentes on this their favourite division of scripture, whether their laughing masters must not have smiled at their implicit belief that Stephanus must of necessity have given his text contrary to all his MSS. wherever it does not coincide with any of these seven cited MSS.

Now if you have a particle of my almost-idolatry for Mr. Porson, you will be anxious to know how he steers amidst these terrific rocks. He must go on the position of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”}, “Stephanum non habuisse codd MSS. plures quam septem illos:” {Latin: “Stephanus had no more book-form manuscripts than those seven”} his whole argument indeed rests upon it; see, for example, p. 82, and with his usual unrivalled skill he did, what Mr. Griesbach had done at first, on the glaring evidence, but was not equal to here,—“he took this point for granted, not foreseeing that a man would be found so hardy or ignorant as to deny it,” p. 58. Observe with what a delicate touch he just glances at what Mr. Griesbach here gives so broadly and coarsely, and how he escapes any collision, by interposing the words of his correspondent. P. 68 the Professor says, “I shall therefore, sir, request your permission (p. 16) to believe that Stephens had only seven MSS. of the Catholic Epistles, and that if any of them omitted 1 John v. 7, they all omitted it;” and then he rides off triumphant on the back of his Cloten, who dreamt of nothing but cited MSS., and whom nothing [Vindication IV. 533] could satisfy but the testimony of every one, of those that were marked. But did Mr. Porson make use of the solicited permission, and actually in earnest believe that Stephanus had only seven MSS. of the Catholic Epistles? You may, as far as I know, try every page of his book without producing any thing like proof of such faith, and Mr. Porson, you may be sure, would not shew himself upon the spot to be an infidel, as Wetsten and Griesbach do: but turn to Mr. Porson’s “Reproof Valiant,” Gentleman’s Magazine, Feb. 1790, p. 131, 10 (in Kidd, p. 362), and you will find Saul also among the prophets. “With respect to Stephens’s, No. 15, if Le Long had added that it contained the Apocalypse, there would have been no real difference between him and Wetsten. Le Long, presuming that Stephens collated the MSS. throughout, says, from the evidence of the margin, that it only contained such and such epistles. Wetsten, finding the MS. itself, says that it contained more, but was not collated to the other parts of the New Testament. And then poor Le Long, forsooth, must suffer for having a better opinion of Stephens’s accuracy than fact and experience will justify.” We see that as Mr. Porson and Michaelis corrected “small inaccuracies” in Stephanus’s words, Le Long corrects one in his plan. I, however, am no more able to discern inaccuracy in his conduct, in making a selection of documents to oppose the text of his folio, than I was to find any in his language where he calls the fifteen royal MSS., and the sixteenth private one, that were used “superioribus diebus,” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} vetustissima {Latin: “very ancient”} and scripta {Latin: “written texts”}, or, when in his second boast of those royal MSS. he vaunted before the Sorbonne of their number, and asserted that he had fifteen of them. I think that he had a right to take what authorities he liked to oppose his text; and that if, instead of the thirteen, β—ιδ, that he did select to oppose his first volume, he had taken either the seven royal MSS. alone, leaving out the six private, or the six private, leaving out the seven royal, no man had a right to complain; and I hold that Le Long and his defender might as well have censured him for not forestalling the Marquess Veley, and giving the opposing readings of the Vulgate. And I am the more pertinacious in this opinion, because, as I have observed, I have never heard it argued that the Complutensian must have been the whole of his print; nor yet have I ever heard any complaint against him for his selecting only the Complutensian, except from Mr. Porson; and let it be well noted, that his censurer himself is so far from complaining of his inaccuracy in making a selection, that he himself selects, and would have had Stephanus take the fifth edition of Erasmus to give opposing readings in the margin, p. 89. After all, be it accurate or inaccurate, such was Stephanus’s plan, and according to that plan he has a right to be judged according to what “fact and experience will justify;” and poor Le Long suffers justly, when he condemns the man on his own notions of accuracy, which Mr. Porson here admits are not justified by the one or the other. “It contained more, but was not collated to the other parts of the New Testament.” If these words want a comment, Wetsten and Griesbach, as we have seen, each of them furnish [Vindication IV. 534] it. It will, however, be best explained by a note of Mr. Porson himself, which does not appear Gent. Mag. 1789, vol. i. p. 514, but is added in the reprint, p. 78, when the Professor, with all his caution (for who is sufficient be these things at all moments?) thought not of the request that he made to Mr. Travis for permission to believe that Stephens had only seven MSS. of the catholic epistles. The note, in which you will perceive that Mr. Porson could still “make bold to believe” that Stephanus had an eighth even of his marked MSS., containing the Acts and Cath. Ep., is as follows:—“Le Long is mistaken in making Stephens’s No. 15 contain only seven epistles of Paul, which contain also the Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse.” Le Long was forced to make the mistake; he could no more “abide by the fact than Michaelis could by the expressions vetustissima {Latin: “very ancient”} and scripta {Latin: “written texts”},

As to Mr. Porson himself, when I consider these open accuracies of Le Long, Wetsten, Griesbach, &c. &., I can only express my adoration of his skill in what he says, and of his judgment in what he does not say, in his argument upon the most arduous case, as I esteem it, that advocate ever had. But, to use the beautiful language of scripture, Mr. Porson has fallen asleep; and admirers live, who will intimate that his Letters display “an invincible love of truth, an inflexible probity;” notwithstanding what is surely no inexplicable hint, which the Professor thought it right to give, p. xxii, of his making no pretensions that “Truth was the sole aim, object, and end” of his inimitable Letters. A most powerful writer, who calls himself the vindicator of Mr. P.’s character, is speaking of two verses that stand in the Acts and Cath. Ep. of the O mirificam, and he says, “Mr. Porson infers that, as the MSS. cited by Robert Stephens did not contain the verse, he must have inserted it without MS. authority.” (Crito Cantabrigiensis, p. 381.) Yes, this is really Mr. Porson’s argument; it is, at length, set naked before you; the Professor infers that, as the cited MSS. did not contain a certain passage, the uncited could not. If Mr. P. could have foreseen that he should have a vindicator who would thus openly state his inference, he would have foreseen also, “that a man would be found so hardy as to deny it;” and he would scarcely have thanked the friendly hand that tore off the veil which he had flung with such exquisite art over the paralogism. “The MSS. cited by Robert Stephens,” in opposition to the text of his folio—“septem illi, δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ” {Latin: “those seven δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ”} did not contain a certain passage of the Acts and Cath, Ep.; and Mr. Porson, as we are here fairly told, was driven to the abject necessity of contending, that this was proof of Stephanus having been guilty of inserting it without MS. authority, in the O mirificam, for which he had eight manuscripts from the royal library, that were none of them cited in this division of scripture; the Professor actually knowing and having avowed, that the only one of these eight that has been ascertained, actually did contain that division. Now, then, I ask, whose boast is it that is proved “utterly false”? Is it that of the man who boasted that he had not given a letter in his O mirificam [Vindication IV. 535] that was not warranted by the copia, {Latin: “abundance”} which the “bibliotheca regia suppeditavit,” {Latin: “the royal library provided”} and boasted, in the second place, that this copia “ea omnia quae in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant” {Latin: “abundance ‘all the manuscripts to be found in the library of the king of France’”} amounted to fifteen; or is it that of the great man who undertook to prove the printer and editor to be guilty? Mr. Porson proscribes the word cheat in this case, (Letters 232, Reproof Valiant, 128,)—craft or management, (to use his own ever well-chosen words,) “better suits the purpose,” (48.) Who is it, then, that shews the management? Is it he who, “in Italicis describenda curaverat,” {Latin: “he had taken care to copy in Italy”} or he, whose unrivalled powers I idolize, in establishing acquiescence in his inference, that where “the MSS. cited by Robert Stephens did not contain” a passage in his O mirificam, “ he must have inserted it without MS. authority,” when there are not merely more of Stephanus’s MSS. that are never cited at all, than those that are, but when there are two MSS. perpetually cited in a subsequent division, both which probably contained the division* where the O mirificam gives the passage (Acta and Cath. Ep.), and “fact and experience” (as the great man himself states) shew that one of them actually did contain it; but neither of them are once cited in it.

*Note p. 535: I fancy that I have better reason for believing that ις had the Acts and Cath. Ep., than the learned critics have for asserting that it had not. I have never heard of any great number of MSS. containing the gospels, Paul’s epistles, and the Apocalypse, which had not the whole New Testament: And I think I have Mr. Porson with me. The latter part of the note, p. 73, quoted above, says that Le Long errs 2, “In making No. 16 contain two of the gospels, which contains only the Apocalypse.” When the best evidence of its contents, indeed the only evidence (Stephanus’s margin), gives readings from it in the gospels and Paul’s epistles, the Professor would never have committed himself in saying that it “contains only the Apocalypse,” unless he had felt that the admission of its containing the three divisions from which Stephanus has quoted, would lead to the conclusion that he had an unknown MS. containing the Acts and Cath. Ep.; and, to use Mr. Porson’s own quotation, “that way madness lies.”

