assured George the Third that not one affected the essential tenets of religion, so the same, as maintained by the learned Gretser of Ingoldstadt, may fearlessly be asserted of these diversities. (Jacob. Gretseri Op. Ratisbonæ, 1734, folio.) No book of any extent, whatever may be the printer's boast, ever proceeded faultless, or, as it is termed by the craft, immaculate, from working hands. One fault only, it was long affirmed-pulres for plures, in the preface-impaired the spotless purity of the edition of the New Testament, by Robert Stephens in 1549, a suitable reward for every indicated lapse having been promised the students of the numerous encircling institutions, for whose revision the sheets were daily exhibited to public view. Subsequent editors, however, as Mills, Wetstein, and Griesbach, easily disproved this asserted accuracy; and Didot, in the preface to the magnificent Virgil of 1799, equally denounced the unfounded pretensions of the Glasgow Horace of 1744, the edition of Livy by Ruddiman, 1751, &c.; nor have, as had been expected, the stereotype publications escaped unscathed.

The English authorised editions of the Scriptures are of general acknowledged incorrectness, not only in the mechanical department, but in numerous instances of erroneous interpretation, which, however, as I have elsewhere observed, to touch, as has been so often said, like the Ark of the Covenant, would be profanation; and the Word of God is thus suffered to circulate by its supervisors in conscious error. It is clear that Anselm has never extended his researches beyond one side of the question, such as it is exhibited by the Oxford Librarian, with whose

CONTROVERTED PASSAGE ON ST. JOHN'S EPISTLE, i. 7. 289

work I had been long acquainted; but, though a simple layman, I did not stop there. Possibly, the elaborate reply of the Oratorian Father, Joseph Bianchini, already recommended by me, may not be of easy procurance; but Ward's Errata, a slender volume of no difficult obtainment, will be found to solve, not unsatisfactorily, Anselm's objections. I refer him particularly to pages 25 and 26 of the Dublin edition. (See also "Reasons for a new translation of the Bible," the work of a Protestant.) On a former occasion I indicated the numerous Protestant authors who complained of the gross incompetency of most of the translators employed by the Missionary Society, whose archetype is generally the English version; and, to these I could add many more. But I must not further trespass, and shall only aşk on this topic, what would become of the important text, in the first Epistle of St. John, of the three heavenly witnesses, which the Established Church, and its whole clerical body, uphold with no less tenacity than the Roman Catholics, had it not the support of the Vulgate, which, for ages, was the sole accessible depository of the sacred word? No Greek manuscript-none at least of value, or long antecedent to the use of print, it having, as is probable, been expunged by the Arians, contains the verse, nor does even the first published New Testament, by Erasmus, in 1516. Controversy is neither my desire nor my province, and I want not to enter on this beaten ground; but, I believe that the Vulgate is the most authentic source of the contested verse-its firmest voucher. Our Dublin University possesses, I understand, the Greek manuscript which furnished it to the compilers of the Complutensian

Polyglott, for which it was printed in 1514, though not published till 1521. And here, I beg to express my satisfaction, derived from the information of one of your correspondents, (G. M., April, 1840, p. 338) that the Dublin University is now freer in the communication of her literary treasures than when I had occasion to visit the library many years ago. I had then, indeed, to regret the accidental absence of the Archbishop, Dr, Magee, whose polite attentions I had often experienced, and who would not have failed, from our previous friendly intercourse, to facilitate any object I had in view: but, except under special auspices, it could not then be said, as on the Continent, “Porta patens esto; nulli claudatur honesto." I may be permitted here to record the occurrence to which I owed the honor of this distinguished prelate's notice. When, in progress of advancement, he was Dean of Cork, a coin or medal, bearing the image of Christ, with a Hebrew Legend allusive to the Messiah, was exhibited as a co-eval commemoration of the Redeemer, and every one, who had a tincture of the language, consulted on its interpretation. Amongst them Dr. Magee made some vain attempts; but I hesitated not to pronounce it spurious-a vile imposition practiced by the Jews on Christian ignorance or credulity. This produced a visit from the Dean, whom I had little difficulty in converting to my opinion, which was affirmed by a reference to the excellent little treatise "La Science des Médailles," by the Jesuit, Father Jobert, where this pretended medal is most distinctly denounced as a forgery, with which no collector should disgrace his cabinet; and as the book seemed to please the reverend dignitary, I

DR. MAGEE'S ANTITHETIC DISTINCTION OF RELIGIONS. 291

was happy to present it to him. The best impression is that of 1739, two volumes 12mo. under the revision of the Baron Birnard de la Bastie, one of Petrarch's biographers. It pained me much, subsequently, to learn, that Dr. Magee had been betrayed into an illiberal and offensive definition of the Catholic and Presbyterian communions-an indiscretion, to apply to it the gentlest epithet, which nothing in the tone and character of our conversations led me to expect. In his Visitation Sermon, delivered in 1822, he earnestly exhorted his Clergy vigilantly to watch the two main opponents of their (the Established) creed— which two opponents, he characterised-one (the Roman Catholic) " as a church without religion; and the other (Presbyterian) as a religion without a church." Dr. Doyle's answer, under the initials of J. K. L., was a most able production, though not without some historical inaccuracies, I recollect.

At page 245, in correction of a previous inadvertence that had escaped him, Anselm says, that M. Villers, the author of the "Essai sur l'Esprit et l'Influence de le Réformation de Luther," which was crowned in 1803 by the French Institute, though born a Romanist, had, he believed, become a Lutheran. This, however, is not the fact; for Villers never changed his native profession of faith, pretty much like Cobbett, whose work on the Anglican Reformation would, from internal evidence, have proclaimed him a Catholic, though he never became one. Villers having emigrated, and for several years, fixed his residence in Germany, imbibed a deep predilection for the country and the people, which he manifested by every exertion of zeal and talent. In 1806, after the signal triumph of Napoleon at Jena, he was

appointed secretary to Bernadotte, Prince de PonteCorvo, now King of Sweden, and addressed a most feeling letter to Madame Fanny de Beauharnais, the aunt-in-law of Josephine, supplicating her intercession with the benevolent Empress, to obtain some remission of the penalties, and mitigation of the general hardships imposed on Northern Germany.

Villers was a most warm, kind-hearted man, but excessively impressionable, and prompt to embrace every occurring novelty, as may be inferred from his successive and zealous adoption of the theories of Mesmer, of Kant, and of Gall, in support of which, respectively, he at different times exercised his pen. In 1789, when very young, he wrote a volume entitled “Le Magnétiseur;" which, at a considerable interval, in 1801, was followed by "La Philosophie de Kant, ou Principes Fondamentaux de la Philosophie Transcendantale," in which his enthusiasm leads him to assimilate the German metaphysician to Newton; and in 1802, appeared his "Lettre à Georges Cuvier, sur une nouvelle Théorie du Cerveau par le Docteur Gall." His "Little Catechism," published in 1810, is by no means of orthodox Lutheran doctrine; and I repeat, that he never professedly disavowed his parental creed, while his prominent object—a laudable one surely was to reconcile both. Luther, I may repeat, did not apply the term Reformation to his religious change; it was first assumed by the Calvinists, whose church, for so it is viewed, notwithstanding Doctor Magee's antithetical anathema, is still on the Continent, distinctively from the Lutheran, styled-" L'Eglise Reformée." Villers, born in 1767, (Nov.) died in February, 1815.