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we cannot praise very highly the typographical correctness of the Bibles of 1611 in other particulars (see p. xii.), so it must be stated that no other portion of the work is so carelessly printed as these parallel texts, each issue having a few errors peculiar to itself1, but few leaves indeed being exempt from some gross fault common to them both. The references to the Psalms direct us constantly to the wrong verse; namely, that of the Latin Vulgate from which they were first derived, not to that of the English Bible on whose pages they stand. The marks of reference from the text to the margin are so often misplaced, that it would be endless to enumerate glaring errors in regard to them which have long since been removed.

One of the main services rendered by the revisers of the Cambridge folios of 1629 and 1638 was the setting right these vexatious inaccuracies of the earlier books, which toilsome duty they performed very thoroughly, leaving to their successors the more congenial employment of adding largely to the original texts, a liberty which seems to have been taken by almost every one who prepared a special edition. Whensoever a reference had once found its way into the margin, there it was allowed to remain, unchallenged and even unexamined, however frivolous or mistaken it might be. Moreover, in recent Bibles that do not contain the Apocryphal books, all references drawn from them by our Translators have been summarily rejected, through the same unwarrantable licence which led later editors to expunge altogether the marginal note in 1 Chr. vii. 28 (see Appendix A, pp. lxxxii. note 1, lxxxiii. note 2), and to mutilate that on Acts xiii. 18 by striking out the reference to 2 Macc. vii. 27. All such Apocryphal texts, together with a few others dropped through apparent inadvertence, have in the present volume been restored to their rightful places. The parallel references in the Apocrypha itself have been largely increased, as well for other purposes, as with a view to illustrate the style of the Greek New Testament.

The textual references which have been gradually accumulating in the margins of our modern Bibles have here been received or expunged solely on their own merits: they have no such general reception to plead in their favour as those in the standard of 1611. Many of them are excellent, and help much for the right understanding of Scripture: these, after having been verified more than once, as well in the original tongues as in the Authorized Version, have of course been retained. Of the rest, a larger portion than might have been anticipated have been judged irrelevant, questionable, or even untrue. No editions are more open to criticism in this particular than those of Dr Paris (1762) and of Dr Blayney (1769), who between them added at least half as many references as they found already existing. The worst errors, because unlearned readers cannot discover or so much as suspect them, relate to parallelisms which are true in the English, false in the Hebrew or Greek. Such are Judg. ix. 27 cited at Judg. xvi. 25 (1769): 1 Chr. v. 26 cited at 1 Kin. xi. 14 (1769): 1 Sam. xii. 21 (1762) and Isai. xli. 29 (1769) cited at 1 Kin. xvi. 13: 1 Sam. ix. 9 cited at 1 Chr. xxi. 9 (1762): Ruth i. 21 cited at Job x. 17 (1769): Hos. xi. 12 cited at Ps. cxxxii. 16 (1762): Ex. xxviii. 36; xxix. 6; Lev. viii. 9 cited at Zech. vi. 11 (1769): John xix. 40 cited at Acts v. 6 and vice versâ (1762). Even in the Bible of 1611 we have Gen. iv. 4 made to illustrate Num. xvi. 15, although the resemblance is far less exact than the English might make it appear. References objectionable on more general grounds, some few being scarcely intelligible, are Num. ii. 3, 10, 18, 25 to illustrate Ezek. i. 10 (1762): the marvellous comment implied by citing John i. 14; Col. ii. 9 in Rev. xiii. 6, and 2 Kin. xx. 7 in Rev. xiii. 14 (both due to 1762): the allusions to the Great day of Atonement in Jer. xxxvi. 6 (1762 and 1769), whereas some special fast is obviously meant (ver. 9): the hopeless confusion arising from connecting Acts xx. 1, 3 with 1 Tim. i. 3 (1762): the tasteless quotation of 1 Sam. xxiv. 3 in Jonah i. 5 (1762). Hardly less false are John x. 23 cited at 1 Kin. vii. 12 (1762) and Acts iii. 11 (1762): 1 Chr. xxiv. 10 and Luke i. 5 made parallel to Neh. xii. 4, 17 (1762): Josh. xiv. 10 to Matt. iii. 1 (1762): while Ex. xxiii. 2 employed to explain Job xxxi. 34 (1769);