One word more on Le Long, whom I esteem, after all that has been said by him, and all that has been said for him, as one of our strong authorities. Prior to his undertaking to get rid of Stephanus, [“J’assure seulment icy qu’il n’est dans aucun des MSS. dont Ro. Estienne s’est servi pour l’edition Greque du N. Test. de 1550,” {French: “I state here for a certainty only that it appears in none of the MSS. which Ro. Stephens made use of for his Greek edition of the New Testament 1550”} Letter to Martin, Apl. 1720, in Emlyn ii. 273,] and prior to his various feats in the royal library for that purpose, he shewed his knowledge that Stephanus might have uncited MSS. for his text—“des MSS. dont s’est servi” {French: “none of the MSS. which he made use of”}—which he did not cite. When it is asserted, that “extra omnem dubitationem jam positum est Stephanum non habuisze codices epistolarum catholicarum manuscriptos plures quam illos δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ” {Latin: “beyond all doubt it is established Stephanus had no more book-form manuscripts of the catholic epistles than those seven δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ”}(Emlyn ii. 284,) let it be observed, that Le Long was as perfectly convinced as Wetsten, or Porson, or Griesbach himself was, that “this boast is utterly false.” Yes; in his Discours Historique sur les Bibles Polyglottes, Paris, 8vo, 1713, Article Walton, p. 221, speaking of marked documents of Stephanus, (the print and manuscript that he took in both selections to oppose the folio,) he says, “Le 10 et le 15 contiennent les Actes et les Epitres des Apôtres, mais le 15 a encore l’Apocalypse.” {French: “Manuscripts 10 and 15 contain the Acts and the Epistles of the Apostles, but 15 has also the Apocalypse.”} And again—neuf, ou [Vindication IV. 536] Robert Estienne a trouvé les epitres canonique [namely, the Compluterisian, the seven MSS. mentioned above and ιε] quoi qu’il ne se soit pas servi du 15, qu’il ne cite jamais sur les Epitres, et qu’il cite tres souvent dans l’Apoc.: et trois qui comprenoient ce derniere Livre.” {French: “nine where Robert Stephens found the canonical epistles [namely, the Complutensian, the seven MSS. mentioned above and ιε], though he made no use of 15, which he never cites for the Epistles, and which he cites very frequently in the Apoc.: and three which contained this last Book.”}

My last, but, after all, my highest authority on this MS. is the second mighty correspondent of Mr. Travis. Michaelis, who, as we saw, declares so firmly, ii. 316, that the seven cited MSS. “were all that Stephanus had of the first epistle of St. John,” says at ii. 310, No. 214, Regius 2869, at present 237, Stephani codex ιε … contains the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation. This account is given by Wetsten, on whom we may depend, as he has used the MS. itself, and collated it more accurately than Stephens. Fleischer also says, expressly, “it contains all the catholic and all the epistles of St. Paul in the usual order; last of all, the Revelation of St. John.” This statement from the two separate collations of Wetsten and Fleischer might seem a sufficient confirmation of Le Long’s previous confutation of his own “proinde” {Latin: “it follows”} that he gives in his bibliotheca sacra, to get rid of Stephanus,—“Cum non nisi septem codices, praeter Complutensem editionem, iidemque qui complecterentur epistolas canonicas ad oram hujus editionis [and he shews that none of these seven had that passage of the Acts and Cath. Ep. before-mentioned] proinde totum illud comma in nullo codice quo usus est Stephanus extitisse.” {Latin: “Since there are only seven codices, besides the Complutensian edition, and those which included the canonical epistles in the margin of this edition, [and he shews that none of these seven had that passage of the Acts and Cath. Ep. before-mentioned] it follows that this whole paragraph did not exist in any codices which Stephens used.”} With such evidence laid before the world, in such a book as that of Michaelis, it requires some acquaintance with the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} to believe it possible for them to venture to assert, what we see asserted, Eclectic Rev., Jan. 1810, p. 68, “In the catholic epistles Stephens has quoted only seven MSS.; consequently, in these epistles he collated only seven.”

What, then, does Michaelis’s most learned translator say to this fact? Does he admit that all the heavy charges against Stephanus are confuted,—that the “fact” of ιε containing the Acts and Cath. Ep. shews that there never could have been any reason for asserting that Stephanus had only seven MSS, which had that division?—that there must be some cheat in the intrepid conclusion, that as the “cited” MSS, (those qu’il produit {French: “which he provided”}) did not contain a certain passage—“proinde totum illud comma in nullo codice quo usus est Stephanus, extitisse?” {Latin: “it follows that this whole paragraph did not exist in any codices which Stephens used.”} that the number of MSS. which Stephanus has “quoted” could not possibly form any criterion of what he had “collated” for the text of the O mirificam, much less of those which he had “collated” for the text of the folio? Does he say that, by “fact and experience,” “extra omnem dubitationem positum jam est,” {Latin: “beyond all doubt it is now established”} that there were “des MSS. dont Ro. Estienne s’est servi,” {French: “some MSS. which Ro. Stephens made use of”} “qu’il ne cite jamais sur les Epitres?” {French: “which he never cites for the Epistles”} “No. But with the Acts and Cath. Ep. in ιε open before you, the assertion is continued with unabated boldness, that it is “with reason supposed that “Stephens had seven MSS. only of the catholic epistles.” And rather than admit that the man’s accusers have failed in establishing their atrocious charges, you are to call in question the decisions of the first critics, who have identified the MS. by actual collation; and you are even to doubt their own admissions against themselves. [Vindication IV. 537] Wetsten’s self-confutation, from his own actual collation, is to be thus disposed of.

Michaelis ii. p. 782, note 275—“If Wetstein’s Codex 12 in the second part, 10 and 2 in the the third and fourth, be the same as that which at present is noted 237 in the royal library, it is a manuscript containing Scholia on the Acts, Epistles, and Revelation, accompanied with the text; but Wetstein is silent in respect to the Scholia.” If Wetsten had been “silent in respect to the Scholia,” which happens not to be the case, in his fourth part; still I should say, that the MS. which he collated might be that “which at present is noted 237 in the royal library;” for I think that Wetsten would esteem it a MS. containing the text of the three parts, St. Paul, Acts and Cath. Ep., Revelations, accompanied with Scholia, and not “Scholia, accompanied with the text.” And, in confirmation of my opinion, that the MS. which he collated might have Scholia on Acts and Cath. Ep., though he is “silent in respect to the Scholia” in his description in that part, I would observe, that Wetsten is not silent in his commentary; at Acts xix. 12, he quotes Ammonius in Cod. 10, 11, 16, 36. Let it be observed, also, that Wetsten, Prol. 144, Seml. 372, gives a quotation from Henrici Stephani Thesaurus, of nearly the same marginal note, of which he says, “ex iis autem exemplaribus antiquis, quae ad N. T. editionem undique conquisiverat pater meus, unum haec margini adscripta de vocabulis illis habebat [Acts xix. 12].” {Latin: “of those ancient copies which my father sought out from all parts for his edition of the New Testament, one had marginal notes about those words [Acts xix. 12]”} Now, if this was not ιε, what was it? Let Wetsten, however, be wrong, if you please, in ascertaining ιε; still, it is fact, that he held No. 15 of Stephanus to be a MS. which had the Acts and Cath. Ep. So far, then, from his actually believing that Stephanus could have only the MSS. cited in the margin of that division, (—non nisi septem {Latin: “—only seven”) he gave it as his deliberate judgment, after collating the supposed ιε, that one of those taken to furnish opposing readings in the Revelations, though never once cited in the Acts and Cath. Ep., might still have that division. What says the learned translator to this?

