Guardian from London, Greater London, England • Page 20

212 THE GTJAKDIAN, FEBBUABY 6, 1890. many points of view as these few rough-slaved houses, clustered round the tall oampanile of their ohuroh and overlooked by the rained tower of their long-deserted oastle. If I were a botanist I should have much to say about the wealth of wild flowers here; and if I were an entomologist could fill pages with descriptions of gorgeous butterflies and moths and beetles, and other winged and painted insects whose proper designations are unknown to me. As I am very ignorant on these subjects I will only say that if any lover of insects or flowers should visit this neighbourhood he will find his tastes very plentifully gratified. Birds are rare; rook-pigeons, jays green woodpeckers, and sparrow-hawks, and now and then a large kind of thrush and the common blackbird are almost the only sorts of larger birds often to be met, and the smaller birds are fewer still, excepting only this is a large exception.

They are here in abundance through the summer up to the middle of July, filling the woods and the garden round this house night and day with their song. I ought to add here that if any kinsman of Isaac Walton should oome this way he will find streams full of trout, and no keepers to warn him off. Four or five hours' drive down the pass will bring you to the railway at Ventimiglia, so that San Dalmazzo is to be easily reached from the north and from the south. The new line of railway from Turin to the Riviera is designed to have a station only about two miles from this house, but if any of your readers wish to enjoy San Dalmazzo I would advise them to come and see it in its simplicity before the railway comes. F.

N. O. REVIEWS. THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY'S EDITION OF THE, After many years' work, the Bishop of Salisbury has produced the first part of his edition of the Vulgate. About ten years ago a number of distinguished theologians strongly represented to the delegates of the Clarendon Press the advisability of pro ducing a critical edition of the Vulgate, and the work was intrusted to Mr.

Wordsworth, then Grinfield Lecturer in the LXX Hitherto scarcely any real eritioal acumen had been brought to bear on the subject, and nearly all the information available was to be found in Professor Westcott's article on the Vulgate in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible." Bentley had collated several MSS. in England and France with the assistance of Mr. John Walker, in preparation for the grand critical work on the Greek and Latin Testament which he projected but the results were hidden away in three MS. interleaved copies of the New Testament in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Moreover, he was often inaccurate in his collation, especially in the omission of various readings.

Lachmann, in his text of the New Testament, contented himself as far as the Vulgate was concerned with a faulty collation of Codices Amiatinus and Fuldensis. Since then Tischendorf had issued a transcription of the former and Von Ranke of the latter. Other MSS. also were to be found in other bookB, either collated or given in full; but Bishop Wordsworth has added a careful collation of eighteen MSS. which have never been published before, besides a revision of twelve others.

To show how careless some of his predecessors had been, there are no less than thirty mistakes in one page of Stevenson and Waring's Lindisfarne Gospels. The Bishop put before himself (1) to attempt a restoration of St. Jerome's revision as far as possible (2) to give a complete apparatus criticus of about thirty selected MSS. typical of different countries or of later recensions; (3) to compare the four most prominent types of the printed Vulgate; (4) to use Bentley's collations, which are preserved at Cambridge. To estimate the success Bishop Wordsworth has attained we must first consider the difficulties of the subject.

If we had anything like an early copy of the Vulgate of Jerome, or if Jerome had made an entirely new translation, it would be fairly easy; but neither is the case. The earliest MS. is more than 150 years later than Jerome's time, and Jerome only revised a translation which was already in existence. It was a long time before peoplo got used to this new Vulgate, and as late as the beginning of the seventh century the old was equally used with the new. There is one MS.

at Paris of the eleventh century which is much more like an ante- Hieronymian translation than it is like the Vulgate. During these two hundred years the text of the Vulgate had become largely corrupted by alterations to the earlier translation, and so bad was it in Charlemagne's time that Alcuin and Theodulph of Orleans attempted to revise it. Further revisions took place in the twelfth century, and there are soveral chiefly of the thirteenth, extant, with correctoria by comparison with other MSS. Popes Sixtus V. and Clement VIII.

attempted to revise the Vulgate, and expunge many of the errors which had crept in. The result did not fulfil the early promise, and the modern Vulgate, which represents the Clementine revision, has not yet got rid of all the earlier mistakes. In order to recover as far as possible the Hieronymian text it is necessary first to take the earlier translation upon which it is based, then to compare the oldest MSS. of the Vulgate with it, noting the differences. These may either be caused by alterations in the course of copying, or by ohanges which Jerome made in the text which he revised.

