Section VII.

Miscellaneous observations relating to the present edition, and general Conclusion.

It is obvious that the practice of printing the English Bible in sections or paragraphs accommodated to the sense (the notation of the chapters and verses being set in the margin), which Mr Reeves the King’s Printer introduced early in the present century, and in which he has found so many imitators, is in substance only a return to the fashion that prevailed in our early versions, before the Genevan New Testament of 1557 unfortunately broke up the text into divisions at once so minute and so arbitrary as the verses invented by Robert Stephens. “The subdivision of the books of Sacred Scripture into chapters and verses, without regard to the sense, and frequently to its great injury, has thrown a most serious obstacle in the way of common readers.” It has given rise to “a very erroneous impression, that the Bible is rather a collection of apophthegms, or disconnected sentences, than composed of regular histories and treatises on religion, which have their separate topics and connexions.” “It is a method peculiar to the Bible, and confined to translations alone. Yet the word of God is not deserving of such an injurious peculiarity as this1.” Thus clearly is the case stated by an editor who seems to have been the first to introduce this simple plan into the United States of America, and who has certainly carried it out with singular skill and discretion.

For indeed the division of the sacred text into sections suitable for general use will not be deemed an easy matter by any one who has assayed it. If we look only to the broad and prominent breaks in a Bible narrative or discourse, they will usually be found too far apart for the reader’s convenience: if the subordinate members be separated from each other, the result will often be a virtual return to the discarded verse divisions. Something between these two extremes is to be aimed at, and in this effort there is room as well for much honest difference of opinion, as for the exercise of careful discrimination and a subtil faculty of analysis. From the marks of paragraph division (¶) employed for the first time in the Authorized Version, little help has been derived. They are unequally and capriciously distributed, and in both issues of 1611 and in the Bible of 1613 they cease altogether after Acts xx. 36: nor have they any perceptible connection with the headings of the chapters, hereafter to be mentioned. The editor would have been glad, in the prosecution of this portion of his task, if he could have followed rather than preceded the publication of the new Church Lectionary. It is, however, with great satisfaction that on comparing the paragraphs in this volume with the beginnings and endings of the Lessons as appointed by the Royal Commissioners, he has been able to note a resemblance between the two which is quite remarkable, due allowance being always made for the motives which sometimes cause a Church Lesson to commence or leave off at a certain place, irrespective of considerations suggested by the sense.

The poetical portions of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, as well as a very few passages of the New Testament2, have been arranged according to the principles first enunciated by Bishop Lowth, and modified and improved upon by his successors. The series of couplets or triplets of parallel lines is furthermore broken everywhere by divisions (similar to those in the prose books) suggested by the sense, which throughout Job (as represented by Delitzsch) and in some of the Psalms (e.g. xlii., xliii., lxxxix.; cvii.) may be regarded as stanzas, often though by no means always of uniform length. The thirteen alphabetical poems3 are distinguished by Hebrew letters at the proper places, so that an English reader may form some notion of the grounds on which the Lowthian system of Hebrew parallelism ultimately rests. Here again a difficulty often occurs which is at times unavoidable in a version made before the true laws of the poetry were ascertained; in that the order of the English, departing for good reasons from that of the original, forbids a correct distribution of the verse into its proper members. Instances may be noticed in Ps. xxxi. 18; lxviii. 23; lxxiv. 6; lxxv. 8; xci. 9; xcviii. 1; cxix. 4; cxx. 1; cxxix. 5; cxxxii. 12; cxxxiv. 3; cxxxvii. 2. Prov. viii. 2, 3; xxiv. 11. Isai. xxviii. 4. Mic. iv. 8. Nah. iii. 3. Zeph. iii. 17. Zech. ix. 1. Mal. i. 3. Ecclus. i. 2, 3; xviii. 6; xxvi. 9; xxxiii. 19; xl. 29; xlviii. 22. Not that we should be over anxious to maintain an equable length for the lines, as Nourse too often does, dividing (for example) Mal. iv. 5, at the word “coming” instead of “prophet,” in violation of the sense, and against the Masoretic points, which, through some happy instinct of their authors, seldom lead us wrong. More considerable is the perplexity, in dealing with writers that pass gradually from what might well be deemed poetry into rhetorical prose, and so back again, to determine the precise point at which the poetical structure should begin or terminate. This was found especially the case in Jeremiah and the earlier chapters of Zechariah, wherein another mind might easily arrive at a different result. Portions also of Ecclesiastes (ch. vii. 1–14; x. 1–xii. 7) and 2 Esdras xvi., are imperfectly metrical, though printed as prose; while on the other hand the tone of Zephaniah is less elevated than is usual in poetry. We notice a burst of poetic fervour in so prosaic a book as Daniel (ch. ii. 20–23), while the last prayer of David (1 Chr. xxix. 10–19), which began in the same high strain, gradually sinks to a lower level. Passages of the hymn Neh. ix. 5, &c., are among the latest breathings of an expiring literature of holy song. The opening of Wisdom again is quite as capable of being thrown into parallel lines as Ecclesiasticus, yet as the book proceeds (though it is the work of a single writer and composed on a regular plan) it insensibly swells into the ornate periods of the later Greek style1. How wholly unsuitable some parts of it are for reduction into parallel lines may be seen in the edition of O. T. Fritzsche (Libri Apocryphi V. T. 1871), who in this matter will find few imitators.

