431 



passage, Dr. Dobbin, nevertheless, undertook the vindication 

 of the manuscript from three distinct charges, seriously affect- 

 ing its value and trust-worthiness, which he announced in 

 the following terms : — 



" It has become a kind of fashion to decry the Codex 

 Montfortii— 



"I. As a modern forgery. 



" II. As a Latinizing Codex. 



" III. As a Cursive, and therefore not so valuable as an 

 Uncial, manuscript. 



" Porson, the wit and the scholar (in his immortal letters 

 to Travis), will stand at the head of the first class. 



" Erasmus and Wetstein at the head of the second. 



" While the host of superficial readers, and second-hand 

 critics, will constitute the third." 



With Dr. Adam Clarke's judgment, he being by far the 

 most favourable of modern critics to the value and antiquity 

 of the manuscript, the author differed on most important 

 points, while the specific object of his paper was to impugn 

 the correctness of the conclusions of those maintaining the 

 views numbered I., II., III. 



Dr. Clarke was shown to be certainly wrong in the date 

 he assigned to the style of handwriting in the manuscript, and 

 wrong, on the evidence of fact, in the date thence assigned to 

 the paper on which it was written. 



In reply to the first charge, it was alleged, that the manu- 

 script was in the hands of at least three possessors before the 

 year 1520, the year in which its reading of 1 John, v. 7, was 

 given to the world ; that it was then cited as authoritative, 

 not as modern, and possibly manufactured, evidence; that 

 the opinion of Usher and Walton, men of the first rank as 

 Christian men and critics, was in favour of its genuineness ; — 

 and again, that it agrees in no respect, specially, with Eras- 

 mus's printed text, even in points orthodox and essential, 