The note proceeds (p. 782, n. 275)—“There is a circumstance relative to this manuscript which is worthy of notice. Wetsten, Griesbach, Michaelis, with other eminent critics, are of opinion, that it is the very manuscript which Stephens quoted by the title Codex ιε. Now, if this be true, it necessarily follows, that Stephens had not seven only, as is generally, and with reason, supposed, but eight manuscripts of the catholic epistles.” The conspiring critics fixing, as we have said, on the division of the Acts and Cath. Ep. for their grand assault, have not only generally, but uniformly supposed, that Stephanus had in no place more than the MSS, cited in the division where it occurs; and, of course, they have laid it down, as we have seen, that he had seven only of the catholic epistles. And reason good for such an assumption: upon that, and that only, could they overturn the “credit” that was “ever attached to the pretensions of the editor on the formation of the text.” (Lect. vi. p. 108.) But can they assign any other reason for their disciples believing such an assumption but the ipse dixit {Latin: “own assertion”} of their masters? I have looked with some anxiety, and the only one that I have seen offered, is in the translator’s Letters, Pref. p. xx. “In [Vindication IV. 538] the catholic epistles, Stephens has quoted only seven manuscripts; consequently, in these epistles he collated only seven; for, if he had collated more, he, of course, would have quoted more.” The proof rests, then, on the axiom, that if he had collated more documents, he would have quoted more. Well, then, suppose I were to face round here on Stephanus’s accusers, upon their favourite object of attack, as I did upon the “glaring evidence,” and were again to say, Stephanus has quoted but one printed document, consequently he had but one, for if he had collated more, he, of course, would have quoted more; therefore, in all those places where you tell me he followed “printed guides,” if he did not copy from the Complutensian, (a charge that is now out of fashion, except for the Revelation,) he must have had his text from manuscript. Would this most acute writer have hesitated one moment in exposing the cheat? Would he not have told me, that citing for opposing readings to the folio was not collating for the text of the O mirificam, and that the Complutensian was selected out of “omnibus paene impressis”? {Latin: “almost all the printed copies.”} But the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} tell us, that they sometimes say the number of MSS. quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen, and at other times that they amounted only to fifteen, according as they include the Complutensian edition or not, (p. 861, note 43.) Would they, then, be pleased to include the Complutensian on this occasion, and say that Stephanus had only eight manuscripts of the catholic epistles of both sorts, both of those that were written and those “vetustissima scripta” {Latin: “very ancient hand-written texts”} which the bookseller himself denominated editio {Latin: “[printed] edition”}, and described as “quae fuit excusa,” {Latin: “which were printed”} and which the vulgar, at this day, call print? I suspect not. I suspect that they would admit that he might have “collated” some MSS. of the same sort as the Complutensian, and yet not have quoted them. I think also that they might be induced to allow that some of these might possibly contain the Acts and Cath. Ep.; why, then, might not this be the case with the other sort of MSS. which the bookseller and the vulgar call written copies? Why might not ιε and ις both of them have the Acts and Cath. Ep., though they did not come into the selection of opposing MSS. to the first volume? By the learned translator’s own acknowledgment, Wetsten, Griesbach, Michaelis, with other eminent critics, are of opinion, that ιε had the Acts and Cath. Ep., though they themselves condemn Stephanus for frequently giving his text in this division “without MS. authority,” upon the sole ground of his having only the cited MSS.—“non nisi septem {Latin: “only seven”}.” Let me, however, have been totally wrong in go pertinaciously controverting the axiom, that an editor who gives various readings could not make a selection out of his documents for that purpose; still, by some means or other, the learned translator has been, like Le Long, ascribing to Stephanus an accuracy which, as Mr. Travis’s other great correspondent shews, is what fact and experience will not justify; and it is upon this that he has been pronouncing the “bookseller” to be guilty. And for this fact and this experience we stand on pretty high ground, when we heap Ossa upon Pelion,—when we base the testimony in Le Long, and pile up Wetsten and Griesbach, and Fleischer and Michaelis, and surmount the whole with Porson himself; all declaring, that when [Vindication IV. 539] Stephanus has been found guilty on the ground that “non habuisse codices epistolarum catholicarum manuscriptos plures quam septem illos δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ,” {Latin: “Stephanus had no more book-form manuscripts of the catholic epistles than those seven δ, ε, ζ, θ, ι, ια, ιγ, ”} one of the fifteen cited MSS., one of those that was selected to furnish opposing readings to the next division (Revelations) actually had the Acts and Cath. Ep., though never cited in it. Still we have that which overtops this Himmaleh {Himalaya} of criticism. The learned writer himself has carried the identity of ιε to such a degree of certainty as never was attained in any other case, and never can be again, except ις whenever it may be brought to light out of the “obscurity in which it is at present buried.” See Appendix to Letters, p. 220—232. The poor Archdeacon had exulted in finding that a reading, for which Stephanus quoted ιε at. 1 Cor. i. 6, did not appear in the royal MS. now numbered 237, formerly 2869; whereas the reading of one of the unmarked MSS. might so easily be ascribed to ιε, where the MS. was not taken to be regularly collated with the text of the folio, but only a few chance readings set down. But, as Griesbach justly says, “Cum vero ex Apocalyps, ingentem lectionum copiam attulerit Wetstenius, qui huncce libellum totum perlegerat, facile dijudicare potuit, utrum Regius iste 2869 idem codex sit, quem Stephanus ιε appellaverat. Nulli igitur dubitamus assensum praebere Wetstenio Le Longii testimonium confirmanti.” {Latin: “But since Wetsten, who had read the whole of this book, had brought a great quantity of readings from the Apocalypse, he could easily judge whether this Regius 2869 is the same codex that Stephens had called ιε. We have no doubt, therefore, that Le Long’s testimony provides confirmatory assent to that of Wetsten.”} Prol. xxiii, Lond. xxxiv. And the learned translator of Michaelis himself, having shewn how slight Le Long’s proof was respecting the eight royal MSS. that Stephanus selected to oppose his folio, observes upon what different grounds Wetsten’s labours place us with respect to that and one other; ii. p. 791, note 289, “Two of them, namely, the Codices Regii 2861 and 2869, which Le Long supposes to be the same as the Codices Stephani η, and ιε, have been completely collated by Wetsten, whose collation strengthens the opinion of Le Long. As far as concerns, therefore, the Codex η and the Codex ιε, we have additional evidence in favour of the opinion that they are the same us the Codices Regii 2861 and 2869, because Wetsten has found that, not four only, but the readings quoted in general in Stephens’s margin from the Codices η and ιε are found in the Cod. Regii 2861 and 2869.” And above all, with respect to ιε, Mr. Travis stands thus rebuked by his correspondent, p. 220, note 119—“This is an admirable specimen of critical judgment. A single contradiction is to prove non-identity in the case of a MS. which Stephens has quoted in the Apocalypse alone two-hundred-and-forty times.” Still, we are told, “it is with reason supposed” that Stephanus had those seven MSS only of the catholic epistles, and on that reason the man’s guilt is maintained as stiffly as ever. Yes, with all the Addenda et Corrigenda that are prefixed to these notes of the second volume, in the first edition, Cambridge, 1793, and with all the other corrections made in the second edition, 1802, this note 275, p. 776, first edition, is continued without the change of a letter, second edition, p. 782, and in the subsequent editions. And “in the case of a MS, which Stephens has quoted 240 times in the Apocalypse,” doubts are inculcated, which I think the Cloten himself would hardly have dared to insinuate in a subsequent edition. FRANCIS HUYSHE.

[Vol. IV. 1833: p. 632]

Read and admire p. 782, bottom: “ But there is a circumstance which weakens the opinion of these eminent critics—namely, that Stephens has not quoted his Codex ιε in one single instance in the catholic epistles, which he would hardly have neglected to do (especially at the celebrated passage, I John, v. 7) had the Codex ιε contained them.” No; “Stephens has not quoted his Codex ιε,” nor ις, the other MS. that he was obliged to take for the Revelations, “in one single instance,” in the Acts and Cath. Ep. And the learned writer himself gave us the reason, Letters, p. 137—“Now, Stephens has not stated that the whole verse [the whole of the two verses] existed in any one of his MSS.; his whole statement is confined to seven MSS.” Stephanus’s margin could not possibly state that the whole of the two verses “existed in any one of his MSS.;” for the business of the margin was to give opposing authorities; and he “has not quoted” a document “in one single instance” throughout the New Testament for the text that he gives. It must be from some other source that you must seek for information respecting the MSS. that furnished the reading of his text. And with respect to the readings that were against it, he took, as we have observed, the first thirteen marked MSS., β—ιδ, to furnish them; and seven only of these thirteen contained Acts and Cath. Ep. Accordingly, as the learned writer so justly observed, his whole statement is confined to those seven; and what business had his margin with the readings of ιε or ις, or either of the five unmarked MSS, that contained that division? In fact, the wonder is, that Stephanus should have given so many readings of ιε in St. Paul, as six in 1 Cor., and one a-piece in 2 Cor., Gal., Phil., and Colos. It would have been enough to have done as he has with ις, from which he took a couple of readings in the gospels, and a couple in his second volume from St. Paul’s epistles.

