that Professor Merrill’s path of argument causes me to stumble.  I readily admit that Aldus, in editing a portion of text that no man had put into print before him, fell back on conjecture when his authority seemed not to make sense.  But Merrill’s lists need revision.  He has included with Aldus’s “willful deviations” from the true text of P certain readings that almost surely were misprints (218, 12; 220, 3), some that may well be (as 217, 28; 221, 12), one case in which Aldus has retained an error of P while I emends (221, 11), and several cases in which Aldus and I or i emend in different ways an error of P (222, 14; 226, 5; 272, 4—­not 5).  In one case he misquotes Aldus, when the latter really has the reading that both Merrill and Keil indicate as correct (276, 21); in another he fails to remark that Aldus’s erroneous reading is supported by M (219,17).  However, even after discounting these and possibly other instances, a significant array of conjectures remains.  Still, it is not fair to call the Parisinus Aldus’s only manuscript.  We know that he had other material in the six volumes of manuscripts and collated editions sent him by Giocondo, as well as the latter’s copy of P.  There could hardly have been in this number a source superior to the Parisinus, but Giocondo may have added here and there his own or others’ conjectures, which Aldus adopted unwisely, but at least not solely on his own authority; the most apparent case of interpolation (224, 8) Keil thought might have been a conjecture of Giocondo’s.  Further, if the general character of P is represented in _{Pi}_, Book X, as well as the beginning of Book III, may have had variants by the second hand, sometimes taken by Aldus and neglected, wisely, by Budaeus’s transcriber.

  [Footnote 76:  P. 33.]

  [Footnote 77:  P. 30.]

[Sidenote:  The Morgan fragment the best criterion of Aldus]

With the discovery of the Morgan fragment, a new criterion of Aldus is offered.  I believe that it is the surest starting-point from which to investigate Aldus’s relation to his ancient manuscript.  I admit that for Book X, Avantius and the Bodleian volume in its added parts are better authorities for the Parisinus than is Aldus.  I admit that Aldus resorted throughout the text of the Letters—­in some cases unhappily—­to the customary editorial privilege of emendation.  But I nevertheless maintain that for the entire text he is a much better authority than the Bodleian volume as a whole, and that he should be given, not absolute confidence, but far more confidence than editors have thus far allowed him.  Nor is the section of text preserved in the fragment of small significance for our purpose.  Indeed, both for Aldus and in general, I think it even more valuable than a corresponding amount of Book X would be.  We could wish that it were longer, but at least it includes a number of crucial readings and above all