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    work , appeared a specimen of the Syro-Hexaplarian : Bible , from a very valuable manuscript in the Ambrosian Labrary at Milan . This specimen contained only the first Psalm , but this was given in the Hexaplar Syriac of

    the Ambrosian manuscript , in the common simplex , ( the peshito , ) with their respective sources , the Greek and Hebrew , and Latin translations of both . The Origenian Notes were added in the margin ,, and in the beginning was a diatribe on the rarity and

    value of this codex , and the version it contains , and on the celebrated hexaplar codex of Masius , which was the first volume of this . This little

    specimen was very acceptable to the learned , and often reprinted in Germany . More luminous specimens of whole books , as Daniel and the Psalter , have since been given by Bugati , Librarian of the Ambrosian .

    We come now to the work on which Professor de Rossi ' s fame chiefly rests in the Extra-Continental world , viz . the Collection of Various Readings of the Hebrew Old Testament . It is well

    known with what interest this subject of the Various Readings of the Old Testament was regarded by the biblical critics of the last century . The success of the collations which had been made

    of the manuscripts of the New Testament , and the great light thrown upon the Greek Scriptures , by the labours of Mill and Wetstein , led scholars to look with eagerness to similar labours for the correction of the Hebrew text

    It was doubtful how far the mas ore tic revision pervaded the existing Hebrew manuscripts—there was no positive reason for despairing of manuscripts which should contain a text older than these diligent grammarians , —and there were strong hopes felt that families

    and classes would be discovered , in the written copies of the Hebrew Scriptures , similar to those which have been traced in the manuscr ipts of the Greek Scriptures- It is well known to the biblical student that these expectations have been disappointed . No antemasoretic text has been discovered :

    and as the lawyers who compiled the pandects of the civil law have by the success of their labours occasioned the loss of the two thousand volumes of preceding jurists , which formed the basis of their labours , so the grammarians of Tiberias , whatever service they

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    did the Hebrew text , have at least cost us all the means of correcting it , which a comparison of older manuscripts would have afforded . But , to return to our author , Kennicott ' s collation of manuscripts of the Old Testament , which appeared about this time , served

    no other purpose with Professor de Rossi than to inspire him with the idea of attempting a more perfect one . He had already in his hands a good number of Hebrew manuscripts which had never been examined , and proposed to

    make a journey to Rome , and other parts of Italy , in the double purpose of augmenting the number of his manuscripts and editions , and collating manuscripts which had not been examined by Dr . Kennicott ' s agents . He succeeded in both to his entire

    satisfaction . In one library , he discovered seventeen manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible which had escaped former collectors , and in Rome , six entire libraries , which had not been entered in behalf of Kennicott . As an earnest of

    his discoveries , a small specimen of a very valuable codex , in the private library of Pope Piirs V ., with an appendix relative to the famous Barbarini tritapla Samaritan Codex , was published in Rome by Professor de Rossi in 1780 , and reprinted the year after

    at lubingen . Returned to Parma , he yielded to the requests of two friends in compos-Ing the History of Hebrew Typography in Ferrara and Sabionetta , in two commentaries filled with curious erudition

    relative to the editions of Hebrew Scriptures in these cities . They vyere speedily reprinted , with additions by the author , in Germany . These were followed by an appendix to Masch ' s edition of Lelong ' s Bibliotheca , in which account is given of various editions which had escaped both Lelong and his editor , Masch .

    * ' These , however / says Professor de Rossi , " were but small digressions > the main object of my labours was the great work of the Various Readings . I had , in the specimen of the Codex Pontificus just mentioned ,

    announced my work , and promised that it should be more perfect , ample and correct than the English collection . I had , moreover , confuted a patriotic assertion of Kennicott , who boasts his country to be richer than all others in manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures ,

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    384 Memoirs of Professor de Rossi .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1821, page 384, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2502/page/4/