“(Especially at the celebrated passage, 1 John, v. 7.)” I would observe, that it is modern criticism alone that has a different rule for celebrated passages. Stephanus’s “whole statement is confined to seven MSS.” As we have already observed, he never, from first to last, tells you any thing of what MSS. Agreed with his text; and as for readings that disagree with it, he confines himself, with only three exceptions that I know, to the first thirteen marked MSS., of which seven, and seven only, had the Acts and Cath. Ep.; and he does not take more or less for celebrated passages. If you wish to know how he acted on celebrated passages, none in that day was more so than 1 Cor. xv. 51; and what do you find there in the folio? Exactly what you ought, where none of the first thirteen selected MSS. Gave [Vindication IV. 633] any thing different from his text—a vacant margin. And it is only from his having been tried to the utmost upon this really “celebrated passage” to make him give a reading conformable to the Western Recensions, (European and African,) that you learn the fact of not one of the plusquam triginta {Latin: “more than thirty”} having given that reading, and that no motive was strong enough to induce him to print Greek contrary to their united testimony. As to the passage in the two verses, 1 John, v. 7, 8, though it was very celebrated in 1802, the learned writer’s tacit inference does not hold, that it must have been celebrated in 1546—1560. The fact is, (and it is a fact which the reader will do well to remember,) that no passage which has ever been disputed was less celebrated at that time. Indeed, so little attention did Stephanus pay to it, that, as the critics themselves shew, he made a typographical error, if he did not make two, in his text, 1546, not noticed in his table of Sphalmata; and also an error in the critical marks of the folio. Lee, who made some puling complaints at Erasmus’s two first editions, respecting 1 John, v. 7, 8, joined with it 1 John, iv. 3, as an equally lamentable loss. Now, suppose Archdeacon Travis, after the Appendix I. of the Letters by the translator of Michaelis, had contended that his learned correspondent had failed on ιε, and, failing on that, could of course deserve no credit on any of the others,—assigning as a proof of the failure on ιε, that Stephanus has never quoted it, in one single instance, in the catholic epistles, which he could not have neglected to do, especially at the celebrated passage, 1 John, iv. 3. The rebukes which the Cloten so often receives in words that burn, may furnish some faint notion of what would have been inflicted on him in such a case. It is, however, only for the sake of shewing to what the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} will condescend, rather than abandon their charges against Stephanus, that I offer any argument. I know that, “as Stephens has no where quoted the MS. ιε in the catholic epistles, the learned writer once thought that this circumstance in some measure weakened the arguments for the opinion, that it was the MS. 237, because this MS. contains the catholic epistles.”—(Letters, 232, note 137.) But at that time (in 1795) he had discovered the futility of such an argument “to prove non-identity in the case of a MS, which Stephens has quoted in the Apocalypse two hundred and forty times.” This straw—this straw burnt with fire—is indeed still trusted to in 1803, and in all the subsequent editions of Michaelis, as a reason for clinging to those calumnies against Stephanus which are founded on the assertion that he had seven MSS. only of the Acts and Cath. Ep. And we are nevertheless assured, as we have seen, that “there are more than a hundred places in which he has quoted all his authorities for readings different from his own.” I shall, however, place full confidence in the learned writer’s own unanswerable identification of ιε with the MS. numbered 237, in the royal library: without looking to the unmarked MSS., that the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} have themselves quoted, I shall say, that, by their own acknowledgment, and by their own proof, “Stephens had not seven only, but eight marked MSS. of the catholic epistles,” and, in all probability, a ninth also, viz. ις, so that in this division, of all others, the paralogism is most [Vindication IV. 634] flagrant, of those who can openly avow their inference, “that as the MSS. cited by Robert Stephens did not contain” any passage, “he must have inserted it without MS. authority.” With this incontrovertible proof, that even the marked MS. ιε contained the Acts and Cath. Ep., and yet was never cited there, if I had nothing else to offer respecting the passages where εν πασι {Greek: “in all”} occurs in the margin, I should request permission not to believe that Stephanus was “felo de se,” {Latin: “felon of himself”} by “openly contradicting his own declarations” (Let. vi. 107) 118 times. I should question the axiom laid down, Letters, p. xx., that, “if he had collated more, he of course would have quoted more;” I should contend that he actually had MSS. which he does not cite, and that the margin of the folio never could in any place say more than that all the MSS. which he cites in that division, wherever it may be, give “readings different from his own.”

I must not quit ιε without making due acknowledgment of my faults, and of my obligation to this note (ii. 782, note 275) for its having made me sensible of them. An abominable blunder pervades the Specimen, which blindly follows the Docti et Prudentes, {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} in representing the whole of the fifteen marked MSS. to have been taken to furnish opposing readings to the first volume of the folio. I trust that in future I shall have enough of that σωφρων απιστια, {Greek: “sensible unbelief”} which Mr. Porson so justly recommends, p. 163, never again to trust to their representations. Wherever the marked MSS. of Stephanus’s margin are mentioned in the specimen, the reader will now see that instead of xv. which the pamphlet gives, it ought to have been “the first thirteen;” and he is requested to correct it accordingly.

To these concessions, as recorded by Michaelis and his learned commentator, we must add one, of no less moment, from Wetsten, who says, Prol. 144, Seml. 373, “Hac occasione duae difficultates, quae me diu torserant, sunt expediendae. Altera est de numero codicum Stephanicorum; cum enim Ro. Stephanus in praefatione et in margine editionis in folio, nonnisi xvi. codicum faciat mentionem, inter quos editio Complutensis primum occupat locum; cumque T. Beza in annotationibus non plures Stephani codices ad testimonium citet: qui factum ut Henr. Stephanus scriberet se plus quam xxx. codices vidisse et Beza testaretur, exemplar Henrici Stephani ab eo cum xxv. plus minus codicibus diligentissime collatum fuisse?” {Latin: “On this occasion two difficulties, which had been bothering me for a long time, must be resolved. The second is about the number of Stephens’ book-form manuscripts; for when Ro. Stephens in the preface and in the margin of the edition on the folio, makes mention of only xvi. book-form manuscripts, among which the Complutensian [printed] edition occupies the first place; and since T. Beza in his annotations cites no more book-form manuscripts of Stephens as evidence: while Henr. Stephens would write himself that he had seen more than xxx. book-form manuscripts and Beza attested the same, was Henry Stephens’ copy carefully collated by him with xxv. more or less book-form manuscripts?”} The gentlemen who work themselves up to say on the catholic epistles, “non nisi septem,” {Latin: “only seven”} and for the whole N. T. “quindecim tantum,” {Latin: “only fifteen”} are here most certainly put upon the rack by two awkward testimonies—one from the man who had a book of the collations, and reported from it all through the N. T.; and the other from the man who was concerned in making the collations, both for the second O mirificam, and soon afterwards for the folio “minutioribus typis et parvo volumine …… mox autem grandibus characteribus et magno volumine.” {Latin: “first in smaller typeface and a small volume, but soon in larger characters and a large volume”} And yet there was a third testimony, “de numero codicum Stephanicorum,” {Latin: “on the number of Stephanus’ book-form manuscripts”} viz. that of Robert himself, in his second boast respecting the royal MSS., when he vaunted before the Sorbonne, as we have seen, of the amount of the “copia,” {Latin: “abundance”} that “bibliotheca regia facile suppeditavit.” {Latin: “the royal library readily supplied”} But Wetsten is tortured enough by the other two, to think of meddling here with Robert; [Vindication IV. 635] though, as we have observed, he quotes that testimony in his note on 1 John, v. 7. It is curious to observe how opposite the conduct of Mr. Porson is to that of Wetsten, in this particular. The Professor, with that consummate judgment which marks his inimitable work, enters the lists only with Robert; and, with respect to him, never notices the “plures et meliores e Regiis,” {Latin: “more and better from the Royal Library”} according to which every letter of the O mirificam was given, nor the marked distinction between the whole of that set, “ea omnia quae in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant,” {Latin: “all those present in the Royal Library of the King of France”} and those eight that were selected for the margin of the folio. Mr. Porson makes no attempt upon the chief collator, and the man who used the collations, in their statements “de numero codicum Stephanicorum;” {Latin: “concerning the number of Stephanus’ manuscripts”} though at p. 56 he quotes the testimony of Beza as valid, exactly as Wetsten quotes that of Robert. But he was engaged with “a grave and reverend gentleman” (60) who could accord with him in making the point at issue to be, “whether Stephens had sixteen or only fifteen MSS. in all?” (p. 64.) Wetsten could hardly expect to succeed like Mr. Porson; he could not hope to make his readers say that there was “small inaccuracy” in the number of the royal MSS. vaunted before the Sorbonne, and to substitute a number of his own for that which Robert himself gave under such circumstances; so he makes no acknowledgment of having been racked by the fifteen royal MSS.—he will submit only to Henry and Beza. Well, then, go on, ye tormentors; give him another turn. To escape from them, we see Wetsten proceeds upon two assumptions: the first is, that “Stephanus in praefatione et in margine editionis in folio nonnisi xvi. codicum faciat mentionem.” {Latin: “Stephanus makes mention of only 16 book-form manuscripts in the Preface and in the margin of his edition in folio.”} As for the margin, we shall see more of that hereafter. It is enough at present to observe, that this is said when the preface distinctly mentions a set of sixteen very old written copies used in former days to furnish the text of the O mirificam, and fifteen taken now to furnish opposing readings to the new text of the folio; so that, in fact, it requires some consideration to see that the preface does not mention thirty-one MSS, instead of fifteen only. But whoever will combine with it what is said of the first set in the preface of the O mirificam, will see that the eight royal MSS. of the margin were selected out of the “copia” {Latin: “abundance”} which he then followed to a single letter. These eight, then, being common to both sets, are to be deducted from the sum total. The remainder, however, will be sufficient to confute Wetsten; and if any thing more could be wanting, we might refer back to Bishop Marsh’s decision respecting β. (Michaelis ii. 856, note 37.) Wetsten’s second assumption is even still more in opposition to fact; viz. that “Beza in annotationibus non plures Stephani codices ad testimonium citet.” {Latin: “Beza in his notes does not cite more book-form manuscripts of Stephanus in testimony.”} For the confutation of this, I gladly avail myself of the note where Wetsten’s assertion of “quindecim tantum” {Latin: “only fifteen”} is maintained by the translator of Michaelis, Letters, P. 134, note 16. The learned writer is opposing two quotations that his correspondent had given from Beza, on John vii. 53, and on 1 Cor. vii. 29; and he says, as “Stephens had only sixteen copies, even inclusive of the Complutensian edition, the word septendecim {Latin: “seventeen”} alone would have betrayed Beza, had he asserted (which, however, he had [Vindication IV. 636] not) that he had Stephens’s MSS. in his his possession, because in that case he would have known their precise number, and would not have made them amount sometimes to sixteen, (as in his note 1 Cor. vii. 29,) at other times to seventeen.”

