ERRATA RECEPTA. 51 



future scribes. In somewbat similar strain runs an exhortation at 

 the beginning of the Precatio of St. Nerses (circa 1100) : " Yos autem 

 qui earn in libris transcribitis, hsec quoque exbortationis verba scribite j 

 et qui earn scripserint, ipsimet seribantur in catalogo ^eternse vitae j 

 et qui earn didicerint et recitaverint, misericordiam a Christo inveni- 

 ant. Qui vero earn socium docuerint mercedem a Deo accipiant ; 

 et qui earn scripserint ne verbum quidem aut syllabam addant vel 

 minuant, preeter quam quod scripsimus, ne variantia fuerint exem- 

 plaria, sed similia cuncta, ubicunque seribantur." 



In spite of every precaution, however, slips of the pen would occur. 

 What with these, and errors from other causes already hinted at, 

 there is no especial reason for wonder then, that when, on the inven- 

 tion of printing, the manuscript remains of the ancient literatures, 

 Hebrew, Greek and Latin, came to be collated for the purpose of 

 preparing texts for the press, a variety of readings in the manuscripts 

 of the several authors was discovered. 



From the Revival of Letters to the present time, it has been the 

 anxious effort of careful critics to reconcile differences between conflic- 

 ting codices, and to educe from them, by elimination and combination, 

 the ipsissima verba, so far as it is practicable, of the original writers j 

 and, as far as the principal and best-known authors of antiquity are 

 concerned, great progress has been made towards purity of text. 

 Through the united labours of the setters-forth of the Editiones prin- 

 cipes, and the subsequent studies of German and French and British 

 scholars — of Hermann and Brunck ; of Casaubon and Brotier ; of 

 Person and Bentley — the works of the leading poets, dramatists, his- 

 torians, and orators, of Greece and Rome, now appear in a compara- 

 tively satisfactory condition. It cannot, indeed, be said that, in each 

 class of these fathers of the literature of the civilized world, difficul- 

 ties have been cleared up in an equal degree. But, it is evident that, 

 in all of them, great advances have been made towards the very words 

 of the respective authors. Homer and Herodotus ; JEschylus and 

 Thucydides ; Plato and Aristophanes ; with Horace and Livy, and 

 Tacitus and Terence, can be read and enjoyed by the youth of the 

 present generation, with a much less cumbrous apparatus of note and 

 comment, than they could be by their immediate ancestors. 



In tkei?' days, while yet " flourished " the so-called Porson-school, 

 a critical edition of a Greek or Roman writer presented a somewhat 

 formidable appearance. At the top of each page was the text, spar- 