Bishop Wordsworth sometimes relies on the other works of Jerome as evidence of the text he formed; but it not infrequently happens that Jerome is not uniform in the way he quotes a passage. In the Apparatus Criticus some thirty MSS. are chiefly used. Of these about six are Irish or Gallican of a very distinct type; four are apparently of a pure type, and seem to be of Northumbrian origin; three are English, perhaps derived from Augustine's mission to England, and so having their origin in Italy; one is Visigothio of a very peculiar style of spelling; three belong to the Alouinian recension, two to the Theodulphian. The text of Bishop Wordsworth is based chiefly on a comparison of these various groups of most value being attached to the Northumbrian and least to the Irish.

But at times he suggests readings as the original text which have no MS. authority. For instance, in St. Matt. xvi.

9, 10, he conjectures Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Jesu Christi Latine, secundum editiouem sancti Hierouyuii ad codicum manuscriptorum fidein recensuit JOHAHNKS WOEDSWOETH, S.T.P. Bpieoopus Sarisburensis. Partis prioris fasciculus primus, Oxford i Clarendon Press, that milium hominwm is the right reading, though milia and milibus are the readings of the or, again, in xviii. 9 he suggests unoculum with Bentley, where the MSS. vary between uno oculum, unum oculum, cum unum oculum, uno ocula, cum uno oculo, unum oculum habentem.

To speak more in detail of some of the MSS. whioh Bishop Wordsworth has compared for his edition of the Vulgate, the best is the Cod. Amiatinus, whioh is now in the Laurentian Library at Florence. This was formerly supposed to have been written a little after A.D. 641, the date suggested by Tisohendorf.

It contains the whole Latin Bible, with the exoeption of Baruch. It was the most highly valued of any MS. whioh the Sixtine Revisers employed, and was sometimes adopted by them against all other MSS. But during the last year or two it has been dis covered that it was written at the end of the seventh or beginning of the eighth century in the Scriptorium of Wearmouth or Jarrow, by order of Abbot Ceolfrid, and sent by him to Rome (A.D. 715).

The Lindisfarne Gospels very closely resemble it. This was written by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne (A.D. 698-721), and was ornamented with beautiful full-page illuminations, of the most intrioate spiral work. It was the Book of the Gospels desoribed in the second canto of Scott's Marmion" as bumping up against the rocks during the flight of the monkB from the monastery, and is now in the British Museum. Next in value comes a MS.

now in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, written in the sixth century. The first hand of Cod. Hnbertianus is also very like Cod. Amiatinus; this, too, is in the British Museum. It is written in very small black letters, in three columns; it comes from the monastery of St.

Hubert, in the forest of the Ardennes. A later scribe has altered'it, sometimes in the text, sometimes in the margin, to agree with the Theodulphian recension, notice, e.g., St. Matt, xxiii. 13, xiv. 3, xx.

28, xxvii. 32,35. Another interesting in whioh just the reverse has happened, is a large MS. of the Gospels now at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and described by Westwood in his Paloeographia." It came from St. Augustine's, Canterbury, and professes, like the Bodley Gospels, to be by St.

Augustine himself. It dates probably from but little later than his time. The text resembles the Bodley GospelB, but a later scribe has in parts corrected it by a MS. very like Cod. Amiatinus, or the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Bishop Wordsworth calls this corrector but he does not say whether he is a Northumbrian Bcribe. Another MS. valuable for the corrections it contains is the Epternach Gospels. This MS. was not included in the original prospectus.

It is clearly of Saxon origin; it was written in the ninth century, and was for some time at the church of St Willibrod at Epternach. The text is a very fair Vulgate text but it has been correoted either by a Gallican or an Irish MS. At the end there is a note which says that he corrected it as far as possible by a copy from the library of Eugipus, the priest, which was reported to be written in A.D. 558. Bishop Wordsworth has included also five other whioh are very closely allied.

