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What, if to the trumpet's sound
Voices few come answering round?
Scarce a votary swell the burst,
When the anthem peals at first?
GOD hath sown, and he will reap ;
Growth is slow when roots are deep.
He will aid the work begun,
For the love of his dear SON;
He will breathe in their true breath,
Who, serene in prayer and faith,
Would our dying embers fan

Bright as when their glow began.

THE CHURCH IN PRAYER.

"Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that

remember Thee in Thy ways."

WHY loiterest within Simon's walls,

Hard by the barren sea,

Thou Saint! when many a sinner calls
To preach and set him free?
Can this be he, who erst confessed
For CHRIST affection keen,
Now truant in untimely rest,

The mood of an Essene?

Yet he who at the sixth hour sought

The lone house-top to pray,

There gained a sight beyond his thought,

The dawn of Gentile day.

Then reckon not, when perils lour,
The time of prayer mis-spent;

Nor meanest chance, nor place, nor hour,
Without its heavenward bent.

THE PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH.
"And He said, It is finished."

CHRIST Only, of GOD's messengers to man,
Finished the work of grace, which He began;
E'en Moses wearied upon Nebo's height,
Though loth to leave the fight

With the doomed foe, and yield the sun-bright land
To Joshua's armed hand.

And David wrought in turn a strenuous part,
Zeal for God's house consuming him in heart;
And yet he might not build, but solely bring
Gifts for the Heavenly King;

And these another reared, his peaceful Son,
Till the full work was done.

List, Christian warrior! thou, whose soul is fain
To rid thy Mother of her present chain ;-
CHRIST will unloose his Church; yea, even now
Begins the work, and thou

Shalt spend in it thy strength, but, ere He save,
Thy lot shall be the grave.

ERRATA IN THE NOVEMBER NUMBER:-Page 517, line 6, for "skill" read "still;”—last line, for "portrait" read "portent."-Page 518, line 18, for "they" read "these."]

38

CORRESPONDENCE.

The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions
of his Correspondents.

VINDICATION OF THE EARLY PARISIAN GREEK PRESS.

(Continued from vol. iv. p. 763.)

AFTER all, there remain the sarcasms of Mr. Gibbon and of Mr. Porson upon "Invisibles." Be it remembered, then, that what is invisible now, may have been very visible in 1546-1550; and may become visible again some generations hence. If one of the marked MSS., one of those cited in the Acts and the Cath. Ep., for which there were such searchings of heart, could lie unheeded and unknown, even in our Cambridge library, till the splendid discovery by Bishop Marsh, it surely is not too much to say, it is possible for some of those, upon which no one has hitherto bestowed one thought, to be brought to light, whether "in bibliotheca regis Galliarum," or "in Italicis"whether entire, or "mutilati aut laceri." And if I am asked why I take the word of the two tormentors rather than that of the two racked critics, Wetsten and Crito, I answer, 1st, because I think that the accused had rather the better means of information; and, 2nd, I again repeat Mr. Porson's words, "because Stephanus' editions often vary from one another" (p. 58). I point to the folio itself. I again and again say, that when "intra triennium tantopere a se ipso dissensit Stephanus" (Wetsten 156, 5, 376 Seml.) you have a fact before you which never could admit an honest doubt of the truth of the testimony given by the man who was principally concerned in making the collations for the second O mirificam of 1549 and for the folio-to the "tantum non duplicato numero" (Wetsten 143, Seml. 370); confirmed, as it is, by the very moderate calculations of the man who made such use of the collations in forming the text of his own editions. But I am now to bring forward only the concessions of Stephanus's accusers-and I stand pledged to produce a still more striking confutation of their "quindecim tantum," for the whole stock of his MSS., than even the identifying it gives to the "nonnisi septem," for the Acts and Cath. Ep. Call, then, Wetsten and Bengel they are their own witnesses. Yes; when I am taunted with "Invisibles," I say, call them, to ascertain the MSS. which they have so sturdily, so repeatedly denied to have even existed. Call them, that they may irrefragably establish the credit of the printer and bookseller, whom they have branded as a cheat in the text, to the sacredness of which he so solemnly pledged himself-and to establish the credit of his friend, whom they are pleased to brand as a liar, in the testimony which he gives to Stephanus's collations, and a cheat in his own text, which he formed from those collations. Yes; that they may establish the credit of Beza, who gives testimony to seven, if

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not nine MSS. of the gospels, eight of St. Paul's epistles, five of the Acts and Catholic epistles, two or more of the Revelations ;-all which Stephanus and Beza had for forming their text, but which were not taken either in the first or the last selection to furnish opposing readings in the margin of the folio-" vetera N. T. exemplariaquorum fides et authoritas in Bezæ annotationibus sæpissime citatur, sunt autem cum alia, tum ea omnia, quæ in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant."

