173
nions, would be set forth more conveniently in Latin than in my vernacular language. Therefore the things which are there more diffusely explained, are here only touched upon : the things which were scarcely introduced there, are here more copiously treated. The two commentaries are altogether distinct : each is something complete in its own way.1 He who shall use the two together, will say that they are like one work, but he will reap a double advantage.
2) But is criticism , you will say, inculcated here also ? I am more -weary of this kind of labour than I may appear to many. For when Robert Stephens divided the text of the Apocalypse into more than 400 verses, the mere revision of the Apocalypse before required from me a labour of perhaps as many days (if any one is not aware of the importance of this labour, let him pardon me). I am unwill- ing to exaggerate, by setting forth, in an ambitious manner, how protracted a task it is to compare the printed editions, and the most important of them word by word, to revise the edition of Kuster from that of Mill itself, to examine the Greek and Latin Manuscripts, to arrange the extracts of Manuscripts brought forward by others from various quarters, to consult the Versions, to search the Greek and Latin Fathers, to adjust the punctuation; and yet I thought that this very labour ought not here to be wholly concealed. For it is most properly required from those who would give a just opinion in a matter of this kind, that, in addition to their other qualifications, however excellent, they should be readily conversant with the read- ing and purport of the Manuscripts, Versions, and Fathers, and be thoroughly acquainted with the character of these witnesses, their number, their points of agreement and disagreement, and the weight due to their testimony, at one time greater, at another time less : and that they should not suppose that the passages on which they have fallen, can be explained separately by a hasty judgment, but that they should rather seek for the settlement of differences from the generally-agreeing results of the -whole investigation. To this point the Foundations of criticism on the Apocalypse , in the Apparatus, from page 776 to 789 [Ed. ii. p. 487, and following], have a manifest re- ference, in which I have entered into a consideration of the Apo- calypse as a whole , and that in no cursory manner ; and have thus prepared light and strength for the critical examination of separate passages which follows in the same treatise. I have given a sum-
1 No one will on this account think that the whole of that German Commentary was to be set forth to the readers of the Gnomon, by that plan in which I inserted short notes upon the Vers. Germ. — E. B.
174