We are very little concerned with the chapters and verses of ordinary Bibles, though they should not be interfered with needlessly. In the Apocryphal additions to Esther, nothing can be more confused or preposterous than the order of the matter and the numbering of the chapters in our own version, and to some extent in the Clementine Vulgate and earlier English Bibles. By adopting Jerome’s arrangement, and omitting his explanatory notes, we have as a result, among other inconsistencies, the interpretation of Mardocheus’ dream before the dream itself2. It is hoped that the directions placed within brackets [] in this volume will prove sufficient for the reader’s guidance. In other cases the divisions of chapters have been disregarded without scruple, whensoever they appeared erroneous or unnecessary. Thus with the Hebrews we join Lev. vi. 1–7 with ch. v. Connect also Josh. v. 15 with ch. vi.; Isai. ii. 22 with ch. iii.; Isai. x. 1–4 with ch. ix.; Jer. xix. 14, 15 with ch. xx.; Ezek. xx. 45–50 with ch. xxi. (the parable with its solution), as in the Hebrew (which also rightly joins Hos. xi. 12 with ch. xii.; and Nah. i. 15 with ch. ii.); Amos ii. 1–3, or 1–5, with ch. i.; Ecclus. vi. 1 with ch. v. 15; Matt. xv. 39 to ch. xvi.; xix. 30 to ch. xx.; Mark ix. 1 to ch. viii.; the first clause of Acts viii. to ch. vii.; 1 Cor. xi. 1 to ch. x.; 2 Cor. v. 1 to ch. iv.; vii. 1 to ch. vi.; Col. iv. 1 to ch. iii.; Rev. viii. 1 to ch. vii. Nor can anything be worse than the verse divisions at times, especially in the Old Testament, e.g. Ps. lxxviii. 30, 31; xcv. 7, 8; Isai. i. 16, 17. We may also notice that in the Song of the Three Holy Children the modern verses are, from the commencement, one in advance of those of 1611 (see Appendix A, p. lxxix.), and that the English verses in John i. 38, &c.; Acts ix. 28, 29; xi. 25, 26; xiii. 32, 33; 2 Cor. xiii. 12, 13 differ slightly from those in ordinary Greek Testaments.

The headings of the chapters, as also those set over the several columns of the text, the plan of this work compels us to dispense with altogether, and nothing considerable is lost by their omission. The column headings of necessity varied more or less for every edition which did not (like the black-letter books of 1617, 1634, and that of 1640 very nearly) correspond with the standard of 1611 page for page: the headings summing up the contents of each chapter do not much resemble those previously given either in the Genevan or in the Great and Bishops’ Bibles (which two in this particular are almost identical), but seem to be quite original. In the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles they are inordinately long. The variations between our present headings and those of 1611, other than mere corrections of the press, are but twelve in number, that prefixed to Ps. cxlix. being the only one of importance3. Dr Blayney, however, for his edition of 1769, gave what may be called “a New Version of these headings, bearing somewhat of the same relation to the Old that Tate and Brady does to Sternhold and Hopkins. It has been stigmatized by some as a doctrinal depravation of them, and praised by others as an improvement. It is in fact a modernization or dilation of them, with little systematic difference of doctrine, but with less force of it, giving however in many cases a better account of the real contents of the chapters than the old1.” This portion of his labours Blayney speaks of with complacency in his Report to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press (Appendix D, p. xcviii.); but whatever might be its merits, it met with no sort of acceptance. Oxford Bibles have returned long since to the headings of 1611; his changes were never adopted at Cambridge. It was felt, perhaps, that there is much comment of this kind in the original edition which long prescription alone has persuaded men to tolerate, and his work was rejected not because it was bad, but because it was new.

