hen authors, and so
render them less liable to corrupt the holy contemplations of the
devotee; and while we blame the pious fraud, we cannot but respect the
motive that dictated it.

But as regards the Scriptures, we talk of the carelessness of the monks
and the interpolations of the scribes as if these were faults peculiar to
the monastic ages alone; alas! the history of Biblical transmission tells
us differently, the gross perversions, omissions, and errors wrought in
the holy text, proclaim how prevalent these same faults have been in the
ages of _printed literature_, and which appear more palpable by being
produced amidst deep scholars, and surrounded with all the critical
acumen of a learned age. Five or six thousand of these gross blunders, or
these wilful mutilations, protest the unpleasant fact, and show how much
of human grossness it has acquired, and how besmeared with corruption
those sacred pages have become in passing through the hands of man, and
the "revisings" of sectarian minds. I am tempted to illustrate this by an
anecdote related by Sir Nicholas L'Estrange of Hunstanton, and preserved
in a MS. in the Harlein collection.--"Dr. Usher, Bish. of Armath, being
to preach at Paules Crosse and passing hastily by one of the stationers,
called for a Bible, and had a little one of the London edition given him
out, but when he came to looke for his text, that very verse was omitted
in the print: which gave the first occasion of complaint to the king of
the insufferable negligence, and insufficience of the London printers and
presse, and bredde that great contest that followed, betwixt the univers.
of Cambridge and London stationers, about printing of the Bibles."[54]
Gross and numerous indeed were the errors of the corrupt bible text of
that age, and far exceeding even the blunders of monkish pens, and
certainly much less excusable, for in those times they seldom had a large
collection of codices to compare, so that by studying their various
readings, they could arrive at a more certain and authentic version. The
paucity of the sacred volume, if it rendered their pens more liable to
err, served to enforce upon them the necessity of still greater scrutiny.
On looking over a monastic catalogue, the first volume that I search for
is the Bible; and, I feel far more disappointment if I find it not there,
than I do at the absence of Horace or Ovid--there is something so
desolate in the idea of a Christian priest withou