A few examples will indicate the nature of the changes made in rendering. It will be seen that they are chiefly due to (a) the seeking after a plainer, more idiomatic rendering, (b) the in- Huence of the Vulgate, (c) a better knowledge of Greek,
* Examples will be found in Westcott, pp. 182, 183 ; Moulton, pp. 129, 130.
t We quote from the copy numbered 4. ¢. 5 in the Brit. Mus. It is in small folio ; size of leaf, 113 x7} inches,
Library.
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(a) Gn 21 with all theyr furniture (Matthew ‘apparell,’ AV host’); Nu 2422 neuertheless (M. ‘ neuerthelater’): Is 22 in the last dayes (M. ‘in processe of tyme’); Mt 216 was very wrothe (M. ‘exceding wrothe’); Mt 511 (and elsewhere) pursue for ‘persecute’; Mt 89 vnder authority (M. ‘subject to the autho- rytye of another’) ; Lk 24 wente up for ‘ascended’; Ac 37 anone (M. ‘immediately’),
(0) Gn 4311 a quantitie of bawlme (M. ‘a curtesye bawlme,’ Vulg. modicum resince) ; Gn 496 they threw down the walls of the city (M. ‘they houghed an ox,’ Vulg. suffoderunt MUrUM) 5 1 K 21+! incluse and furthest (M. ‘prisoned and forsaken,’ Vulg. inclusum et vitimum),.
(c) Lk 138-9 and if it beare frute, well and good, if not, &e. (M. ‘to se whether it will beare frute, and yf it beare not,’ &.); Ro 820 creature (M. ‘creatures’); Mk 147 for ye have poore with you alwayes (Tind. ‘shall have’).
His acquaintance with the Greek article does not, however, save him from such oversights as @ pinnacle (Mt 45), a candle- stick (515), a prophet (Jn 749), can faith saue him? (Ja 214), In Jn 740 ‘vndoubtedly’ is not an improvement on the earlier ‘of a truth.’ Dore (Old Bibles, p. 148) asserts that the translation of 3 Esdras, at leastin part, is original. But, so far as the present writer has examined it, it agrees with the one in Matthew.
Richard Taverner was a client and pensioner of Cromwell, who in 1536 appointed him clerk of the Privy Seal. The fall of his patron in 1540 put a stop to his literary work, and made his position unsafe. For a time he was committed to the Tower. He succeeded, however, in regaining the royal favour, and under Edward vViI., in 1552, received a general licence to preach, though a layman. He died in 1575.*
The Great Bible.— Before the execution of Cromwell, on July 28th, 1540, that statesman had just time to see brought to a successful issue one great scheme on which he had set his heart. This was the production of an amended version of the Bible in English. Circumstances seemed to favour Cromwell’s project. Coverdale, on whom he chiefly relied for an improved translation, was in Paris, where, in 1538, he had brought out an edition of the New Testament in Latin and English, printed by Regnault. Paper and printing were both better at that time in Paris than in London. Francis t., so long as his relations with Henry kept good, was willing, upon certain conditions, to sanction the work of Coverdale and Grafton and the French printer Regnault.t No private opinions were to be introduced. The work was to be ‘citra ullas privatas aut illigittimas opiniones.’ Bonner, shortly to be made Bishop of Hereford, was trans- ferred from the court of the emperor to that of Francis, and charged ‘to aid and assist the doers thereof in all their reasonable suits.’ So far, at least, he seems to have regarded the translating of the Bible without disfavour. For a time, there- fore, matters went smoothly. But in December 1538 the French king inclining more and more to the side of the emperor, the Inquisition was allowed to interpose, and the printers and others engaged in the enterprise had to flee for their lives. Accord- ing to Grafton’s own statement (Abridgement of the Chronicles, etc., 1564, sub anno 29 Hen. VIII.), eighty finished copies were ‘seased and made con- fiscat.’ If this was so, no copy of the eighty, which would have Paris as the place of publication, appears to have escaped destruction. Foxe is the authority for a story that ‘four great dry vats full’ of the printed sheets were rescued from a haberdasher, who had purchased them ‘to lay caps in.’ But Kingdon (p. 63) discredits the statement, on the ground that the materials seized, for the restitution of which Cromwell and Bonner were making constant efforts, would be in the custody of the university. However this may be, Cromwell succeeded in getting most of the plant transferred to London, and there, from the press of Richard
* See art. by A. F. Pollard in Dict. of Nat. Biography.
ee ete te aiveh tw focainile i T & aot iaaenss in the’ Lives of Thomas Poyntz and
Richard Grafton, privately printed, 1895. See also the corre- spondence in Pettigrew’s Bibliotheca Sussexiand, 1839, p. 281 ff.
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