The chronological dates placed in the margin of the present volume are derived from Bishop Lloyd’s Bible of 1701 (above, p. xix.), without any pretence of vouching for their correctness. They are in substance taken from Archbishop Ussher’s Annales V. et N. Testamenti (1650–4), and are beyond doubt sufficiently exact to be a real help to the reader, the data on which they are constructed being always assumed as true. In the history of the later kings of Judah modern researches have not been able to suggest a variation from them of more than two years. The dates according to the Greek reckoning, set under those of the Hebrew in the first six books of the Bible, are grounded upon the well-known differences in respect to numerals between the text of the Hebrew and of the Septuagint, in the fifth and eleventh chapters of Genesis. Bp. Lloyd’s dates have not been materially tampered with since they were first brought into our Bibles, though in some copies they are repeated more frequently than in others. Lloyd and after him the books of 1762 and 1769 had assigned to the ninth chapter of Zechariah the date of b.c. 587 (being 67 years earlier than that of his first chapter), in accordance with an opinion, more plausible than solid, to which Joseph Mede first lent the weight of his profound learning, that the last six chapters of that prophecy are the composition of some earlier writer, who flourished about the period of the Captivity. Modern Bibles later than 1835 have substituted in ch. ix. the date of b.c. 517; in Bagster’s edition of 1846, it is reduced to b.c. 510, in the American of 1867 to b.c. 487, which is much too low. A mark of interrogation has simply been placed by us after this and some other questionable dates. The year b.c. 791 for the eclipse referred to Amos viii. 9, being now known to be incorrect, other more possible dates have been substituted within brackets. In Jer. xxvii. 1, “b.c. 598” is omitted altogether, as it rests on the needless supposition that for “Jehoiakim” in the text we ought to read “Zedekiah.” The like remedy has been applied to Isai. ix. 8 and x. 1, which obviously belong to the same idyl or ode, and are connected by the same refrain: yet the one part of it is assigned to b.c. 738, the other to b.c. 713. It would have been well to have set a query after the date (b.c. 862) of the prophecy of Jonah, inasmuch as it is nearly certain that the Twelve Minor Prophets stand in the Canon in chronological order: and certainly on comparing Mic. vi. 16, the third chapter of that book must have been written before the fall of Samaria, not eleven years after it (b.c. 710). In the second Prologue to Ecclesiasticus “the eight and thirtieth year” being that of the writer’s life, not of the reign of Euergetes, for b.c. 133 we should probably read some earlier time. The few dates added in this volume are included in brackets, and may perhaps be regarded as at once convenient and certain: such as that on Esther xi. 1. It is not easy to approve of the boldness of the editor of 1762, who affixes to Ps. cxx. “cir. 1058,” apparently on the authority of the chapter heading that Doeg is the enemy referred to, as indeed a comparison of ver. 4 with Ps. lii. 1 renders not improbable.

The passages of the Old Testament which are cited in the New we have distinguished by printing them in spaced type, both in their original places and where they occur as quotations2. Whensoever a text is quoted generally, or (as is so often the case) with variations, those words only are set in spaces which are truly identical, at least in sense. But we have not employed this notation where the reference seems uncertain or remote, such as Ps. lxvii. 4 alleged by some in Acts xvii. 31, and Gen. vi. 5 or viii. 21 in James iv. 5.

The present is scarcely a fit opportunity for discussing at length the merits and faults of the Authorized Version, which “so laborious, so generally accurate, so close, so abhorrent of paraphrase, so grave and weighty in word and rhythm, so intimately bound up with the religious convictions and associations of the English people1” will never yield its hard-earned supremacy, save to some reverential and well-considered Revision of which it has been adopted as the basis, that shall be happy enough to retain its characteristic excellencies, while amending its venial errors and supplying its unavoidable defects. Yet it may not be improper to touch briefly on one or two particulars, which have not been prominently noted by others, but have impressed the editor’s mind in the prosecution of his laborious, yet most interesting task.

