I. GREEK PALIMPSIISTS.—Among these, the first place of course belongs to the Greek biblical palimpsests, the earliest of which was (1) Fragments of the Gospel of St. Matthcw, id facsimile as well as in ordinary type, printed from a palimpsest MS. of Trinity college, Dublin, by the rev. I. Barrett, D.D. (4to, Dublin, 1801). The original writing appears to be of the 6th century. Dr. Barrett's transcript of the text has not proved in all respects correct, but the original has since beau carefully re-examined, and the ancient writing fully brought out. It is chiefly, however, to a collection of Syriac MSS. brought from the east that we are indebted for the more recent palimpsest restorations of the ancient biblical readings. In this line the chief discoverer has been Dr. Constantine Tisehendorf. From his pen we have (2) the celebrated Codex Ephremi or Codex Begins of the royal library at Paris. This MS. bad been early observed to be palimpsest, and the original Greek text was collated in part by Wetstein and by Ktister. It was still more carefully examined by M. Hase in 1835; and finally, in 1840, by Dr. Tischendo•f, by whom the New Testament was printed in 1843, and the fragments of the Old in 1845. The modern writing of this palimpsest consisted of the works of St. Ephrem the Syrian. (3.) Fragmenta Sacra Pabimpsesta (4to, Leipsic, 1855), containing fragments of the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Kings, Isaiah, together with 48 pages of fragments of the New Testament, the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians and to Titus. The modern writing of these palimpsests was partly Greek, partly Armenian, and Arabic. (4.) Fragmenta Ecangelii Luca et Libri Genesis (4to, Leipsic, 1857). The fragments of St. Luke's gospel amount to 95 pages. The volume also contains fragments of St. John's gospel and of Ezekiel and the Third Book of Kings. The modern writing is partly Syriac, partly Coptic. Along with these bibli cal palimpsests (5) may be classed another, the original of which, however,' contains not only some Greek fragments, but also portions of the ancient Gothic version of the Bible by Ulphilas. The MS. from which this is taken is known from its place in the Wolfen
Mittel library as the Codex Guelpherkytanus. It was first noticed in 1755 by Knittle, by whom' a portion of the Gothic version was published in 1762. These fragments were reprinted in 1772, and again in 1805. The modern writing of the MS. consisted of the Orlgenes of Isidorus Hispalensis.. A large addition to the text of Ulphilas was made in 1817 by Mai and Castiglione, from palimpsests discovered in the Ambrosian library at Milan; and the whole have since been combined into one edition by Dr. Gabelentz, and finally by Dr. Massmann (4to, Stuttgart, 1855). We may also mention under the same head some interesting Greek liturgical remains edited by F. I. Mona (Frankfort, 1850), from a palimpsest discovered at Carlsrnhe.
In Greek classical literature, also, we owe something to the labors of palimpsest editors. From one of the Syriac MSS. already referred to, Dr. Cureton has edited large fragments of the Iliad of Homer, amounting in all to nearly 4,000 lines; and although all these, it need hardly be said, were known before, yet the text is of the utmost value as a source of criticism, being certainly of much greater antiquity than the very MSS. of the Iliad. A still larger and more original contribution to Greek classical literature was made by Mai in the 5th volume of his Scriptorurn Veterurn .Naov Colleetio (Rome, 1831-38). From a very large palimpsest discovered in the Vatican library he has printed in this volume copious fragments of almost all the Greek writers on Roman his-, tory—from the lost books of Polyhius no less than 100 4to pages; 130 pages of Diodorns Siculus; 64 of Dionysius of Halicarnassus; 100 of Dion Cassius; together with considera ble fragments of Appian, Iamblichus, Dexippus, Eunapius, and others. This is, per haps, after the De 1?epublica . of Cicero, the most important accession to the existing store of classic learning which the palimpsests have hitherto supplied.