I said, call Wetsten and Bengel to ascertain Stephanus's unmarked MSS.-for I was wrong when I intimated (Specimen, p. 20) a fear that the readings preserved by Beza will not enable a critic, who shall find any of them, to identify them. Beza has really preserved so many lectiones singulares, that even those may be ascertained, which may have become "mutilati aut laceri," so as (to use Bishop Marsh's expressive words, Michaelis ii. p. 723, note 128) to have "been deprived of the power of being produced as an evidence in the controversy relative to 1 John, v. 7;" or to adopt De Missy's words (Jour. Brit. ix. 63) " les témoins célestes sont devenus invisibles dans ces MSS." Open, then, either Wetsten or Bengel where you like, and you can hardly read ten pages without finding a quotation of the uncited, unmarked MSS. of Stephanus, from the book of collations that he gave to Beza, as the readings are recorded by Beza. Yes; when Wetsten, having observed that Stephanus's marked documents were only sixteen, assures us that "T. Beza in annotationibus non plures Stephani codices ad testimonium citet" (144, Seml. 373) there were hardly ten pages of his work that could be taken consecutively, without a reading recorded of these "plures Stephani codices," and that from "annotationibus Beza." And if I have not appealed to Griesbach, it is not because he does not give as decided testimony against the assertions upon which Stephanus had been condemned, as Wetsten and Bengel do; but because he had found some other MSS., that have the readings for which Stephanus had been quoted by his predecessors; and accordingly, in Griesbach, the readings most commonly stand under the quotation of "al." As Wetsten is the leader in the cry against Stephanus, I have looked over his various readings in the Acts of the Apostles-taking that book, as being in the first volume of Stephanus, where we can have no dispute about E, and being at the same time part of the third division of the sacred text, which the Docti et Prudentes single out, as the grand object of their attack. In the Acts, then, Wetsten quotes Stephanus's unmarked MSS. twenty-five times. In Acts xiv. 13-25, he quotes them six times; and the lowest number of copies, whose readings he gives in any one of those six places, is three. And let not the reader think that there is anything singular in so many quotations of the unmarked MSS. of Stephanus by Wetsten, in this part. He may satisfy himself of the contrary by turning to vol. i. p. 607, of Wetsten, where he will find three quotations of them in two verses, Mark x. 47, 48; three again in p. 620, Mark xiii. 9—14. In page 482, Matt. xxiii. 8—11,

he will find four quotations of them. The first of these four-viz., the reading of didaσkalos for Kaonyпrns, Matt. xxiii. 8, "Stephani unus," deserves particular attention; for this was one of the unmarked MSS. of the royal library. There were two out of the copia (15) which the king's library supplied for the text of the O mirificam, that had this reading. This Beza found recorded in his book of collations, and said, "In duobus codicibus regia bibliothecæ legimus diduokaλos, eodem sensu et fortasse rectius." One of these two came into the thirteen, that Stephanus selected to oppose the text of his folio in the first volume, and he noted it in his margin accordinglyviz., ε, which is No. 6 of Wetsten, who quotes both of these royal MSS., the marked and the unmarked, "ka0nynτns] didαokaλoç unus Stephani, 6, &c." Bengel gives in reality the same account as Wetsten, but does not state it so perspicuously. For the reading didaokalos, he quotes the marked MS., "Steph. e," and, for the unmarked royal MS. the "unus Stephani," he says "alii apud Erasmum et Bezam." With the concession, then, of this single page of Wetsten, and I will even say, with the single concession of this one note, I would meet the atrocious charges of the Docti et Prudentes, and brave their horse laugh. With the admission of this one MS. regia bibliothecæ," it should not be said of P. Claudius alone "qui risus multas ipsi lacrymas adtulit." With this alone, I boldly ask what becomes of the assertion, that Griesbach at last worked himself up to make "codices quidem manuscriptos eum consuluisse, sed quindecim tantum," xvi. 3, Lond. xxviii. Do not you think that Wetsten ascribed to Beza rather more knowledge than he actually possessed, and somewhat more than the source, which he referred to, would afford, when he pronounced "Foedissimum illud," that Beza, "ex præfatione Stephani sciret xv tantum MSS. codices ab eo consultos et cum editis collatos fuisse" (148, Seml. 380). What now do you think of the communis Eruditorum consensus, by which "Bezæ autoritati multum detractum est"? (Wetsten 147, Seml. 378). you still believe that Henry saw only the outside of the plusquam triginta? Do you agree with his libeller that he swelled the number of his MSS., and that he had a desire of magnifying the achievements of his early years, when he told you of his finding the same Kepuλaia in all the plusquam xxx. Then with respect to those MSS. which made Stephanus first assume the title, "N. T. ex bibliotheca regia.' With this one reading from what we see Wetsten and Bengel knew