Now, would the profoundly learned and most acute writer have ventured upon this, and upon the assertions in the following note that rest upon it, if he had not been addressing a Cloten, who, as Michaelis, I believe, says, was a century behind in criticism, and to whom (to the great disgrace of the times) the cause had, by universal consent, been so completely entrusted? Was it possible for such a scholar as this not to see that the making the amount of Stephanus’s MSS. different in the different divisions, was a proof that Beza did “know their precise number” in each, from Stephanus’s book of collations, which “he had in his possession;” and that it was the strongest corroboration of his honesty, in his account of their total amount? Though the Cloten who had got the fact of Beza having “made them amount,” in one division, “to sixteen,” and in another “to seventeen,” was so utterly unable to make use of it; yet suppose the case to have been otherwise, and that Beza could have given the same number for all, would his illustrious correspondent have failed to urge it as the fullest possible self-confutation? With this fact merely before him of Beza’s quoting different numbers of MSS. in the different divisions, was it possible for him actually to believe that “Beza, through want of experience, supposed” that Stephens’s sixteen copies [the opposing documents of the margin] contained the whole N. T.* as he alleges in the very next note, p. 136, note 17?

* Beza, who goes through the whole of the book of collations, quoting from it in every part of the N. T., must see all the first thirteen selected MSS. stop with the catholic epistles. He must see the margin take two fresh MSS. to give various readings in the Revelation. Yet, according to the Letter-writer, he is, “through want of experience, to suppose” that all the fifteen equally contained that division. And he is to die in this belief, with his own three MSS. before him. I protest as strongly against the ignorance that our Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} ascribe to Beza, as I do against the knowledge for which they are pleased to give him credit—Cum ex praefatione sciret {Latin: “which one may conclude from what was said before”}. I hold that Beza did not know what every one may see to be false. I hold that he was not ignorant of what none but an idiot could doubt, with such means before his eyes. If (more Doctorum et Prudentium {Latin: “in the manner of the Learned and Wise”}) I were to assert that Beza, “through want of experience, supposed” that there never was a MS that contained the whole N. T., what shadow of an argument could they have to confute me, but that ις must have had the whole?

No; no more than he believed that Stephanus had only fifteen MSS. in all, or believed the “glaring evidence,” when he himself stated that in identifying the opposing documents of the margin of the folio with the “vetustissima sedecim scripta exemplaria” {Latin: “very ancient sixteen hand-written copies”} that furnished the text of the first edition in 1546, we must except at least the codex β. But he did know that the wretched Cloten whom he opposed believed it himself, and so would never meet him with a denial of the absurdity; he knew also that, to the deep disgrace of the times, the cause was completely entrusted to this creature. Take it, however, if you like, that the learned writer did think that this stating a different number in the [Vindication IV. 637] gospels and in St. Paul’s epistles actually betrayed Beza, still it betrayed some one else. As Beza, right or wrong, did quote seventeen written copies of Stephanus in the gospels, and sixteen in St. Paul’s epistles, Wetsten shewed himself rather more anxious to escape from the rack, than to adhere to truth, when he was pleased to assert that Stephanus had only fifteen MSS., and that “T. Beza in annotationibus non plures Stephani codices ad testimonium citet.” {Latin: “T. Beza in his notes does not cite more book-form manuscripts of Stephanus in testimony.”} Supposing all the fifteen of the margin to have contained the gospels, here were two more cited by Beza; supposing all the fifteen contained St. Paul, here was one more, that Beza found in his book of collations. But has it never been declared, that no man could find more than ten of the gospels, or eight of St. Paul’s epistles, in the fifteen MSS. of the margin? and then, what think you of Beza’s having found seventeen of the gospels, and sixteen of St. Paul, recorded in his book of collation? Have I at all exceeded bounds in my admiration of Mr. Porson’s judgment for not exposing himself to such a rack as this?

Wetsten having fortified himself with these two little assumptions, takes courage and faces the tormenting statements of Henry and Beza —“de numero codicum Stephanicorum;” {Latin: “concerning the number of Stephanus’ manuscripts”} he proceeds, Prol. 144, Seml. 373, “Respondeo facile haec et secum et cum veritate conciliari posse, si dicamus Henr. Stephanum ultra xxx. quidem codices vidisse, sed nonnisi xvi. a capite ad calcem cum editis contulisse; verba vero hyperbolica Bezae esse commoda interpretatione mollienda.” {Latin: “I answer that this can easily be reconciled both with himself and with the truth, if we say that Henr. Stephens indeed had seen more than xxx. book-form manuscripts, but he brought forward with the printed ones only xvi. in their complete written form; indeed the hyperbolic words of Beza are to be softened by a convenient interpretation.”} As for the “secum” {Latin: “with himself”}—the reconciling the two accounts—nothing can be easier. Beza does not intimate that the book of collation stated how many MSS. in the whole were collated; his expression shews uncertainty; it is only a calculation of his own. “Cum veritate” {Latin: “in truth”}—Veritas {Latin: “truth”} means Wetsten’s groundless assertion of quindecim tantum {Latin: “fifteen only”}, which has in so many ways been shewn to be false; it is evident, therefore, that it must be absolutely impossible to reconcile this with the two plain, independent statements of the chief collator, and of the man who himself had the book of collations, which he examined “a capite ad calcem.” {Latin: “in their complete written form.”} As for Beza, he has said so much, and is such a positive fellow, that the only method which can be pursued towards him, upon all occasions, even where he is giving an account of his own MS. (D), is flatly to give him the lie; a summary method, but, as Mr. Porson, I believe, observed, and certainly felt in the present case, rather dangerous to be made too common. As the case stands between Wetsten and Beza, there are most hyperbolic words, on the one side or the other, which no gentle interpretation can possibly soften. Beza found in his book of collations, as we have seen from Mr. Travis and his correspondent, seventeen different MSS. quoted in the gospels; though, as I imagine from the preface to the edition of 1598, he dis covered afterwards that two more were quoted in that division, and in St. Paul’s epistles, sixteen. To these add, from the same source that they drew their information, thirteen in the Acts and the catholic epistles, and four or more in the Revelations. Now, Beza did not [Vindication IV. 638] follow the calculation of the modern critics on the Barberini codices;*

Note: *We are told that “ten of these MSS. contained the gospels, eight of them the epistles and acts of the apostles, and four the book of Revelation.”—Michaelis, ii. p. 212. The critics, admitting the assumption of Petrus Possinus, that no one of these copies could contain two of these parts, sum up 10, 8, and 4, and most arithmetically decide, one and all, that they were 22 in the whole.