They are peculiar from preserving a much larger number of old Latin readings than any of the other they also contain a great many small interpolations to make the sense more dear; last, and most important, they show traces of independent recension by Greek MSS. The best of these seems to be the Book of Armagh at Trinity College, Dublin. It is valuable for containing the three oldest and most reliable lives of St. Patriok, some charters, one by Brian Boru, an introduction to the Epistle to the Romans, bearing the name of St. Hilary, which is generally known as Ambrosiaster.

It is the only MS. known of Irish origin which contains the whole of the New Testament. It omits St. John v. 4.

The Gospels seem to bo of more value than the Probably next in value is the St. Chad's Gospels preserved at Lichfield. This MS. has lately been splendidly edited by Dr. Scrivener; it is We at Trinity College, Dublin, is well known for its magnificent illuminations.

At Oxford is a large MS. called the Rushworth, or McRcgol, Gospels, vory carelessly written thiB also belongs to the Irish group. Lastly is a MS. whioh has hitherto called it comes from the great monastery of Marmoutier, about three miles from Tours, and is now amongst the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum; it is apparently of Gallican origin, in Caroline minuscules, with rude attempts at illumination.

This MS. contains just the same sort of readings as the Irish MSS. More light may be thrown, perhaps, in the future, on the original source of this most interesting group. The Gospels of Kells and St. Chad are probably of the beginning of the eighth, Armagh, Egerton, and Rushworth of the beginning of the ninth century.

Three other MSS. whioh resemble one another very closely in the text are the Alcuinian, or Caroline, Gospels, in the British Museum, the St. Martin Gospels at Tours, and the Vallicellan Bible at Rome. These represent the recension which Alcuin made in the north of France, whilst Theodulph was working with the same object in the south. The oldest of the three is the St.

Martin of Tours Gospels. It is written most beautifully in large gold uncials, each letter carefully burnished. It was used at the coronations for the kings of France to take the oath of loyalty to their country. The Vallicellan text is superior to the one in the British Museum. They both contain the whole Bible.

Professor Westcott gives a list of contents in his article in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible." Other MSS. which have been collected or revised for this edition of the Vulgate are Cod. Bigotianus, now at Paris; Cod. Cavensis, from Spain, written by one Danila; Cod. FoldenBis, which was written in Capua about the middle of the sixth century, and of great worth; Cod.

Foro-Juliensis, of the sixth or seventh century, already edited by Bianchini and Dobrouski; Cod. Toletanus, like Cod. Cavensis, of Spanish origin and the Harleian Gospels, once in Paris, but now in the British Museum. Bishop Wordsworth has also selected a MS. (British Museum 1 B.

xii.) by William of Hales, and dated 1254, as a very good speoimen (indeed, it is unusually pure) of the Vulgate of that time. The present volume contains an Introduction of about 40 pages It is in some parts written in Greek characters as e.g., the Lord's Prayer iu St. Matthew; the title varies between cata and secundum Mattheum at the top of the pages, both are often written in Greek letters, giving a list of MSS. and printed editions which have been used also a list of some of the most important readings in Matthew. Then comes the usual prefatory matter in the older MSS.

of Jerome's letter to Damasus, letter to Carpianus, Eusebius' oanons and tables of ohapters. Lastly, there is Bishop Wordsworth's text of the Vulgate in St. Matthew with the Italio text of Ood. Brixianus, reprinted below, and the Apparatus Critions. This latter is very full, giving where it ig of any interest the Old Latin readings and the Greek text, so that in some places the reader can traoe the history of the text from the African of the second century through the European and Italio to the Vnlgate, then through the different types of different countries, through the recensions of the ninth oentnry with the correctoria of the thirteenth to the great revision of Sixtus V.

and the early printed editions of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, and lastly Bentley's criticisms and emendations. We have not been able to detect many errors. We question whether 2 is an Old Latin text; it seems to be only an Irish specimen of the Vnlgate with a remarkable similarity to an undoubtedly Old Latin MS. in a few placeB in St. Matthew.

a should probably be in Matt. vi. 26. There is probably some mistake in the reading of T. in Matt.

vii. 22, and of St. Martin of Tours, and Corp. Christi Camb. Gosps.

in x. 18; reads omne peccatum et blasphemia remittetur hominibua without Add. in xii. 31; ff 2 reads illia not UU xiv. 14, adds et after doctrinas xv.

