4. The editions of Robert Stephen (Estienne), mainly by reason of their exquisite beauty, have exercised a far wider influence than these, and Stephen’s third or folio edition of 1550 is by many regarded as the received or standard text. This eminent and resolute man [1503-59], “whose Biblical work taken altogether had perhaps more influence than that of any other single man in the sixteenth century(174),” early commenced his useful career as a printer at Paris, and, having incurred the enmity of the Doctors of the Sorbonne for his editions of the Latin Vulgate, was yet protected and patronised by Francis I [d. 1547] and his son Henry II. It was from the Royal Press that his three principal editions of the Greek N. T. were issued, the fourth and last being published in 1551 at Geneva, to which town he finally withdrew the next year, and made public profession of the Protestant opinions which had long been gathering strength in his mind. The editions of 1546, 1549 are small 12mo in size, most elegantly printed with type cast at the expense of Francis: the opening words of the Preface common to both, “_O mirificam_ Regis nostri optimi et praestantissimi principis liberalitatem...” have given them the name by which they are known among connoisseurs. Erasmus and his services to sacred learning Stephen does not so much as name, nor indeed did he as yet adopt him for a model: he speaks of “codices ipsa vetustatis specie pene adorandos” which he had met with in the King’s Library, by which, he boldly adds, “ita hunc nostrum recensuimus, ut nullam omnino literam secus esse pateremur quam plures, iique meliores libri, tanquam testes, comprobarent.” The Complutensian, as he admits, assisted him greatly, and he notes its close connexion with the readings of his manuscripts(175). Mill assures us (Proleg. § 1220) that Stephen’s first and second editions differ but in sixty-seven places. My own collation of the two books gives 139 cases of divergence in the text, twenty-eight in punctuation. They differ jointly from the third edition 334 times in the text, twenty-seven in punctuation. In the Apocalypse the first and second editions are close to the text of Erasmus, differing from each other but in eleven places, while the third edition follows the Complutensian or other authorities against the first in sixty-one places. In the folio or third edition of 1550 the various readings of the codices, obscurely referred to in the Preface to that of 1546, are entered in the margin. This fine volume (bearing on its title-page, in honour of Henry II, the inscription Βασιλεῖ τ᾽ ἀγαθῷ, κρατερῷ τ᾽ αἰχμητῇ) derives much importance from its being the earliest ever published with critical apparatus. In the Preface or Epistle to the Reader, written after the example of the Complutensian editors both in Greek and Latin, his authorities are declared to be sixteen; viz. α’, the Spanish Polyglott; β’, which we have already discussed (_above_, p.