On this basis, Merrill cites twenty-five readings in the
added part of Book VIII (viii, 3 _quas obvias_--xviii, II _amplissimos
hortos_) and nineteen readings in the added part of Book X (letters
iv-xli), which represent examples "wherein Aldus abandons indubitably
satisfactory readings of his only and much belauded manuscript in favor
of conjectures of his own."[75] Letter IX xvi, a very short affair,
added by Budaeus in the margin, contains no indictment against Aldus.
[Footnote 72: _C.P._ XIV (1919), pp. 29 ff.]
[Footnote 73: _Op. cit._, p. xxxvii: nam ea quae aliter in Aldina
editione atque in illis (i.e., Avantius, Beroaldus, and Catanaeus)
exhibentur ita comparata sunt omnia, ut coniectura potius inventa
quam e codice profecta esse existimanda sint et plura quidem in
pravis et temerariis interpolationibus versantur.]
[Footnote 74: But see above, p. 62, n. 2.]
[Footnote 75: Pp. 31 ff.]
[Sidenote: _Aldus's methods in the newly discovered parts of Books VIII,
IX, and X_]
The result of this exposure, Professor Merrill declares, should convince
"any unprejudiced student" of the question that "Aldus stands clearly
convicted of being an extremely unsafe textual critic of Pliny's
_Letters_."[76] "This conclusion does not depend, as that of Keil
necessarily did, on any native or acquired acuteness of critical
perception. The wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein.
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