9, reads remisit xviii. 27 gedsamani xxvi. 36. Bat these are trifling and unimportant. Twelve English Statesmen: Walpole.

By JOHN MORLEY Macmillans. To meet Mr. John Morley on the literary platform would be an unmixed pleasure if it did not inspire one with fresh regret that he Bhould ever have abandoned it for the political. Nothing can be better than this life of Sir Robert Walpole, but it is curiously opposed to the political position which Mr. Morley now ocenpies.

He is engaged in a crusade which aims at an object that is sensational, startling, Utopian, revolutionary. It is one which requires him to shut hiB eyes to patent facts, to invent excuses for crime, and to throw a shield over all kinds of misrepresentation. It is a course which exacts the exercise of a high degree of ingenuity and subtlety in the employment of words to hide the absence of distinct significance. All this is as contrary as possible to the character which Mr. Morley excellently describea in this book.

Walpole was the concentrated essence of ordinary common sense. His great object was to keep things quiot, to avoid all disturbance, and shunt all stirring and exciting questions. No favourite object or cherished prepossession ever disturbed his clear view of the circumstances by which he was surrounded. He saw things always as they were. His will was strong, his vision clear, his purposes distinct; but he soon discovered how far it was possible to push them, and he was content to go just so far and no further.

If he could not do what seemed to him the best, he quietly acquiesced in the second best. He was a perfect type of the Opportunist, and he gloried in He always applied himself," says Lord Eervey, to the present occurrence, studying and generally hitting upon the properest method to improve what was favourable, and the best expedient to extricate himself out of what was difficult." When some one told him of a man who had deserted to the Tories after promising to stand always by the Whigs, I advise my young men," Walpole said, "never to use always." A flexible temper of this kind is not likely to be particular about the means employed to reach an end and the minister is very well touched in this respect in a sentence by his epigrammatic son, He durst do right, but he durst do wrong too." A character like this cannot, of course, be placed very high: but Mr. Morley gives a just measure of Government, like all the practical arts, means the overcoming of fficulties. It is the greatest of the practical arts, because its ends are the highest, and the difficulties the most subtle, complex, and incalculable. The world will never place Walpole in the highest rank among those who have governed men, for in the world's fiual estimate character goes farther than act, imagination than utility, and its leaders strike us as much by what they were as by what they did.

But Walpole was high enough for his task; he possessed the qualities and mastered the manners that it required." Walpole's personality is certainly not an attractive one. He inherited from his father, a Norfolk squire, who might have sate to Fielding for the portrait of Squire Western, all the coarseness, rudeness, and vulgarity of his age and station It is said that Robert the elder used to insist on making his son drink more than his just share, on the ground that no son should ever be allowed to have enough of his senses to see that his father was tipsy." Perhaps it was due to this early seasoning that was able to combine with the utmost joviality an immense capacity for work. He was popular as a boon companion, and in spite of his utter alienation from all literary tasted, he could make himself agreeable to Pope Seen him I have; but in his happier hour Of social pleasure ill-exchanged for power; Seen him uncumbered with the venal tribe, Smile without art, and win without a bribe." But his moral character was utterly indefensible Walpole's faults of external demeanour were of a kind of which our own age has become intolerant. His talk at table was such afl to-day would send all the ladies flying from the room. He had that very sorry vice which Chesterfield calls his desire to be thought to have a polite and happy turn for gallantry, and he boasted of his successes with a coarseness that would now cause instant expulsion from the mess of any garrison or any circuit in Great Britain.

18 extraordinary laxity in this part of private morality reached to so incredible a pitch that he seems to have been indifferent to the doubtful fidelity of his own wife, and to the legitimacy of his eldest son's eldest boy, though the boy was heir to the Walpole peerage. But though it is impossible to whitewash his private habits, Mr. Morley labours, as we think successfully, to clear his public reputation from the special charge which has been fixed upon A Walpole is commonly regarded as the Minister who made corruption into a fine art. That he used this instrument among others is indisputable, but so high an authority as Edmund Burke has said The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable to perhaps, than to any Minister who ever served the Crown for so a length of time." Corruption was the fashion of the time, but there is no evidenoe that Walpole employed it more than other statesmen of the When he fell, a Beqret committee of the House of Commons wflfl.