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    have escaped him , tilJ he had ascertained , beyond the possibility of a doubt , that the charge he has advanced was well-founded . 1 regret that various engagements have prevented me from entering earlier upon a vindication of the learned critic and divine "

    Mr . Rutt is not the first to charge Dr . Bentley with the pious fraud of translating the terms ldiotis Evangelistis , in the quotation from Victor , and of palming that translation upon Collins , in order to hold him up to

    ridicule . Mr . Prichard , of Ledbury , in Herefordshire , preferred the same charge above fifty years ago ; in consequence of which , a correspondence took place between him and Dr . Lort , and the charge was satisfactorily refuted . Dr . Lort asserts : " In the

    copy which I have of Collins ' s book , the passage is actually translated , and Bentley lias quoted it very fairly in his remarks . But the mystery lies here—Collins had this book more than once reprinted abroad , though

    in the title-page said to be at London ; and besides several additions , the translations of the Authors quoted are in several places corrected from Dr . Bentley * s Remarks , and some references are made to these Remarks . "

    Mr . Rutt is too well acquainted with books , not to know that in Collins ' s days , there was not the same accuracy in making editions that prevails now . The Discourse on Freethinking , which was before him , when he wrote his letter , and which , I have

    no doubt , is the edition which is now before me , has all the appearance of being a first edition : but it is not really the first edition . Dr . Lort was in possession of the first edition ; " on

    the back of tho title-page" of which , ( he tells Mr . Prichard , ) " "he found what follows in his own hand-writing : the following alterations are to be found in the second edition of this

    book , viz . P . 40 , after absolutely necessary , the following paragraph is omitted ; // a man be under any obligation to listen to any revelation at alL P . 90 . JJy Idiot JfcJvangelists , omitted . »

    P . 185 . Though he was chief priest . The word t 7 « e / 'omitted . " He adds , " I cannot recollect at present how or whence I procured

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    these alterations ; but if they are all to be found in your copy , I think the affair will be sufficiently cleared up , and it will appear that a new edition

    was printed , not indeed for the sake of altering two words only of trifling consequence 9 but of three , which a £ fected the Author ' s credit as a scholar , more , perhaps , than any three words in his book . "

    This interesting correspondence will be found in one of the most entertaining works lately published , Nichols ' s Literary Anecdotes , II . 673—67 Q . Having access to some other of the Answers to Collins ' s Discourse , it occurred to me , that they might furnish a further vindication of Bentley . I have not been disappointed .

    In the 13 th of the * ' Queries recommended to the Authors of the late Discourse of Freethinking , by a Christian , ( Dr . Hoadly , ) Lond . 1713 /' I find the following : " Whether these Authors be not scholars enough to know that ldiotis Evangelistis could not then signify Idiot Evangelists , in the sense in which we now use that

    word for natural fools , but only men without polite learning . If they be not , whether they should pretend to translate and make quotations . If they be , whether any thing can . excuse such barbarous usage . " Queries ,

    &c . p . 8-Whiston , in his " Reflections on am Anonymous Pamphlet , fyc . fyc Lond . 1718 , " says , page 38 , "I pass over that idle tale and miserable

    translation about the correction of the Holy Gospels , under Arrastasius , as written by Idiot Evangelists ; " and in the next page : " But this translation of Ab ldiotis Evangelistis , by Idiot , instead of plain and unartful Evangelists , deserves rather the rod of a

    schoolmaster , than the reflection of a scholar upon it . If a clergyman had been guilty of so great weakness or prevarication , call it which you please , as this translation , which yet is not the only one of this nature in this pamphlet ,, he would hardly have escaped the lash of this writer , " &c .

    Whiston bears his testimony to the existence of another of the passages , said by Dr . Lort to have been in the first edition , though expunged from the second . To pass by his erratum or dele , " If a man be under any obligation to listen to any revelation at all *

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    f 44 On Mr * RutVs Charges against Dr . Bentley .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1818, page 744, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2483/page/16/