but set down Stephanus’s MSS., which furnished these numbers in the different divisions of the sacred text, to have been “xxv. plus minus” {Latin: “25 more or less”} in the whole, And whether these were hyperbolic words, or his calculation was not too small, let any man judge, who will consider what the critics state of those fifteen which were selected to give opposing readings to the folio. Hyperbolical as Wetsten may please to call them, they actually fall short of what the collator himself gave, “plusquam xxx.” {Latin: “more than thirty.”} And this statement by Henry of the total amount, after his success “in Italicis,” {Latin: “in Italy”} scarcely bears a greater ratio to the whole selection for the margin, than “ea omnia que in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant,” {Latin: “all those present in the Royal Library of the King of France”} which Robert himself boasted to be fifteen, do to the eight royal MSS. of the margin. As all the separate accounts, then, accord so well together—viz., Beza’s statements of the number that he found in the different divisions of the N. T.—his calculation of the whole—Henry’s positive statement of this amount—and Robert’s statement of the amount of the “copia” {Latin: “abundance”} supplied from the “bibliotheca regia,” {Latin: “royal library”}—it might have seemed that they must all stand or fall together; that they must all be “small inaccuracies”—verba hyperbolica, {Latin: “hyperbolic words”} as Wetsten expresses it—or all be admitted to be fact. But Wetsten judged it prudent not to include the Stephani, father or son, in the hyperbole. The father’s account, as we have seen, remains untouched by him; and the son is allowed to have actually seen “plusquam xxx.” {Latin: “more than thirty”} of what they had from the royal library, and what he himself discovered “in Italicis;” {Latin: “in Italy”} but for collation—“a capite ad calcem contulisse,” {Latin: “brought forward in their complete written form,”} “Ah! no more of that, Hal, if thou lovest me.” {From Henry IV. Pt. 1. Act II Scene 4, line 270.} But if Henry saw these thirty MSS. and more, at all, why should he not look into the inside of them, as well as the outside? If he looked into them at all, why not see whether they would not furnish some various readings? Supposing the “small inaccuracy” to rest with Mr. Porson, and Robert to have been right when he said that the “bibliotheca regia” {Latin: “royal library”} supplied seven more royal MSS, besides the eight that are cited in the margin; why do you think that they were not used for the text in the three different collations, for the different editions, 1546—1550? If Henry saw more than that number “in Italicis,” {Latin: “in Italy”} what is your reason for imagining that he did not collate them, or get them transcribed for his father’s folio? For what purpose was his long abode in Italy? Was it to look at the outside of the MSS., or to make collations and obtain transcripts? Wetsten has not assigned any reason for imagining that he did not collate “ea omnia quae in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant,” {Latin: “all those present in the Royal Library of the King of France”} and as many more that he saw “in Italicis,” {Latin: “in Italy”} but that the fact could not be reconciled “cum veritate,” {Latin: “in truth”} i.e. his own assumption of “quindecim tantum.” {Latin: “fifteen only”} The se- [Vindication IV. 639] lections for the margin of the folio undoubtedly amounted to no more; but what ground had Beza for asserting “quindecim tantum” {Latin; “fifteen only”} of the materials for the different texts of the different editions? Mill’s collation proves incontestibly that these fifteen of the margin of the folio were not the sixteen from which the O mirificam was taken; and Wetsten’s own decision respecting β would, as we have seen, require that it at least must be excepted. Such a thought could never have been entertained by any one who would abide by Stephanus’s expressions—either “vetustissima scripta” {Latin: “very ancient hand-written copies”} in his account of the one set, or “editio quae fuit excusa” {Latin: “edition which was printed”} in that of the other; and still less by any man who would attend to either of his boasts, either that of the text being formed from “plures et meliores e Regiis,” {Latin: “more and better from the Royal Library.”} or that before the Sorbonne, where he bragged of the number of these MSS. from the royal library, and declared that they amounted to fifteen; a number that justified his assuming the title, “Novum Testamentum ex bibliotheca Regia.” {Latin: “New Testament from the Royal Library”} But, in the second place, to engage still closer with Wetsten, who thinks he can escape from Henry’s gripe, if “scriberet se plusquam xxx. codices vidisse;” {Latin: “Henr. Stephens wrote indeed he had seen more than xxx. book-form manuscripts.”} knowing something of the powers of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”}, when they get into these places of torment, I ask, did not Henry write something more—something that might help to decide the point, whether he had looked only at the outside of these plusquam xxx.? Was there nothing to lead you to believe that what we have said might justly be expected of him was absolutely fact? Was there nothing to shew that he was not contented with looking at the binding of these books, but that he did examine them sufficiently “a capite ad calcem” {Latin: “in their complete written form.”} to have ascertained that “eadem iisdem in locis κεφαλαια habebant”? {Latin/Greek: “that they had the same chapter-summaries in the same places”} I do not wonder that Wetsten should stop short at “in Italicis;” {Latin: “in Italy”} and that he should think proper to omit the subjoined clause, “Qui eadem iisdem in locis κεφαλαια habebant,”? {Latin/Greek: “Which had the same chapter-summaries in the same places”} which would have racked him indeed. Who, that is informed of Henry’s having examined the κεφαλαια {Greek: “chapter-summaries”} throughout, in these thirty MSS., would not begin to suspect that he must have looked a little at the text which was comprehended under these headings; sufficiently, indeed, to have enabled him to furnish that book of collations which gave Beza the readings of so many MSS. in the different divisions of the sacred text, as must make them amount in the whole to more than his calculation of xxv.? And when Wetsten had the metrical κεφαλαια {Greek: “chapter-summaries”} before him, which Henry gave, and which you have in the Critici Sacri vi. p. 2069, could he entertain a doubt in his own mind of Henry having collated one MS. at least “a capite ad calcem,” {Latin: “in their complete written form,”} which did not come into Robert’s selection for the margin of his folio? But, thirdly, let us take no more than what Wetsten voluntarily submits to; I will be content with the mere “vidi,” {Latin: “I saw”} if we may have what he and the rest of the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} so firmly assert, viz. that Henry was the sole collator of the cited MSS. As far, then, as this part of the “plusquam xxx.” they admit that Henry saw their various readings “a capite ad calcem,” {Latin: “in their complete written form,”} and enabled others also to see them; whether the MSS. came from “regis Galliae bibliotheca” {Latin: “Library of the King of France”} or from “Italicis.” {Latin: “Italy.”} Fixing them, then, on this dire machine of Henry’s, (than which, Siculi non invenere tyranni Majus tormentum, {Latin: “The Sicilian tyrants did not invent a greater torture tool” Horace, Epistles 1. 2, 58ff.}) I say that [Vindication IV. 640] Henry’s “vidi” is as much applied to “ea omnia que in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant” {Latin: “all those present in the Royal Library of the King of France”}—to the whole copia {Latin: “abundance”} of the fifteen that are cited in the annotationes {Latin: “notes”} of Beza—as to those eight of them that are cited only in the margin of Stephanus’s folio. And with respect to the “Alia” {Latin: “Others”}—those which Henry found “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”}—I accept Bishop Marsh’s acknowledgment always, and in all places, with all thankfulness that when the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} assert “that all the sixteen manuscripts (printed and written) which are quoted in R. Stephens’s edition of 1550 had been collated previous to the edition of 1546, we must except at least the Codex β, which could not have been collated till after the year 1547.” (ii. 856, note 37; see also p. 704, note 117.) And, not content with this, I must say that, when it is asserted, ii. 690, note 113, that “β was the only manuscript collated in Italy,” his Lordship cannot prove this negative, and I can disprove it, from what he himself says, p, 704, note 116. His Lordship, evidently reflecting on the object of Henry’s journey to Italy, and on what he says, “——quae pater meus ex illis exemplaribus describenda curaverat,” {Latin: “which my father had taken care to have copied in Italy”} there tells us, that “on his return to Paris he might deliver them [his fancied collations of β] to his father, R. Stephens, with other papers and extracts made in Italy.” Without looking, then, at any thing more than the naked “vidi” {Latin: “I saw”} which Wetsten chooses to shew me, I observe that it applies equally to every one of the “plusquam xxx.”—to the whole of these “papers and extracts made in Italy”—and to the whole copia {Latin: “abundance” ] of the xv. that “bibliotheca regia suppeditavit;” {Latin: “the royal library readily supplied”} and that he sat not merely the binding of them, but their various readings also; and by his books of collations enabled his father, and, after him, Beza, to see them also, and to use them, each in the formation of his text. FRANCIS HUYSHE.

[Vol. IV. 1833: p. 757]