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When it is seen that the readings which Beza gives are so numerous, that even those of the unmarked MSS. which Wetsten thinks proper to quote appear very frequently twice, sometimes three and four times, in one of the critic's pages, some judgment may be formed of the accusation that is brought, Mill 1258, Ecquis vero ipsi usus harum lectionum? Adhibet eas scilicet ad explicandos Scripturæ sensus, seu etiam volεσeç suas stabiliendas. Griesbach is not ashamed to repeat this XXXI., Lond. XLI. And you will find it in Bishop Marsh, Lect. vi. p. 109, without throwing the responsibility upon Mill, "he used them chiefly for polemical purposes in his notes;" just as it stood in Mr. Porson, p. 96, "he seldom mentions them but to support his own hypotheses;" all ultimately attributable to what Wetsten quotes from good Father Morin, at 148, Seml. 380,"varietates cuas aliquo modo probavit, eas tantum retulit."

to be an unmarked MS. that Stephanus received from the royal library, do you still think that he had only the eight marked MSS. from thence? Wetsten concludes his discussion for getting rid of the Barberini codd. (No. iii.) with the reflection that at all events "lis hæc non aliter quam ipsis libris Romæ inventis et productis, quod nunquam credo fiet, solvi potest." But "lis hæc" respecting the amount of the MSS. from the royal library, is decided without any such search at Paris. The production of this single reading of the unmarked MS. will shew on which party the falsehood rests, when they assert that Stephanus had only eight MSS. from thence, in direct contradiction of what he had declared under such striking circumstances of their having amounted to nearly double the number. When Mill had given his account of the print and MS. taken in both selections to oppose the text of the folio, and went to work to collate the O mirificam with themsaying "in textu ad hos codices formando, ita se comparatum ait Robertus ut religiose ac plane ad literam sequeretur plures ac meliores e Regiis," (1177) are you now absolutely certain that he had got "ea omnia, quæ in Regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant"? With this one acknowledged MS. "regia bibliothecæ," will you still tell me that, when Stephanus says "that he has not suffered a letter to be printed in his O mirificam, but what the greater part of the better MSS. from the royal library unanimously approved," you are absolutely certain that "this boast is utterly false"? Will you still assert "Quicquid Stephanus in prima et secunda editione jactet, nempe ad regios codices recensitas esse, revera tamen non nisi rarissime, et ubi omnes aut plerique codices contra Erasmianum conspirabant, in Textu emendando illos adhibuit" (Wetsten 145, 2, Seml. 374)? Do not you think that a satisfactory answer might be given to that question which, according to Michaelis, ii. 325, Le Long's dupe put to him-viz., "How is it possible that MSS. could be found in the royal library which Stephens did not enumerate among the eight?" I can conceive it possible that seven MSS. may be found there, which "Stephens did not enumerate among the eight," that he took in his two selections to oppose the folio; when I am assisted by the production of this reading in confirmation of his boast before the Sorbonne of the amount of" ea omnia quæ in regis Galliarum bibliotheca extant." If you were able to shew that he gives a passage in the Acts and Cath. Ep. which was not in any one of the marked MSS. of the margin, would you still trust to your logic, and "infer that as the MSS. cited by Robert Stephens did not contain it, he must have inserted it without MS. authority"? To whose words do you now think the charge of empty and false actually belongs, when Griesbach, going upon Mill's precious collation, says of Stephanus, and his O mirificam, that although "e codicibus, quorum copiam bibliotheca regia suppeditaverat, ita recensuisse se profitetur, ut nullum omnino literum secus esse passus sit, quam plures que meliores libri tanquam testes comprobarent' "vanissima tamen hæc omnia sunt atque falsissima"? (xviii. 7, Lond. xxx.) By whatever means Bishop Marsh came to his conclusion, Michaelis ii. 856, note 37, was not his lordship right in intimating that when the Docti et Prudentes identify the documents of the VOL. V.-Jun. 1834.

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