nilius.
Even the most valuable Vatican and Alexandrian manuscripts of the
Bible abound in faults of the copiers; and editions of works made
from single manuscripts are always very defective.--witness those of
Cornelius Nepos, and the Greek Hesychius. Patrick Young, (called in
Latin, Patricius Junius,) when keeper of the king's library at
London, scrupled not to erase and alter several words in the most
valuable Alexandrian Greek manuscript copy of the Bible, as is
visible to this day. What wonder, then, (how intolerable such
liberties are,) if the like has been sometimes done by others in
books of less note, with a presumption like that of Dr. Bentley in
his amendments of Horace.
9. Prelim Dissert. on St. Matthew.
10. Sine probabilibus autoribus, Conc. t. 7, 954.
11. Can. 62.
12. Regies de la Critique, t. 2, p. 12, 20, et Diss. 3, p. 134.
13. See Mabillon, Disquis. de Cursu Gallic. Sec.1.
14. Tert. l. de Bapt. c. 17.
15. Catal. Vir Illustr. c. 7.
16. See Nat. Alexander, Collet, Henno, &c., in Decalogum de Mendacio.
17. Grot. l. de Antichr. t. 3, Op. Theolog.
18. Gerson, ep. ad Morel.
19. De Loc. Theol. l. 11, c. 5.
20. Diplomat. l. 3, c. 3.
21. Coutant, Vindic. veter. Cod. Confirm. p. 32, 550, &c.
22. Diplom. t. 4, p. 452, &c.
23. Gurdon, Hist. of Parliament, t. 1.
24. Pref. to Notitia Monastica, in folio.
25. Dissert. 3, de Antiq. Acad.
26. How easy was the mistake of a copyist or bookseller, who ascribed
the works of some modern Austin to the great doctor of that name? or
who, finding several sermons of St. Caesarius annexed in the same copy
to those of St. Austin, imagined them all to belong to one title?
Several disciples published, under the names of St. Austin, St.
Gregory, or St. Zeno, sermons or comments which they had heard from
their mouths: by the same means we have three different editions of
the confession of St. Ephrem. We have already seen many works
falsely published under the name of Boerhaave, which never came from
his pen; as, The Method of Studying Physic, Materia Medica, Praxis
Medica, and a spurious edition of his Chemistry, which seem all to
come from the pens of his scholars.
27. Among the compilers of the lives of saints, some wanted the
discernment of criticism. Simeon Metaphrastes, patrician, first
secretary and chancellor to the emperors Leo the Wise, and
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in