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    Had he pot been " the opponent of an English Bishop , ' he would prdbafrly have summed up his opinion in some more brief and forcible p hrases . Sabatier , in his edition of the fragments of the ftalic version , has given ( not from any MS ., but from Yigihjus Tapsensis ) the seventh and eighth

    verses , and compared them with the Greek as found in the common e . di-r tipns , and also in something which hje calls Bihliis Philippi gecundi . At the sight of these words a bright imagination shot into the Bishop ' s mind ; the Bible of Philip the Second must be either the Antwerp Polyglot , or a MS . of the New Testament in the palace of the E $ curjal 9 built by Philip the Second . It cannot be the former , because it does not answer to the

    reading of that edition ; it must be the latter ; there must be a Qreek MS , in the gscurial which contains the Heavenl y Witnesses , and he only won ^ . ders that the possessor of this " pearl of great price , if genuine , should have cast it before t ^ e public with such indifference . " Crito has put an end to this agreeable vision , b y observing that the pnly variation between the Antrwerp Polyglot and the quotation of Sabatier is , that he fras left out the words in which that edition agrees with the common text .

    " It is not in the power of man to deduce more than has now been deduced , from the passage of Sabatier . What , then , is the consequence ? In a moment , an imaginary diamond is converted into an ordinary pebble;—a visionary manuscript , containing the seventh verse , metanaprphosed into the substantial Antwerp Polyglot . And thus , we are once more led to lament , with Mr . Porsoii , that while there are so many real , visible ^ tangible , legible manuscripts which want the verse , those aerial scroljs which are thought to

    contain it ungratefully beguile their votaries at a distance——nee mortalis dignantur visere ccetus , Nee se contingi patiuntur lumine claro . The truth of the matter , however , in the case just considered , is most palpable . It could be mistaken only by a mind more than usually affected by that hallucination which seems to haunt the advocates of the controverted text . " —Pp . 113 , 114 . A worthy companion to this imaginary MS . in the Escurial is contained in the following letter frona the learned Rector pf Lincoln College , Oxford :

    " * Porson ' s book never shook my conviction of the authenticity of the important verse , which has so long and laudabl y engaged your indefatigable study . The arfcfuj and superficial way in which he treated the interesting subject , and his unmannerly behaviour to Mr . Travis , brought me some years ago into St . JV | $ y ; y ' s pulpit , with a sermon upon tUe disputed text ; which sermon I have mislaid , and cannot find . ' It is to be lamented that the learned Rector should have employed language of this kind . It is to be lamented—but not on Mr . Porsqn's account . —Let me observe that the letter

    here quoted was in ansjver tp some inquiries of JEfishop Burgess respecting a Greek MS . of the New Testamenjt , containing the disputed verse , reported to have been aj ; one time extant in the Library of Lincoln College . ( Letter to Clergy of St . David ' s , p . 85 . ) ^ Touching tjiis sanie MS . tye learned Rector writes as fqllows : * What I said about the MS . tliat I had * seep , which contained the verse , I cannot accurately state . It was a JVISl in the College Library , and seen in the presence of Dr . Parsons , late Bishop of Peterborough ; but on looking for it when I preached the sermon , it was not

    found , nor can xt be found at the present time . ' —And thus did the Lincoln College MS ., like other MSS . already mentioned , shrink from too close au inspection . Et fugit ad salices , et se cupit ante videri . } t is surprising that the runaway shoulu have excited so little curiosity . ?'— -Note , pp . 333 , 334 . It appears from a subsequent passage , p . 3 ( 59 , that Dr . parsons , in com-

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    326 lieview . — Vindication of Porsoti .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 326, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/38/