170 EX AM IN JT ION of an HISTORICAL HVPOTHESIS 



at full length, perti/i bat ionihus, the abbreviation in the later manu- 

 fcripts mu(l be explained in that manner alone. Now, the Abbe has 

 not taken upon him to maintain, tiiat thofe tv/o which bear the 

 contra(5lion ptl;s are the mod ancient of all the manufcripts ; 

 and his filence on that material point is a prefumption of his 

 knowledge to the contrary. But, even were we to allow that 

 thofe two manufcripts were adlually proved to be the mofl an- 

 cient, let us fee what could thence be concluded. All the other 

 manufcripts, which we fliall fuppofe were copied from thofe two 

 'mod ancient ones, and all the editions of the printed works, have 

 interpreted this conrra(f\ed word, and written it at full length, not 

 partubiis, as M. de Sade would have it read, but perturbationibus. 

 Now, it will not certainly be denied that the writers of thofe 

 old manufcripts, and the editors of the oldeft printed editions,o f 

 the former of whom many were probably cotemporary with 

 the author, and of the latter all lived at no great diftance of 

 time from his age, were much better able to read and to inter- 

 pret the abbreviations of the oldeft manufcripts, than thofe critics 

 who have examined them at the diftance of four hundred years 

 from the time when they were written. Even admitting, therefore, 

 that the Abbe had proved his two favourite manufcripts to be 

 the moft ancient of all extant, and that the queftion were {imply, 

 What is the moft natural interpretation to be given to this con- 

 tradtion ? we have, in oppofition to his opinion, and that of his 

 friends of the King's Library, the diredl authority of all the 

 other manufcripts of the works of Petrarch, and all the print- 

 ed editions, that the word ought to be read not partubus but 

 perturbationibus. 



But I fliall make the author of the Memoires a ftill more impor- 

 tant conceflion ; and I fliall even put the cafe, that inftead of two 

 manufcripts, perhaps out of two hundred, which read the word 

 contraded thus ptbs, while the reft have it at full length perturba- 

 tioriibus, the whole exifting manufcripts of the author's works had 



borne 



