433 



first to last, within the last fifty years of the fifteenth century, 

 and that by some half-learned scribe,— not by any one " bold 

 critic," as had been averred, nor by an unprincipled forger. 



Dr. Dobbin is engaged in a course of investigation as to 

 the manufacture of the paper, which cannot fail to issue in as- 

 certaining, for the first time upon indisputable grounds, the 

 approximate date of the manuscript. 



The author closed his paper in the following terms : — 

 "For the reasons, then, presented before the Academy, I 

 cannot refrain the expression of my decided belief, that those 

 parties are entirely in the wrong who endeavour to fix a charge 

 of forgery upon our Codex. A charge so dishonourable to 

 literature and to religion, one rises instinctively to repel where 

 not based upon the most incontrovertible ground. We vindi- 

 cate our common nature and our common Christianity when 

 we refute by anything like satisfactory reasons the disgraceful 

 imputation, that men were to be found base enough, some- 

 where about the beginning of the sixteenth century, to at- 

 tempt a paltry forgery either to overwhelm a hated rival, or 

 to establish what they deemed God's truth. I do not think 

 any candid mind, acquainted with the laws of evidence bear- 

 ing on such cases, can fail to acquiesce, in the main, in the 

 views we have advanced on the testimony supplied. "We 

 have taken nothing at second hand, but, through the courtesy 

 of the custodiers, have gone to the ipsissima verba of the do- 

 cuments themselves ; and while we have corrected the mis- 

 takes of previous writers, believe we have established the 

 four following points : — 



" I. That the Codex Montfortianus, however faulty, is 

 genuine. 



" II. That it has been written at different times by four 

 different writers, the very last being before a. d. 1520. This 

 is a perfectly new contribution to the criticism of the manu- 

 script, as well as the two statements which follow. 