WETSTEN does not stand alone in feeling the agonies of this “plusquam xxx.” {Latin: “more than 30”} of the man who was so long employed in Italy, when corroborated by the calculation of the man who made so great use of his collations. Crito Cantabrigiensis, though he does not roar so loud at the torture as Wetsten, has, like him, his “facile haec et secum et cum veritate conciliari posse,” {Latin: “his can easily be reconciled both with himself and with the truth,”} in his note, p. 400. He adopts Wetsten’s plan for getting off from the rack, but he inverts the application of it. Certain hints that had been given in the Specimen rendered it rather dangerous to talk any longer of the “verba hyperbolica Bezae;” {Latin: “hyperbolic words of Beza”} so this compliment is transferred to Henry; and the gentle interpretation by which it is to be softened is as follows :— “That Henry Stephens, after an interval of thirty-seven years, should thus swell the number of his MSS., may be attributed to imperfect recollection, if not to a desire of magnifying the achievements of his early years.” P. 400, note. There are then two strings to the bow, from which he shoots at Henry’s reputation; and Crito is pleased to set his own knowledge and veracity against those of Henry, on the number of the MSS. which Henry himself had collated; and as, according to Mr. Porson, there was a small inaccuracy in the father’s boast before the Sorbonne of the amount of the MSS. which he had from the royal library, and the Professor was able to correct his swelling them to xv., so his vindicator undertakes to correct the son’s falsehood. Judge, then, between the accuser and the accused; and say whether Crito can produce a shadow of a reason to support this new slander, of Henry having “swelled the number of his MSS. 1st, “Imperfect recollection.” Let it have been ever so imperfect, was that of Crito likely to be more perfect? What information had he superior to that given by the collator himself? What ground had he for his saying, p. 399, that no attention is to be paid “to what people recollect, or pretend to recollect”? Henry never pretends that his recollection of the metrical κεφαλαια {Greek: “chapter summaries”} was not very imperfect; but I should think that, even “after an interval of thirty-seven years,” he would be able to say whether he had collated fifteen MSS. from the royal library, or only eight; and still more, whether he had collated MSS. in Italy or not. But Crito, I presume, was aware that Henry’s memory had been often refreshed upon this subject. I suppose he knew who printed Beza’s work, that depended so much upon these collations; at all events he had before his eyes the words, “quae Pater meus ex illis exemplaribus describenda curaverat ——;” {Latin: “which my Father had taken care to have copied in Italy”} so he [Vindication IV. 758] comes to the charge of wilful falsification, from “a desire of magnifying” his achievements. The three independent, but concurring, testimonies of Robert, of Beza, and of Henry himself—“de numero codicum Stephanicorum”—are all to be set aside, under the plea of “small inaccuracies,” “verba hyperbolica;” {Latin: “hyperbolic words”} and now (ὑπερογκα ματαιοτητος) {Greek: translated following} “great swelling words of vanity;” the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} are to “soften them by a gentle interpretation,” (Porson, 85,) and upon that interpretation the old critics are to be brought in guilty. Crito agreed in “thinking it would seem, in his day, that dead reputations are fair subjects of the most wanton insults,” as Mr. Greswell says of the great man whom Crito undertakes to vindicate. (I. p. 330.) But if the dead feel not, the “nominis umbra,” {Latin: “shadow of the name” from Lucan Bell. Civ. I. 135} under which the vindication appears, is equally invulnerable. I hesitate not, then, to retort this charge in full weight and measure, as it gives great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme; and, under it, every empty infidel scoffer (for an instance, take the Rev. Robert Taylor) can call upon the humble pious believer to be a traditor {Latin: “betrayer”} of his Bible, as containing cheats by the early editors, from their own forging of Greek. Has Crito any thing more to produce for Henry’s want of honesty than for his want of memory? If the “interval of thirty-seven years” would blunt his recollection, it might also have served to blunt his feelings of vanity, if such had ever existed on the “achievement” of collating fifteen or sixteen MSS. during a three years’ residence in Italy. But surely, if such had existed, opportunities had occurred, during so long a period, of indulging them. The work of collation had been often mentioned; but here, in the second edition of his Greek Testament, we have the first intimation that would lead you to guess the whole number that had been procured for his father’s folio. And I think that whoever will take the trouble of reading it—not as the account is garbled by all the critics, but as it stands in the Critici Sacri, VI. p. 2066—will see that we should never have had it at all if the κεφαλαια {Greek: “chapter-headings”} had not fortunately been mentioned. So far from vanity appearing in it, no testimony was ever more incidental. Can Crito shew any improbability in it? Does he doubt of Henry having been sent to Italy? Will he intimate that the Italian libraries would not have furnished him with sufficient stores to have doubled his father’s original stock? Will he allege that Henry did not visit the whole of them? Will he say that the man was not kept there a sufficient time for such “achievements”? Will he suggest that the “paternae sedulitatis haeres” {Latin: “heir to the careful work of his father”}“was at that time too young, too impatient, and too little experienced in criticism, for an undertaking of that nature”? (Michaelis, II. 316) No. Henry’s anonymous slanderer does not venture to close with him upon any of these points. There is one, I acknowledge—and there is but one—where Crito says any thing to establish Henry’s guilt. If Robert’s object in keeping his son so long in Italy had been answered, and Henry had not “swelled the number of his MSS.,” his achievements would have shewn themselves in the altered text of the projected folio; but, according to his accuser, it remains the same as if he had never crossed the Alps. “The three editions,” says Crito, “with a few variations, gave the same text [Vindication IV. 759] throughout.” P. 389. This wants only one thing to make it decisive against both Henry and myself,—and that is, truth; and, as we have already noticed, (Brit. Mag. vol. iii. p. 659,) it is Wetsten and both Mr. Travis’s correspondents who agree in telling him that it is not true—“Tantopere a se ipso dissensit Stephanus, ut a priori editione in secunda sexagies septies recederet, in tertia vero ab utraque praecedente, juxta Millii calculum, ducenties octagies quater.” {Latin: “Stephens disagreed so much with himself, that compared to the first edition he differed sixty-seven times in the second edition, and in the third two hundred and eighty-four times, according to the calculation of Mill.”} Wetsten, 146, 5; Seml. 376. Yes; if Mill’s reckoning be truth, there stand all these alterations occasioned by Henry’s success in bringing accession to his father’s materials, to testify Henry did not “magnify the achievements of his early years;” and to tell the man who says Henry “swelled the number of his MSS.” that he is a slanderer. For, if there are so many places where the preponderance of Robert’s new materials was so great as to overcome the “plures et meliores e Regiis,” {Latin: “more and better from the Royal Library”} and thus give the stronger evidence, in the folio, to the readings which had been rejected in the O mirificam, I ask, confidently, could the accession from the new MSS, collated by Henry have been less than what the collator states? Most certainly Crito accorded with me in opinion that it could not; otherwise he would hardly have resorted to such means to dispose of the fact that supports the narrations of the two tormentors. And I have Bishop Marsh with me. His Lordship’s concession stands recorded, Michaelis II. 860, note 41—“We know that, though only fifteen manuscripts are quoted in Stephens’s margin, a much greater number were examined by Henry Stephens, if not collated.” But whether Henry gave the true number of the MSS. that he had collated, or a false one, if the collation was made for the folio,—if the three years spent in examining the MSS. “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”} added the collation of a single one to his father’s stock, it would torture Crito as acutely as it had Wetsten. All Crito’s labours, in demonstrating that the Complutensian was a very old written copy, would be given to the winds; and the “historical fact” for which his whole book was composed, would become a lying legend. As Wetsten, therefore, would admit only of Henry’s taking a look at any MSS., whether they were “in regis Galliae bibliotheca” {Latin: “in the Library of the King of France”} or “in Italicis,” {Latin: “in Italy”} but what came into one or other of the selections for the margin,—so Crito, who is compelled to admit the actual collation of some of them, must provide that the man who sent Henry to Italy to collate should not benefit by it. Accordingly, Henry is not merely to “swell the number of his MSS.” from vanity, which had lain asleep for “an interval of thirty-seven years,” but he is to have given the collation of those that he is admitted to have examined, in such a way as not to swell the amount of his father’s stock. Crito’s method of escaping from the tormentor is given in a previous part of the note. The collation of these uncited MSS. that he is allowed to have had, is not to be at the only time when it could be made “in Italicis,” {Latin: “in Italy”} it is not to be at the only time when either he or his father could have thought of instituting it, i.e. when he was sent to Italy, and when it was wanted for the folio; but it is to have been after the publication of the folio; and, to secure this, he represents the collation to have been made in the margin of the printed book. “Now, in the interval between R. Stephens’s third edition (1550) and Beza’s first (1556), Henry Ste- [Vindication IV. 760] phens may have recorded, in the margin of the folio edition, the readings of such MSS. as he happened to meet with; and this may be the ‘exemplar’ mentioned, as above, in Beza’s prefaces;” i.e. the passage where B. acknowledges Robert having furnished him with his book of collations. Now, I again ask, was any Sicilian machine half so bad as that of Henry’s and Beza’s, when Crito, with all acknowledged learning and acuteness, can catch at this baseless fabric of Mill’s visionary blundering (1258), for a little ease? Yes; you are not only called upon to believe that there was not one single {the text adds another ‘single’ here in error} MS. added to the original stock, for that glory of the early Greek Press, the folio, either by Robert’s own exertions in the libraries of France, or by those of his son for three years “in Italicis;” {Latin; “in Italy”} but you must say, that within six years afterwards, when the man was an outcast from his country, and had no longer any use for collations, his son “happened to meet with” a number of MSS., and to collate them. Which is it, then, that utters the swelling words of vanity? Is it the collator, in his reference to his achievements “in Italicis,” {Latin; “in Italy”} or his accuser, in his opposition to all history, and in his fiction of collations being made when all collations must have ceased? Which is the cheat, the man who, having at last to speak of the κεφαλαια {Greek: “chapter headings”} of MSS., tells you how many of the collation had all of them the same; or he who garbles the man’s words, and cuts off that part which