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the Leibnitzes, the Sir Thomas Moores,-and exclaims with pious fervour, "Let my soul be with theirs." I marvel not at the wish; though I greatly doubt whether, if the Pascals and Fenelons could rise to life and pursue the work of their admirer, the wish would be reciprocal; whether, disposed as they might be to look with an eye of fervour upon any effort made in support of what they deemed the true faith, they would think its defence safely entrusted to one who could comment, as our Traveller has done, on the pretended miracle described in the following passage:

"Il (Marc)+ avoit deux vases, un plus grand et un plus petit; et mettoit le vin destiné a la celebration du sacrifice de la messe dans le petit et faisoit une priere; un instant après le liqueur bouillonnoit dans le grand vase, et l'on y voyoit du sang au lieu du vin. Ce vase n'étoit apparemment que ce que l'on appelle communement la fontaine des nôces de Cana; c'est un vase dans lequel on verse de l'eau, l'eau versee fait monter du vin que l'on a mis auparavant dans ce vase et dont il se remplit." This pretended miracle is represented, by our Traveller, as an effort of the Marcionite heretics to outbid, if he may so say, the orthodox altar in its marvels. This is not the language which the Pascals and Fenelons would have used respecting the miracle of the eucharist. But it seems that our Traveller has also his secret discipline, and that this language is intended for the initiated, to intimate to them the degree of credit which he attaches to miracles in general; while he is mystifying the unlearned by his laboured defence of the miracle of transubstantiation.

I have now gone through that which our Traveller apparently intended us to consider as the argumentative portion of his work. Henceforward he lays aside his assumed character of an inquirer after religious truth, and proceeds to assail Protestantism with the weapons of culumny and abuse. His desultory remarks do not deserve, even if they admitted, a regular answer; but it may be worth while briefly to notice some of the fallacies and misrepresentations which are purposely scattered among them. I am, &c. PHILALETHES CANTABRIGIENSIS.

VINDICATION OF THE EARLY PARISIAN GREEK PRESS.
(Continued from p. 417.)

[ERRATA IN LAST LETTER-P. 413, line 2, for n. 44, read 1144; line 28, for Genevan, read Basil; line 8 ab imo, for the best copia, read the best of the copia.]

BUT there is a marked MS. of much more importance to us than B,-I mean ɛ; because it testifies on that division of scripture, where

Why is the Lutheran Leibnitz thus honoured with an introduction into Roman catholic company?

The reader will find an account, both of Marcus and of this pretended miracle, in Irenæus, 1. 1, cap. 9, 10.

Our Traveller appears here to confound Marcus with Marcion.

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the Docti et Prudentes make their grand attack, viz. the Acts and the catholic epistles.* 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" occur, he did not take the whole even of the marked MSS.; that he took only the first thirteen of them, ß-id, 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 us and us (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 Hebræos] plane nullas, e reliquis Paulinis perpaucas lectiones decerpsit ;" and the same may be said of is, 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 epistolæ Johannis Stephanum fuisse usum sed non nisi septem," as it is rendered by Mr. Lindsey. 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 d, e, 5, 0, i, ia, ty, nam Steph. a est ed. Comp. ; in reliquis codd. Steph. non erant epistolæ." 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, d, e, 4, 0, 1, ia, ty, 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, " dubitationem positum jam est Stephanum non habuisse codices epistolarum catholicarum manuscriptos plures quam septem illos, d, e, 4, 0, 1, la, 17, -." And who can wonder at this hardihood of assertion, which pervades the writings of all the Docti et Prudentes? It was a case of no trifling urgency; for if you admit that Stephanus

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extra omnem

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."

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"? 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. ɛ, auctoribus Le Longio et Wetstenio, regius quondam 2869, nunc 237; nobis in Actis et catholicis epistolis 10." Turn to Wetsten, "De codicibus junioribus Actorum Apostolicorum et epistolarum catholicarum ;" and to Griesbach's catalogue on this division, " codices minusculis literis scripti;" and look at this same No. 10, and what do you see there? If I have not erred-" Steph. u," to which Griesbach adds, "Ex Actis et Epist. Cathol. nullas lectiones decerpserat Stephanus; denuo contulit Wetstenius;" 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, d, e, 4, 0, 1, a, y," 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" will be moved at you, when you see this same , 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, "Stephanum non habuisse codd MSS. plures quam septem illos:" 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

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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," vetustissima and scripta, 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, B-d, 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

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. 73, when the Professor, with all his caution (for who is sufficient for 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 and scripta.

As to Mr. Porson himself, when I consider these open accuracies of Le Long, Wetsten, Griesbach, &c. &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. 391.) 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 d, e, 4, 0, 4, ta, ty," 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