r critical
purposes. In 1843 Tischendorf could only see it for two days of
three hours each. Tregelles, who went to Rome in 1845 for the
special purpose of consulting the Codex, provided with a
strongly-recommendatory letter of introduction from Cardinal Wiseman,
was only permitted to see it, but not to transcribe any of its
readings. His pockets, as he himself tells us, were searched, and his
pen, ink, and paper taken away, before he was allowed to open it; and
if he looked at a passage too long the manuscript was snatched rudely
from his hands by the two prelates in watchful attendance. When Dean
Alford, in 1861, made use of the manuscript for four days, his labours
of collation were carried on in the face of much opposition from the
librarian, who insisted that the order of Antonelli permitted him only
to see the manuscript, but not to verify passages in it.

The reason alleged to the scholars of Europe for this childish
jealousy was that the authorities of the Vatican were themselves
preparing to publish a thorough collation, and they did not wish the
glory of the achievement to pass away from Rome. Cardinal Mai began,
indeed, to prepare an edition for publication in 1828; but it did not
appear till 1857, three years after the cardinal's death, under the
learned editorship of Vercellone. There was a rumour copied into the
_Edinburgh Review_ from Sir Charles Lyell's work on the United States,
that the cardinal was prevented from publishing his work by Pope
Gregory XVI., on account of its variations from the Vulgate, which had
been solemnly sanctioned by the decrees of the Council of Trent and
the Church's claims to infallibility. It was further asserted that he
finally obtained permission to publish his edition on condition that
he inserted within brackets the celebrated text 1 John v. 7, which was
wanting in the manuscript. Whether this was true or not, it is certain
that what the learned cardinal gave to the world was more an edition,
a critical recension of the text, than a faithful transcript of the
Vatican Codex. Although he had the MS. with him at his residence in
the Palazzo Altieri--a circumstance which gave rise to the belief at
the time that it had disappeared during the French occupation of
Rome--he could only bestow upon the arduous task the scanty leisure
available from more engrossing duties. The work was therefore so
imperfectly done that the cardinal himself was reluctant to publish
it; and the learn