would have satisfied every reader by the internal testimony that it bears, and can resort to that wretched fiction, though admitted by Dr. Hales, II. 157, that the book of collations was “a valuable copy of the edition of 1550, with a great number of critical remarks”? Mill was guilty only of a random assertion in a case where he was totally ignorant of the fact; and Wetsten, as we saw, (Brit. Mag. iv. 164,) had, most happily, a censurer who was pleased to employ this, as fact, against him. Wetsten’s powers then were called forth to confute; and the confutation would have been all that heart could wish, if he had not himself an equally false and equally absurd theory to maintain, viz. that the collation was made before 1546; which is done by closing his eyes not only to the “iterum et tertio cum iisdem collatum,” {Latin: “collated with the same a second and a third time”} which is said of the sixteen original MSS. used “superioribus diebus” {Latin: “at an earlier period”} (Pref. folio); but also to the edition of 1549 itself; and so making “parvo volumine” {Latin: “small volume”} necessarily to mean the O mirificam of 1546, in Henry’s words, where he says, “primo quidem minutioribus typis …. mox antem [the next year] grandibus characteribus.” {Latin: “first in smaller typeface …. but soon [the next year] in larger characters”}(Prol. 144, Seml. 872.) This is their foolishness, and their posterity praise their saying. The modern Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} infer, from “parvo volumine,”{Latin: “small volume”} in Henry’s words, that he was concerned in the two small editions, though Henry distinguished that of 1549 by saying that his collations were for that which was published just before the folio. It is true that, notwithstanding the proof that the book of collations which Robert gave to Beza was what he had used in forming his text of 1550, Wetsten, when he speaks of this autograph of Henry, as Mr. Porson justly styles it, Pp 83, can assert, upon Beza’s editions (Prol. 146, Seml. 377)—“adjutum se fatetur [yes, he actually says, se fatetur] …. R. Stephani codice A° 1550 cum V. L. edit{i}o,” {Latin: “he admits he was helped [yes, he actually says, “admits”]… by R. Stephens’ book-form manuscript A° 1550 the printed edition with Variant Readings”} with just the same reckless inconsistency, and owing to the same cause that leads him to say (II. p. [Vindication IV. 761] 24), “MSS. codicibus Epistolae Joannis Stephanum fuisse usum …. non nisi septem,” {Latin: Stephanus used no more than seven book-form manuscripts of the Epistle of John when, as we have seen, he himself had quoted another, even one of the marked MSS. of Stephanus, in that very note, as having that epistle. I may venture to assert, that the only passage in Beza’s N. T. where there is any reference to “V. L. a R. Stephano A° 1550 editas” {Latin: “Variant Readings printed by R. Stephens A° 1550”} is in Stephanus’s own advertisement at the end, quoted by Wetsten, 148, Seml. 381, where those royal MSS. “quorum fides et authoritas in his annotationibus saepissime citatur” {Latin: “whose veracity and authority is often cited in these notes”} (the whole “copia” {Latin: “abundance”} of the fifteen) is distinguished from the eight selected first and last for giving opposing readings in his own margin, by “ea omnia que in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant.” {Latin: “all those present in the Royal Library of the King of France.”} And where is Stephanus’s printed book mentioned? Supposing me to meet the Docti et Prudentes {Latin: “Learned and Wise”} with the counter assertion, that Beza never saw it, can you find any reference to it by him, sufficient to confute me? If you can, you have had luck, which has not attended my searches. I have long looked in vain, with some attention, for any notice by Beza himself, of the collation in Stephanus’s margin, being convinced that, if he ever did speak of the “V. L. a R. Stephano A° 1550 editas,” {Latin: “Variant Readings printed by R. Stephens A° 1550”} he would shew as decided distinction between the whole “plusquam xxx.,” {Latin: “more than thirty”} cited in his own Annotations, (“xxv. plus minus,” {Latin: “25 more or less”} according to his own guess, from the numbers found in the different divisions,) and the selection which is cited in Stephanus’s margin, as Robert’s advertisement makes between the whole “copia” {Latin: “abundance”} from the King’s library, and the eight royal MSS. selected from them. Wetsten, however, might have said, under the rose, in the words of King David, “What have I now done, is there not a cause?” {From 1 Samuel 17. 29.} Suppose he had not retained, in his second edition, what he said in his first, (p. 144)—“In prima et secunda Editione adjutum se fatetur …. R. Stephani codice A° 1550 cum V. L. edito” {Latin: “In his first and second editions he admits he was helped … by R. Stephens’ book-form manuscript A° 1550 the printed edition with Variant Readings”}—but had now substituted for it, what Beza actually did say in all his editions, so that his reader should know that the man never did make a confession about any printed book, with various readings from fifteen MSS. and one single printed edition; but that he did assert at first, and never ceased to assert, that it was a book of collations of twenty-five plus minus MSS., and almost all the printed editions. Suppose, also, that a reference had been made, in the second edition, to pp. 143, 144, Seml. 370, 372, so that his reader should have before him here the proof which had now been given in the discussion on Stephanus, that these collations were used by Robert in forming the text of his folio, and some of them, at least, even in that of the small edition of 1549,— then, what would have been thought of “foedissimum denique illud est quod circa V. L. a R. Stephano A° 1550 editas commisit, 1, Cum enim ex praefatione Stephani sciret xv. tantum MSS. codices ab eo consultos et cum editis collatos fuisse, non veritus est eorum numerum augere, de viginti quinque plus minus MSS. Stephani codicibus in praefatione locutus,” {Latin: “In short, the most disgusting thing is that which he confided concerning the Variant Readings printed by R. Stephens A° 1550, 1. When he knew from the preface of Stephens that only 15 book-form manuscripts had been consulted by him and collated with those published, he was not afraid to increase their number, and spoke of twenty-five more or less MSS. of Stephen in the preface.”} Prol, 148, Seml. 380. “Foedissimum,” most foul, as every one must admit; and, I think, no one, in that case, could have hesitated to say to which party it belonged. Again, 3, on Beza’s not constantly saying that he was quoting Stephanus’s MSS., “quod incauto lectori,” says Wetsten, “fucum facit, ac si nempe ipse Beza [Vindication IV. 762] non editionem Stephani A. 1550, sed ipsos MSS. codices inspexisset.” {Latin: “which causes the unwary reader to make a mistake, as if Beza himself had inspected not the edition of Stephens A. 1550, but the very book-form manuscripts themselves. “Editionem Stephani A. 1550; ” {Latin: “The edition of Stephanus A. 1550;”} here, I think, it would have been tolerably apparent who “incauto lectori fucum facit.” {Latin: “causes the unwary reader to make a mistake.”} Wetsten most feelingly said “verba hyperbolica Bezse esse commoda interpretatione mollienda;” {Latin: “the hyperbolic words of Beza are to be softened by a convenient interpretation.”} so these accusations must stand, and, of course, “adjutum se fatetur …. R. Stephani codice A° 1550 cum V. L. edito,” {Latin: “he admits he was helped … by R. Stephens’ book-form manuscript A° 1550 the printed edition with Variant Readings”} just the same as if Beza had said something that could be distorted into a colourable pretence for such an assertion, and as if he himself had said nothing to shew its absurdity. Still, if the man who undertook to vindicate Mr. Porson was not as little acquainted with Wetsten’s Prolegomena as the Cloten whom the Professor undertook to expose, there stood the confutation of the anonymous censurer’s “Constat Henricum Stephanum post editionem an. 1550 codd. MSS. undique conquisitos contulisse,” {Latin: “It is agreed Henry Stephens after the printed edition of 1550 contributed book-form manuscripts fetched from everywhere.”} and of his own “adjutum se fatetur R. Stephani codice A° 1550 cum V. L. edito” {Latin: “he admits he was helped … by R. Stephens’ book-form manuscript A° 1550 the printed edition with Variant Readings”}—not in a few slight words, introduced by some chance occasion, in a strange corner of the work; but a proof by facts, drawn both from history and from all the writings of Henry himself, with which Mill was totally unacquainted. It stands in the very place where a man, sitting down to write upon Stephanus, must instantly turn to refresh his knowledge; and where a man, going to write against Stephanus, would apply for arguments. It is referred to by Mr. Porson, at p. 56, in a very strong manner; and whoever will look at it, will see that it does honour to Wetsten’s great learning, industry, and ability, in shewing, past the possibility of doubt or cavil, “Ro. Stephanum …. jam anno 1550 collatione usum esse,” {Latin: “Ro. Stephens …. used the collation already in year 1550”} and fully justifying what he quotes from Curcellaeus in the next page (145, Seml. 374), “ ——ex Bezae annotationibus, qui iisdem cum Roberto Stephano codicibus usus-——” {Latin: “From the notes of Beza, who used these along with the book-form manuscripts of Stephanus”} i.e. (as Wetsten corrects it, in his previous quotation from Morin) iisdem codicum collationibus {Latin: “these collations of book-form manuscripts”}. Crito might also have seen a confutation of his plea by Bishop Marsh. Michaelis II. p. 859, n. 41, and p. 861, n. 43. But, above all, there stood the heading of the very IVth Letter of Mr. Porson, that he undertook here particularly to vindicate—(“Of the MSS. used by R. Stephens and Beza”)—to check him, and cry, “Back to thy punishment, false fugitive.” {From Paradise Lost Book II. 699f.} But I think you may see, from his language, whether he hoped to be delivered from it by such means. Careless as a man writing under “nominis umbra” {Latin: “the shadow of a name”} is of being confuted in a good bold assertion, by which he might expect to escape from a tormentor, he only says, “Henry Stephens may have recorded”—“this may be the exemplar mentioned”—“something of this kind appears to be the natural meaning of the words.” It appears to me that he was aware that neither natural nor artificial meaning would suit him. And Crito’s text, in this place, (p. 399,) exhibits, to a man who has eyes to see, a very sufficient acknowledgment, that he could devise no means of escape. Having declared that “the materials employed for this edition [the folio] were all in sight,” when he himself had Robert’s account of β, and Henry “in Italicis” {Latin: “in Italy”} in sight, he says (what I referred to when I asserted that he would admit no evidence but such as he chose to take from Robert himself), “If therefore, we perceive, in subsequent times, any unsteadiness of lan- [Vindication IV. 763] guage touching this edition—any tendency to assign to Robert Stephens more MSS. than he has taken credit for [in his statement of the printed and written documents, that he selected, first and last, to give opposing readings in his margin]—we may most assuredly conclude that there is something wrong in the later representations.” Here we have, not indeed quite so open an avowal as that which Michaelis gives of their not being able to abide by Stephanus’s own declarations, “vetustissima” {Latin: “very ancient”} and “scripta,” {Latin: “hand-written texts”} but we have as decided an avowal that they cannot abide by the testimony either of Stephanus’s chief collator, or of the man who made so great use of the collations. FRANCIS HUYSHE.