At the end of the lists the manuscripts are described more briefly, in two columns, giving only the numbers of the manuscripts, with the corresponding number used in the other cataloguing system (that of biblical scholar Johann M. A. Scholz): [2]: 206 In the preface to the first edition, the editor announced: The following pages are chiefly designed for the use of those who have no previous knowledge of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament; but since the Author has endeavoured to embody in them the results of very recent investigations, he hopes that they may prove of service to more advanced students.

He asks the reader's indulgence for the annexed list of Addenda et Corrigenda, both by reason of the peculiar character of his work, and the remoteness of West Cornwall from Public Libraries.

He might easily have suppressed the greater part of them, but that he has honestly tried to be accurate, and sees no cause to be ashamed of what Person has well called "the common lot of authorship."

H. O. Coxe for important aid in the Bodleian, and to Henry Bradshaw Esq., Fellow of King's College, for valuable instruction respecting manuscripts in the University Library at Cambridge.

In 1873 Dean Burgon in The Guardian published several articles with some suggestions, corrections, and encouragement for preparing the second edition of Plain Introduction.

Without wishing to speak harshly of writers who are not very scrupulous in such matters, he has always thought it became him to borrow from no quarter without making a full and frank avowal of the fact.

In August, 1874, Ezra Abbot sent to Scrivener a letter; the rough draft of this covered forty-odd pages, devoted to the correction of apparent errors and a statement of overlooked facts in the first edition of the Plain Introduction.

[5]: 1  Abbot's studies largely argumented[clarification needed] the number of suggestions, particularly in those portions of the book devoted to describing the extant manuscripts.

They were accumulated[clarification needed] in great part to the older and well-known authorities, such as Griesbach, Matthaei, Scholz (particularly his work Biblisch-kritische Reise, Leipzig 1823), Bianchini, Montfaucon, Silvestre, Bandini, Laubecius, and Zaeagni.

The early part of Volume I was enriched from the admirable book on "Greek and Latin Palaeography", by Edward Maunde Thompson.

[6] Eberhard Nestle, editor of Novum Testamentum Graece, wrote in 1901: Scrivener has rendered great service in the way of collating manuscripts, (...) and Gregory in Germany has also catalogued them.