First then, we mark great inequality in the execution of the several portions of this version. The limits of life and human patience would forbid the whole Bible (including the Apocrypha) from being committed to the care of a single Company, but it was surely a mistake to divide the whole body of Translators into six parties. The Bishops’ Bible indeed seems to have had a fresh translator for almost every book2, and the inconsistency which such a plan must needs engender may have been one of the causes which hindered that version from obtaining general acceptance. No doubt it had been wisely provided by the King’s ninth and tenth Instructions that “As any one Company hath despatched any book…, they shall send it to the rest to be considered of seriously and judiciously; for His Majesty is very careful in this point:” as also that “If any Company doubt or differ upon any place…the difference be compounded at the general meeting, which is to be of the chief persons of each company at the end of the work.” But our very meagre information respecting the progress of the Translators gives us no great reason to believe that this wholesome device was carried out in practice (see Sect. 1. p. xiv.), while internal evidence points decidedly to a contrary conclusion3. Certain it is that the six or twelve who met at Stationers’ Hall during the nine months which immediately preceded publication had mechanical work enough on their hands in carrying the sheets through the press, without troubling themselves much about higher matters. The first Westminster Company undertook the historical books from Genesis down to the end of 2 Kings, and included the great names of Andrewes, then Dean of Westminster; of Overall Dean of S. Paul’s; and of Adrian de Saravia, by birth a Fleming, at that time Prebendary of Westminster, but best known as the bosom friend and spiritual counseller of saintlike Richard Hooker. Compared with other portions of Holy Scripture their share in the work may seem an easy one, yet the eminent success of the whole enterprise is largely due to the simple dignity of their style, and the mingled prudence and boldness wherewith they so blended together the idioms of two very diverse languages, that the reader is almost tempted to believe that the genius of his native tongue must have some subtil affinity with the Hebrew. Not inferior to theirs in merit, but far surpassing it in difficulty, is the work of the third, or first Oxford Company, the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi inclusive. This body was presided over by Dr John Harding, Regius Professor of Hebrew [1591–8; 1604–10], in the room of the great Puritan John Reynolds, President of Corpus Christi College [ob. 1607], who is reputed to have first suggested the new translation at the Hampton Court Conference (1603–4), full three years before it was actually commenced. This party included Dr Richard Kilbye, Rector of Lincoln College [1590–1620], afterwards Regius Professor of Hebrew [1610–1620], whose testimony to the anxious pains devoted to this version, as preserved by Isaac Walton, will be most readily credited by those whose privilege it has been to bear a part in similar conferences, directed to the same great end1. It needs but the comparison of a single chapter of Isaiah, for instance, as rendered by the Authorized translation, with that in the Bishops’ Bible which was adopted as the ground of their labours, to estimate very highly the manifold improvements effected by this Company. The common notion that the Minor Prophets are less felicitously rendered than the four Greater, must be modified by the consideration that three or four of the Twelve, as well from their pregnant brevity as from the obscurity of their allusions, are among the very hardest books of the Bible in the original, whose difficulties no faithful translator would wish to dissemble or conceal. Respecting the second, or first Cambridge Company, which sustained irreparable loss by the death of Edward Lively, Regius Professor of Hebrew [1580–1606], before their task was fairly begun, his successor also, R. Spalding, apparently dying a year after, it may be confessed that its version of Job is very unsatisfactory, nor indeed could it well be otherwise before the breaking forth of that flood of light which Albert Schultens long afterwards (1737) shed upon it from the cognate languages. A more legitimate subject of complaint is the prosaic tone of its translation of the Psalms, which, however exact and elaborate, is so spiritless as to be willingly used by but few that are familiar with the version in the Book of Common Prayer; a recension which, though derived immediately from the Great Bible, is in substance the work of that consummate master of rhythmical prose, Bishop Miles Coverdale. Of the other three Companies it will suffice to re-echo the general verdict, that the Epistles, entrusted to persons sitting at Westminster of whom little is now known, are worse done than any other part of the Canonical Scriptures, and bear no comparison with the Gospels, the Acts (which book is especially good, as indeed is its prototype in the preceding version, from the hand of Bishop Cox of Ely), and Apocalypse, as revised by the second Oxford Company, on which served Sir Henry Savile, then the most famous Greek scholar in England. In the New Testament, as was both right and almost necessary, the renderings of the older English versions were more closely adhered to than in the Old. Of the performance of the fourth, or second Cambridge Company, to which the Apocrypha was consigned, little favourable can be said. It was the earliest party to complete its share, as appears from the fact that John Bois (above, pp. xiii., xiv.) was transferred to the first Cambridge Company after his proper task herein was completed2. A formal correction of the text, often so obviously corrupt, might have been impossible with the means within their reach; yet it required very little critical discrimination to perceive the vast superiority of that which they perpetually appeal to as the “Roman edition” (p. xxvii.) over the older recensions of the Complutensian and Aldus. For the rest, they are contented to leave many a rendering of the Bishops’ Bible as they found it, when nearly any change must have been for the better; even where their predecessor sets them a better example they resort to undignified, mean, almost vulgar words and phrases1; and on the whole they convey to the reader’s mind the painful impression of having disparaged the importance of their own work, or of having imperfectly realised the truth that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well2.

