4. The first to prepare a really critical edition of the Greek New Testament, _i.e._ one based on a collation of manuscripts, was Simon de Colines (COLINAEUS), the father-in-law of the Parisian printer Robert Stephen (Estienne). In his edition^1, which appeared in 1534, he adopted for the first time a number of readings that are now generally accepted, though naturally he did not succeed in gaining credit for them. Up till the time of Mill and Bengel the publishers and their more or less uncritical coadjutors simply reprinted the text of Ximenes and Erasmus, mostly the latter, with trifling variations. Among the innovations introduced by these editors was the choice of a more convenient form. The first editions were all in folio. But in 1521, Anselm, then in Hagenau but previously in Tübingen, reduced the size to quarto; in 1524 Cephaleus in Strassburg still further to octavo; while Valder printed the first miniature edition in Basel in 1536. The smallest edition printed previous to this century is that of Jannon, 1628 (Sedan); the smallest of this century is that of Pickering, 1828 (London). But a much more important feature was the collation of fresh manuscripts. The credit of being pioneer in this respect rests with the Parisian Typographer-Royal, Robert STEPHEN (1503-1559). [Sidenote: Stephen.] He was assisted by his son Henry Stephen (1528-1598), particularly in the preparation of his third edition of 1550, the _Editio Regia_, which takes its name from the inscription on its title-page in honour of Henry II., Βασιλεῖ τ’ ἀγαθῷ, κρατερῷ τ’ αἰχμητῇ.[6] The first edition, called _O mirificam_, from the opening words of its preface, appeared in 1546. The Editio Regia was the first to contain a critical apparatus in which fifteen manuscripts indicated by the Greek letters β—ιϛ were collated with the text of the Complutensian which was designated α. All the manuscripts employed were of late date, with two exceptions, viz., the Codex Bezae, of which we shall have a good deal to say in the sequel, and a Parisian MS. of the eighth century, now known as L. [Sidenote: Verse division.]