Of this specimen, unfortunately, no copy can be discovered; although as to the existence of such a document there is no lack of contemporary evidence. In his Prolegomena to the _London Polyglot_ of 1657, Bishop Walton, who had made a careful study of the Codex, and availed himself freely of Young’s notes, distinctly states that he had seen the specimen, and that the proposal to carry through the work had been discouraged by the advice of Young’s friends.[381] Walton shows a few words of the Alexandrian Greek, poorly cut in wood, among the specimens in his Prolegomena: a circumstance which would suggest that in 1657 the matrices used for Junius’ facsimile, if in existence, were not then available. Walton’s statement was confirmed by Grabe, Mill, and others, who made a study of the Codex and its history; and in 1707 Young’s biographer and successor in the task of preparing the Codex for print, Dr. Thomas Smith, repeated it with the authority of one who had also personally inspected the Specimen.[382] {202} It has been assumed by later writers that both Walton and Thomas Smith made reference to a proposed _facsimile_ reprint of the Manuscript; and Gough’s circumstantial statement, already quoted (which is adopted by Nichols and copied by others, such as Horne, Edwards, etc.), leaves little doubt that the chapter of _Genesis_ was actually put forward in 1643, in facsimile type, as a specimen of the forthcoming work. The evidence as to the existence of the types receives further countenance from the presence of these matrices in Grover’s foundry, certainly before the year 1700. Anthony à Wood states that Young’s project excited much curiosity and expectation, and that in 1645 an ordinance was read for printing and publishing the _Septuagint_, under the direction of Whitelock and Selden. The troublous times which ensued, however, as well as certain doubts as to the fidelity with which the original text was being treated by the transcriber, led to the abandonment of the scheme during Young’s tenure of office, which ceased in 1649. In that year Bulstrode Whitelock became Library Keeper, and consequently custodian of the MS. It would appear, however, from a sentence in one of Usher’s letters,[383] that as late as 1651 Young retained his purpose of publishing the Bible from the text of the Codex, but his death in the following year finally stopped the enterprise.