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In this, although it is written with greater care than any other 

 of which I have feen a fpecimen, nothing fimilar can be ob- 

 ferved : The capitals here are always unornamented, and put 

 without the line. Nothing can be more fimple, and at the 

 fame time more beautiful, than the forms of the letters, 

 which aredcftitute of every ornament, although the greateft care 

 and pains are every where vifible in the making of them. 

 Wherefore, what I before inferred from its having all the figns 

 of antiquity, I now conclude from its wanting all the figns of 

 modernnefs. 



A THIRD argument is drawn from the want of fpirits and 

 accents ; which having been before confined to the books of the 

 grammarians, were, according to Montfaucon (Palasog. p. 223) 

 firft introduced into the manufcripts in the feventh century. 

 And as I cannot upon a very diligent enquiry find them in this 

 manufcript, it forms a very ftrong argument that it precedes the 

 feventh century. The Ceejarean Diofcorides of the fixth, and Claro- 

 montam of the feventh century (vide Palaeog. p. 217, and Lambe- 

 cius'i Comment. deBibl. Casfarca, Tom. ii. p. 521) are written with 

 accents and fpirits : alfo the Coijlinian manufcripts. No i and 

 No. 202 (vide Bibl. Coiflinian. p. i and 252) which are of the 

 fixth century. But in thefe manufcripts the accents are fup- 

 pofed to have been put by a fecond hand. 



I SHALL now proceed to confider fome objedions which may 

 be made to this conclufion, " that it precedes the feventh cen- 

 " tury," and which might lead us to fuppofe it pofterior in point 



(R) of 