Nor can the attentive student of the Authorized Version fail to marvel at the perfect and easy command over the English language exhibited by its authors on every page. The fulness and variety of their diction, the raciness of their idiomatic resources, seem almost to defy imitation, while they claim our just and cheerful admiration. We need not extenuate that great error of judgment which is acknowledged to be the capital defect of the Translation, especially in the New Testament, in that the same foreign word is perpetually translated by several English ones, while on the other hand a single English word is made to represent two or three in the original, and that too in the same context, where the cogency of the argument or the perspicuity of the narrative absolutely depends on identity in the rendering. But in avoiding this conspicuous fault of the men of 1611, some modern revisers whose efforts are already before the public have fallen into the opposite mistake of forcing the same English word to stand for the same Hebrew or Greek one where there is no real need for preserving such slavish uniformity, thus at once impoverishing our native tongue which is so much more copious than either of the others, and casting over the version an air of baldness very painful to a cultivated taste. Let us take for an example of the beautiful flexibility of their English style the numberless devices our Translators resort to while endeavouring to convey the intensive force of the Hebrew gerundial infinitive when used with some finite form of the selfsame verb, of which the earliest example occurs in Gen. iii. 4, “Ye shall not surely die.” The passages are cited almost at random and might be multiplied indefinitely.

1 Sam. ii. 16. Let them not fail to burn the fat. 2 Sam. xiv. 14. we must needs die (after the Bishops’); xvii. 10. shall utterly melt; 16. speedily pass over; xviii. 2. I will surely go forth; 3. if we flee away (with the Bishops’); 25. came apace (Bishops’); xx. 18. They were wont to speak (margin, They plainly spake). 1 Kin. ii. 37, (42). thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt surely die; iii. 26, 27. in no wise slay it (Bishops’); ix. 6. If ye shall at all turn. 1 Chr. iv. 10. Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed (Bishops’). Neh. i. 7. We have dealt very corruptly against thee (“grievously sinned” Bishops’). Esther iv. 14. If thou altogether holdest thy peace. Job vi. 2. Oh that my grief were throughly weighed (“truly weighed” Bishops’); xiii. 17 and xxi. 2. Hear diligently (Bishops’); xxvii. 22. he would fain flee. Jer. xxiii. 17. They say still; 32. profit at all; 39. utterly forget; xxv. 30. mightily roar; xxxi. 20. earnestly remember; xli. 6. weeping all along; l. 34. throughly plead. Ezek. i. 3. came expressly. Thus too both versions even in translating the Latin of 2 Esdr. iii. 33; iv. 2, 26; vii. 21, &c.

Yet it has been said by one who ought to know, that “our Translators of the Bible, in their attempt to maintain idiom, have sometimes sacrificed vigour1.”

