For it must be stated, once for all, that an immense, and I must add, a most unaccountable discrepancy is observable between the several extant copies of Victor: yet not so much in respect of various readings, or serious modifications of his text; (though the transpositions are very frequent, and often very mischievous;(513)) as resulting from the boundless license which every fresh copyist seems to have allowed himself chiefly in _abridging_ his author.—To skip a few lines: to omit an explanatory paragraph, quotation, or digression: to pass _per saltum_ from the beginning to the end of a passage: sometimes to leave out a whole page: to transpose: to paraphrase: to begin or to end with quite a different form of words;—proves to have been the rule. Two copyists engaged on the same portion of Commentary are observed to abridge it in two quite different ways. I question whether there exist in Europe three manuscripts of Victor which correspond entirely throughout. The result is perplexing in a high degree. Not unfrequently (as might be expected) we are presented with two or even three different exhibitions of one and the same annotation.(514) Meanwhile, as if to render the work of collation (in a manner) impossible,—(1) Peltanus pleads guilty to having transposed and otherwise taken liberties with the text he translated: (2) Possinus confessedly welded three codices into one: (3) Matthaei pieced and patched his edition out of four MSS.; and (4) Cramer, out of five. The only excuse I can invent for this strange licentiousness on the part of Victor’s ancient transcribers is this:—They must have known perfectly well, (in fact it is obvious,) that the work before them was really little else but a compilation; and that Victor had already abridged in the same merciless way the writings of the Fathers (Chrysostom chiefly) from whom he obtained his materials. We are to remember also, I suppose, the labour which transcription involved, and the costliness of the skins out of which ancient books were manufactured. But when all has been said, I must candidly admit that the extent of license which the ancients evidently allowed themselves quite perplexes me.(515) _Why_, for example, remodel the structure of a sentence and needlessly vary its phraseology? Never I think in my life have I been more hopelessly confused than in the _Bibliothèque_, while attempting to collate certain copies of Victor of Antioch.