[Footnote 1: I would acknowledge most gratefully the help given me in the preparation of this part of our discussion by Professor E.T. Merrill, of the University of Chicago. Professor Merrill, whose edition of the _Letters_ of Pliny has long been in the hands of Teubner, placed at my disposal his proof-sheets for the part covered in the Morgan fragment, his preliminary _apparatus criticus_ for the entire text of the _Letters_, and a card-catalogue of the readings of _B_ and _F_. He patiently answered numerous questions and subjected the first draft of my argument to a searching criticism which saved me from errors in fact and in expression. But Professor Merrill should not be held responsible for errors that remain or for my estimate of the Morgan fragment.] [Footnote 2: On Petrus Leander, see Merrill in _Classical Philology_ V (1910), pp. 451 f.] So now the ancient manuscript itself had come. Aldus emphasizes its value in supplying the defects of previous editions. The _Letters_ will now include, he declares: “multae non ante impressae. Tum Graeca correcta, et suis locis restituta, atque retectis adulterinis, uera reposita. Item fragmentatae epistolae, integrae factae. In medio etiam epistolae libri octaui de Clitumno fonte non solum uertici calx additus, et calci uertex, sed decem quoque epistolae interpositae, ac ex Nono libro Octauus factus, et ex Octauo Nonus, Idque beneficio exemplaris correctissimi, & mirae, ac uenerandae Vetustatis.” The presence of such a manuscript, “most correct, and of a marvellous and venerable antiquity,” stimulates the imagination: Aldus thinks that now even the lost Decades of Livy may appear again: “Solebam superioribus Annis Aloisi Vir Clariss. cum aut T. Liuii Decades, quae non extare creduntur, aut Sallustii, aut Trogi historiae, aut quemuis alium ex antiquis autoribus inuentum esse audiebam, nugas dicere, ac fabulas. Sed ex quo tu ex Gallia has Plinii epistolas in Italia reportasti, in membrana scriptas, atque adeo diuersis a nostris characteribus, ut nisi quis diu assuerit, non queat legere, coepi sperare mirum in modum, fore aetate nostra, ut plurimi ex bonis autoribus, quos non extare credimus, inueniantur.” There was something unusual in the character of the script that made it hard to read; its ancient appearance even suggested to Aldus a date as early as that of Pliny himself. “Est enim uolumen ipsum non solum correctissimum, sed etiam ita antiquum, ut putem scriptum Plinii temporibus.” This is enthusiastic language. In the days of Italian humanism, a scholar might call almost any book a _codex pervetustus_ if it supplied new readings for his edition and its script seemed unusual. As Professor Merrill remarks:[3]