The editor earnestly trusts that no apology is necessary for the labour bestowed in this volume on the English text and marginal references of the Apocrypha. So long as that very miscellaneous collection of books shall comprise a part of the Holy Bible in its largest form, or lessons shall be selected from it for the course of Divine service, it deserves far more regard than has been paid to it in recent times, even by those who have undertaken to reprint it. But the frequent and exact study of a large portion of the Apocryphal writings may be vindicated on higher grounds by such as most loyally accept the rule that “the Church doth read them for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.” Few more conspicuous instances can be alleged of the tendency in man’s nature to rush into extremes than the strong reaction to their prejudice which has set in since the Reformation, by way of protest against the error that had placed the greater part of them on a level in point of authority with the Canonical books of the Old Testament. Add to this that by some untoward accident those portions of the Apocrypha which deserve the least esteem have become best known, as in the case of the History of Susanna (unfit for public reading, for all its delicate touches of natural beauty), and of the grotesque story of Bel and the Dragon. Yet Ecclesiasticus and the first book of the Maccabees, written in the second century before the Christian æra, are among the noblest of uninspired compositions; if indeed their authors, so full of faith and holy fear, can be regarded as entirely uninspired. The second book of the Maccabees also, though greatly inferior to the first in respect of energy, judgment, veracity, and correct taste, abounds in passages fraught with encouragement to those who in every age shall be called upon to suffer for the truth’s sake; not to add that it powerfully illustrates the eleventh chapter and other parts of Daniel’s prophecies. The Wisdom of Solomon (which was not seriously intended to be ascribed to the king of Israel) approximates in tone to the spirit of Christ more nearly than any book without the Canon; the Epistle of S. James is full of allusions to it, and to the first five Chapters of Ecclesiasticus. Judith too is a fine work; grave, elevated, pious, chaste in thought and expression, exquisitely finished. Were it not buried where it is, it would long since have attracted the admiration it deserves; but it is not history, and does not claim to be such. It is fable constructed with a moral purpose; and must have stirred up the heart of many a Jewish patriot in that heroic struggle for liberty and religion whose details fill the books of the Maccabees. For the remaining books less can be said. Tobit, probably the oldest of them all, exhibits a pleasing picture of the prosperity of a religious household in the land of their captivity: the main outlines seem correct, though sadly deformed by childish superstitions, which are more visible in the Old Latin version followed by the Bishops’ Bible, than in our own which adhered to the Greek. Baruch, though of course a pseudonym, contains some excellent poetry: the Prayer of Manasses and the Song of the Three Children need no praise. It is difficult to determine the precise relation of 1 Esdras to the Canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah: after all the trouble bestowed upon it, we can but conclude that it contains not much intrinsically valuable. “The rest of the book of Esther” seems worth little for any purpose, since it is founded on a radically false conception of the character of two of the most worldly-minded persons God ever employed in the dispensations of His Providence, and rewarded for their obedience with blessings purely temporal. The remaining book, the second of Esdras, is a curious composition, not very fitly placed in the same volume as the rest, and never accounted canonical by any branch of the Church. Though extant only in Latin, it betrays on every page its Hebrew original; but since no considerable portion of it can be earlier than the second century after Christ, what it has in common with the Revelation and other books of the New Testament is drawn from them, not they from it. It can hardly be questioned that the fortunes of the Roman emperors during the first century are herein figuratively depicted. The celebrated passage ch. vii. 26–35 bears every appearance of interpolation.

It may be thought seemly in the editor to plead some excuse for the long time this work has been in hand, or at least for the unexpected delay which has ensued since the publication of its earlier Parts. Hindrances indeed and grave ones he has met with, but to detail them could interest none who are not already acquainted with them. The main causes of all were the great labour demanded by this employment, and an ever-growing sense of the duty of avoiding haste, but for which any one of those that had assayed the same task before him, would have accomplished it thoroughly once for all. Their short-comings (for, compared with what the case required, Blayney and those who preceded him must be held to have fallen greatly short) might justly prove a warning to one who was treading in their steps, and induce him to store up for his profit the words of a living Divine, himself as able as most men et properare loco et cessare: “When we consider the errors and failures that mark every stage in our most deliberate and most matured progress in merely secular subjects, we may well pause before we presume to hurry through the sanctuary of God with the dust and turmoil of worldly, self-seeking, and irreverent speed1.”

Finally, it is right to state very explicitly that the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, after having arranged with the editor the general plan of this volume first projected by themselves, were pleased to leave all details to his judgment; and furthermore, that he alone is responsible for the statements alleged and the opinions maintained in the foregoing pages of this Introduction.

St. Gerrans, April 28, 1873.