9. As early as 1711, G.D.T.M.D., _i.e._ Gerhard de Trajectu Mosae (Maestricht) Doctor, a Syndic of Bremen, published at Amsterdam an edition prefaced by 43 canons or rules of criticism. Thereafter, in 1725, J. A. BENGEL (1687-1752) issued his _Prodromus Novi Testamenti Graeci recte cauteque adornandi_, in which he unfolded a most carefully thought-out scheme for a new edition, undertaking to reduce all Gerhard von Maestricht’s 43 canons to one comprehensive rule of four words. That was the principle now commonly expressed in the shorter but less satisfactory form—_lectio difficilior placet_. Bengel himself chose a more careful mode of expression—_proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua_. Six years later he was able to issue his _Notitia Novi Testamenti Graeci recte cauteque adornati_. It was published in 1734 at Tübingen by Cotta in a handsome quarto.[11] In the same year a small octavo edition appeared at Stuttgart in which he urged the duty expressed in the motto, Te totum applica ad textum, Rem totam applica ad te. Of the latter, four editions were afterwards brought out. Of the large edition, the Apparatus, pronounced by Haussleiter to be a “memorable work of most solid and productive learning,” was reprinted separately after his death. Bengel was too timid. He was unwilling to admit into the text any reading which had not already appeared in some printed edition. But he inserted new readings in the margin and classified them. Out of 149 readings pronounced by Bengel to be genuine, only 20 are not now generally approved. Out of 118 whose genuineness appeared to him probable but not quite certain, 83 are now accepted. But Bengel’s most important contribution to the textual criticism of the Greek New Testament consists in the sound critical principles which he laid down. He recognised that the witnesses must not be counted but weighed, _i.e._ classified, and he was accordingly the first to distinguish two great groups or families of manuscripts. His principles were reaffirmed by the celebrated philologist Lachmann, the first great textual critic of our time, and the advance which the latest English critics have made on Tischendorf is really due to the fact that they have gone back to Bengel. LITERATURE.—Eb. Nestle, _Bengel als Gelehrter, ein Bild für unsere Tage_. (In Marginalien und Materialien; also printed separately, Tübingen, 1893.) Scrivener, ii. 204. [Sidenote: Wettstein.]