History of the transmission of ancient books to modern times together with the process of historical proof; or, a concise account of the means by which genuineness of ancient literature generally, and the authenticity of historical works especially are ascertained including incidental remarks upon the relative strength of the evidence usually adduced in behalf of the Holy Scriptures

The credit of ancient literature, the certainty of history, and the truth of religion, are all involved in the secure transmission of ancient books to modern times. Many of the...

The antiquity and genuineness of the extant remains of ancient literature may be established by three lines of proof that are altogether independent of each other; and though, i...

Let us now suppose, that the Greek and Latin authors are extant only in the printed editions--that is to say, that every one of the ancient manuscripts has long since perished,...

A language is at once the most complete, and it is the least fallible of all historical records. A poem or a history may have been forged; but a language is an unquestionable re...

As our present inquiry relates to _Books_, it will not be expected to include anything concerning ancient methods of engraving inscriptions upon marbles, metals, or precious sto...

An exact uniformity in the shapes of letters, and in the general appearance of writing, is hardly maintained for so long a period as fifty years in any language, especially if i...

It is a matter of some importance to know by what class of persons, chiefly, the business of copying books was practised; and it gives no little support to our confidence in the...

General epithets usually carry with them a meaning that oversteps the bounds of truth: we hear of “the dark ages”--“the period of intellectual night”--“the season of winter in t...

More than half a century before the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, the learned men of that city, apprehensive of the approaching fall of the empire, had begun to emigrat...

The facts referred to in the preceding chapters belong in common to ancient books of all classes, and they tend to prove that the works of the Greek and Roman writers--poets, dr...

From the very nature of the case the authenticity of an historical work can be affirmed only in a restricted sense, and must be understood to be open to exceptions in particular...

Most of the principal facts mentioned by ancient historians, as well as many particulars of less importance, are confirmed by evidence that is altogether independent, both in it...

Civilization has not ordinarily, if indeed it has ever done so, sprung up spontaneously in any land. A germ of the arts, and of literature, transmitted from people to people, an...

Some copies of Quintilian’s Institutions of Oratory, very much corrupted and mutilated by the ignorance or presumption of copyists, were known in Italy before the fifteenth cent...

And now, at this stage of our progress, let the reader indulge the author to the extent of a page of metaphor or allegory.--Imagine then that we are standing on the margin of a...

Some of the most ancient, and the most valuable of the manuscripts which at present enrich the British Museum, have been very lately acquired, being the product of the researche...

We have now seen in what way, and liable to what conditions, the mass of ancient literature, including the Holy Scriptures, has been sent forward through the long track of centu...

That the Greek text of Herodotus, such as it now appears--small verbal variations only excepted, was extant and well known in Greece, at least as early as the commencement of th...

The object of the preceding pages has been to display, in its several parts, that chain of evidence, by means of which a high degree of certainty in matters of antiquity is atta...

What we are now doing is to adduce a few samples of the means that are available for establishing the truth of the more remote facts of ancient history, according to those gener...

A book may come into my hand which contains no narrative of events--no allusion to the persons or transactions of the author’s times--in a word, nothing, from the first page to...

In the twelfth chapter of this volume, and particularly at p. 141 and to the end, we have referred to those monuments of ancient art--buildings, sculptures, coins, which, as mat...