Mark Pattison says of Erasmus that he propounded the problem of critical scholarship, but himself did nothing to solve it. By critical scholarship is meant the examination of the grounds on which learning rests. In youth we are uncritical, and accept as Caesar or Livy the books from which we read those authors; but with growing experience we learn that a copy is not always a true representation of its original; and with this, even though there is little perception of the changes and chances through which manuscripts have passed, the first lesson of criticism has been learnt. The problem may be stated thus--In no single case does an autograph manuscript of a classical author survive: for our knowledge of the works of the past we are dependent on manuscripts written at a later date. Only rarely is there less than 300 years' interval between an author's death and the earliest manuscript now extant of his works; in a great many cases 1,000 years have elapsed, and in the extreme--Sophocles and Aristophanes--1,400. The question therefore arises, How far do our manuscripts represent what was originally written? and it is the work of scholars to compare together existing manuscripts, to estimate their relative value, and where they differ, to determine, if possible, what the author actually wrote. The manuscripts of the New Testament which scholars have examined and collated are now numbered by hundreds. Erasmus was content for his first edition with two lent to him by Colet from the library of St. Paul's Cathedral, and a few of little value which he found at Basel. And though for subsequent editions he compared one or two more, the work never reached a high standard of scholarship. He had done enough, however, for his age. Before Erasmus men were accustomed to read the New Testament in Latin; after 1516 no competent scholar could be content with anything but the Greek. But though the priority actually belongs to Erasmus, it must be stated that the Greek version had already been printed in January 1514 in a Polyglott Bible published under the orders of Cardinal Ximenes at Alcala in Spain. For definite reasons, however, this great edition was not put into circulation till 1520.