Note 002 Lactant. Divin. Institut. i. I, vii. 26. The first and most important of these passages is indeed wanting in twenty-eight manuscripts, but it is found in nineteen. If we weigh the comparative value of those manuscripts, one of 900 years old, in the king of France's library, may be alleged in its favour; but the passage is omitted in the correct manuscript of Bologna, which the P. de Montfaucon ascribes to the sixth or seventh century (Diarium Italic. p. 409). The taste of most of the editors (except Isaeus, see Lactant. edit. Dufresnoy, tom. i. p. 596) has felt the genuine style of Lactantius

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Note to Chapter 20 of DECLINE & FALL by Gibbon