eferred, as
being mainly due, to their having been written on vellum according to
the fashion introduced in that school, instead of the ordinary papyrus.
The fact of such preservation is really to their discredit, instead of
resounding to their honour, because if they had enjoyed general
approval, they would probably have perished creditably many centuries
ago in the constant use for which they were intended.

Such are the main points in the indictment and in the history of the
Neutral Text, or rather--to speak with more appropriate accuracy,
avoiding the danger of drawing with too definite a form and too deep a
shade--of the class of readings represented by B and [Symbol: Aleph]. It
is interesting to trace further, though very summarily, the connexion
between this class of readings and the corruptions of the Original Text
which existed previously to the early middle of the fourth century. Such
brief tracing will lead us to a view of some causes of the development
of Dr. Hort's theory.

The analysis of Corruption supplied as to the various kinds of it by
Dean Burgon has taught us how they severally arose. This is fresh in the
mind of readers, and I will not spoil it by repetition. But the studies
of textual critics have led them to combine all kinds of corruption
chiefly under the two heads of the Western or Syrio-Low-Latin class, and
in a less prominent province of the Alexandrian. Dr. Hort's Neutral is
really a combination of those two, with all the accuracy that these
phenomena admit. But of course, if the Neutral were indeed the original
Text, it would not do for it to be too closely connected with one of
such bad reputation as the Western, which must be kept in the distance
at all hazards. Therefore he represented it--all unconsciously no doubt
and with the best intention--as one of the sources of the Traditional,
or as he called it the 'Syrian' Text. Hence this imputed connexion
between the Western and the Traditional Text became the essential part
of his framework of Conflation, which could not exist without it. For
any permanent purpose, all this handiwork was in vain. To say no more,
D, which is the chief representative of the Western Text, is too
constant a supporter of the peculiar readings of B and [Symbol: Aleph]
not to prove its near relationship to them. The 'Neutral' Text derives
the chief part of its support from Western sources. It is useless for
Dr. Hort to disown his leading constituents. And on the