midst that labour of love from which he had looked for undying fame(206). 7. The anonymous text and version of William Mace, said to have been a Presbyterian minister (“The New Testament in Greek and English,” 2 vols. 8vo, 1729), are alike unworthy of serious notice, and have long since been forgotten(207). And now original research in the science of Biblical criticism, so far as the New Testament is concerned, seems to have left the shores of England, to return no more for upwards of a century(208); and we must look to Germany if we wish to trace the further progress of investigations which our countrymen had so auspiciously begun. The first considerable effort made on the Continent was:— 8. The New Testament of John Albert Bengel, 4to, Tübingen, 1734(209): his “Prodromus N. T. Gr. rectè cautèque adornandi” had appeared as early as 1725. This devout and truly able man [1687-1752], who held the office (whatever might be its functions) of Abbot of Alpirspach in the Lutheran communion of Württemberg, though more generally known as an interpreter of Scripture from his invaluable “Gnomon Novi Testamenti,” yet left the stamp of his mind deeply imprinted on the criticism of the sacred volume. As a collator his merits were not high; nearly all his sixteen codices have required and obtained fresh examination from those who came after him(210). His text, which he arranged in convenient paragraphs, as has been said, is the earliest important specimen of intentional departure from the received type; hence he imposes on himself the strange restriction of admitting into it no reading (excepting in the Apocalypse) which had not appeared in one or more of the editions that preceded his own. He pronounces his opinion on other _select_ variations by placing them in his lower margin with Greek numerals attached to them, according as he judged them decidedly better (α), or somewhat more likely (β), than those which stand in his text: or equal to them (γ); or a little (δ), or considerably (ε), inferior. This notation has advantages which might well have commended it to the attention of succeeding editors. In his “Apparatus Criticus” also, at the end of his volume, he set the example, now generally followed, of recording definitely the testimony in favour of a received reading, as well as that against it.