that the Italian version is a mere dream:' Itala, in Augustine, should be illa. Archbishop Potter's usitata, viewed merely as an emendation, was far more intrinsically probable; but Cardinal Wiseman's arguments in his letters (1832-3),-reinforced by Lachmann's illustrations, have placed it beyond reasonable doubt that Augustine really wrote Itala. As to his meaning, all that is certain is that he intended to distinguish this Italian' text from the African' (codices Afros) which he mentions elsewhere. Of a Latin version, or Latin

versions, prior to Jerome's-which was a recension, with the aid of Greek MSS., not a new and original version— Bentley could scarcely know anything. The documents were first made accessible in Bianchini's Evangeliarium Quadruplex (1749), and the Benedictine Sabatier's Bibliorum Sacrorum Latinae Versiones Antiquae (1751). It must be remembered, however, that Bentley's aim was to restore the text as received in the fourth century; he did not profess to restore the text of an earlier age.

Bentley's edition would have given to the world the readings of all the older Greek MSS. then known, and an apparatus, still unequalled in its range of authorities, for the text of the Latin Vulgate New Testament: but it would have done more still. Whatever might have been its defects, it would have represented the carliest attempt to construct a text of the New Testament directly from the most ancient documents, without reference to any printed edition. A century passed before such an attempt was again made. Bentley's immediate successors in this field did not work on his distinctive lines. In 1726 Bengel's Greek Testament was almost ready for the press, and he writes thus:- What principally holds me back is the delay of Bentley's promised

edition... Bentley possesses invaluable advantages; but he has prepossessions of his own which may prove very detrimental to the Received Text: '-this 'received text' being, in fact, the Syrian text in its mediæval form. Bengel's text, published at Tübingen in 1734, was not based on Bentley's principles, though the value of these is incidentally recognised in his discussions. Wetstein's edition of 1751-2 supplied fresh materials; in criticism, however, he represents rather a reaction from Bentley's view, for his tendency was to find traces of corruption in any close agreement between the ancient Greek MSS. and the ancient versions. Griesbach prepared the way for a properly critical text by seeking an historical basis in the genealogy of the documents.

But it was Lachmann, in his small edition of 1831, who first gave a modified fulfilment to Bentley's design, by publishing a text irrespective of the printed tradition, and based wholly on the ancient authorities. Lachmann also applied Bentley's principle of Greek and Latin consent. As Bentley had proposed to use the Vulgate Latin, so Lachmann used what he deemed the best MSS. of the Old Latin,-combined with some Latin Fathers and with such Greek MSS. as were manifestly of the same type. Lachmann compared this group of witnesses from the West with the other or'Eastern' Greek authorities; and, where they agreed, he laid stress on that agreement as a security for the genuineness of readings. Bentley had intended to print the Greek text and the Vulgate Latin side by side. Lachmann, in his larger edition (1840-1852), so far executed this plan as to print at the foot of the page a greatly improved Vulgate text, based chiefly on the two oldest MSS. For Lach

mann, however, the authority of the Vulgate was only accessory (Hieronymo pro se auctore non utimur'), on account of the higher antiquity of the Old Latin. Those who taunted Lachmann with 'aping' Bentley ('simia Bentleii') misrepresented both. It is to Lachmann and to Tregelles that we primarily owe the revived knowledge and appreciation in this country of Bentley's labours on the New Testament, to which Tischendorf also accords recognition in his edition of 1859.

Bentley's place in the history of sacred criticism agrees with the general character of his work in other provinces. His ideas were in advance of his age, and also of the means at his disposal for executing them. He gave an initial impulse, of which the effect could not be destroyed by the limitation or defeat of his personal labours After a hundred years of comparative neglect, his conception reappeared as an element of acknowledged value in the methods of riper research. The edition of the New Testament published last year (1881) by Dr Westcott and Dr Hort represents a stage of criticism which necessarily lay beyond Bentley's horizon. Yet it is the maturest embodiment of principles which had in him their earliest exponent; and those very delays which closed over his great design may in part be regarded as attesting his growing perception of the rule on which the Cambridge Editors so justly lay stress;-Knowledge of documents. should precede final judgement upon readings.'

CHAPTER XI.

ENGLISH STYLE. EDITION OF PARADISE LOST.

As a writer of English, Bentley is represented by the Dissertation on Phalaris, the Boyle Lectures, the Remarks on a Discourse of Free-thinking, sermons, and letters. These fall mainly within the period from 1690 to 1730. During the earlier half of Bentley's life the canon of polite prose was Dryden or Temple; during the latter half it was Addison. Bentley's English is stamped, as we shall see, with the mind of his age, but has been very little influenced by any phase of its manner. His style is thoroughly individual; it is, in fact, the man. The most striking trait is the nervous, homely English. 'Commend me to the man that with a thick hide and solid forehead can stand bluff against plain matter of fact.' 'If the very first Epistle, of nine lines only, has taken me up four pages in scouring, what a sweet piece of work should I have of it to cleanse all the rest for them!' 'Alas, poor Sophist! 'twas ill luck he took none of the money, to fee his advocates lustily; for this is like to be a hard brush.' The 'polite' writers after the Restoration had discarded such English as vulgar; and we have seen that Boyle's Oxford friends complained

of Bentley's descending to low and mean ways of speech.' But, if we allow for the special influence of scriptural language on the Pilgrim's Progress, Bentley drew from the same well as John Bunyan, who died when Bentley was sixteen. Yet Bentley's simple English is racy in a way peculiar to him. It has the tone of a strong mind which goes straight to the truth; it is pointed with the sarcasm of one whose own knowledge is thorough and exact, but who is accustomed to find imposture wrapped up in fine or vague words, and takes an ironical delight in using the very homeliest images and phrases which accurately fit the matter in hand. No one has excelled Bentley in the power of making a pretentious fallacy absurd by the mere force of translation into simple terms; no writer of English has shown greater skill in touching the hidden springs of its native humour.

Here Bentley is the exponent, in his own way, of a spirit which animated the age of Addison and Pope, -the assertion of clear common sense, the desire, as Mr Leslie Stephen says, 'to expel the mystery which had served as a cloak for charlatans.' Bentley's English style reflects, however, another side on which he was not in sympathy with the tendencies of contemporary literature. A scholar of profound learning and original vigour had things to say which could not always be said with the sparkling ease of coffee-house conversation. Bentley's colloquialism is that of strenuous argument, not that of polished small talk. As an outward symbol of his separateness from the wits,' we may observe his use of the Latin element in English. The sermons of Jeremy Taylor, whose life closed soon after Bentley's began, abound in portentous Latin words, -longanimity, recidivation, coadunation. Bentley has

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