Though Bishops Tunstall and Heath had allowed their names to stand on the title-pages of several editions of the Great Bible, and Bonner, after the royal proclamation of 1540, had duly caused six copies of the Bible to be set up for public reading in St. Paul’s, it is plain that the Episcopal bench
generally were only half-hearted as yet in the work of translating the Scriptures into English. A motion was brought forward in Convocation, in 1542, for undertaking a fresh version, but was
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shelved by Gardiner, who stipulated for the trans- literation, not translation, of many words of the original, such as ecclesia, peenitentia, pascha, ziz- ania, didrachma ; including even some of which the meaning was obvious, as simplex, dignus, oriens. To have constructed a version on these principles would have been to anticipate the worst faults of the Rheims and Douai translations.
_y. PurITAN. — Meantime, however, while the bishops at home were hesitating, the work of a new version, or rather of a vigilant revision of existing ones, was being actively carried on abroad. ‘Lhe result was the Genevan Bible.*
When, on the accession of Mary Tudor, in 1553, the leaders of the Reforming party sought safety on the Continent, Frankfort became for a time a centre for the refugees. But when dissensions on the subject of the English Liturgy broke out between the moderate section, headed by Cox, afterwards dean of Durham, and the more violent spirits, who followed John Knox, the latter with- drew to Geneva. Among them was William Whit- tingham, a native of Chester, who in 1545 had been made Fellow of All Souls’, Oxford, and Senior Student of Christ Church in 1547.+ In 1557 he published anonymously at Geneva a new version in English of the NT in small 8vo, bearing date ‘This x of June.’ This was a prelude to a greater work, an English version of the whole Bible, on which some of the exiles were engaged. The news of queen Mary’s death, in 1558, drew most of these back to England ; but Whittingham remained at his post, to finish the work, and with him, as Anthony a Wood tells us, there remained ‘one or two more.’ These ‘one or two’ were eee Anthony Gilby, of Christ’s Coll., Cam-
ridge, who afterwards became rector of Ashby-de- la-Zouche; ‘a fast and furious stickler against Church discipline,’ as he is called by Fuller, but a good scholar; and Thomas Sampson. Sampson had entered Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, but ap- parently had not taken any degree. After re- fusing the bishopric of Norwich in 1560, he was made dean of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1561. Beza gives him the character of being of ‘an ex- ceedingly restless disposition.’
By the labours of these men, and of others whose names have not come down to us, there was issued from the press of ‘Rovland’ Hall, at Geneva, in 1560, an English Bible, commonly called, from its place of publication, the Genevan, which was des- tined to attain lasting popularity. Its title was: ‘The Bible | and | Holy Scriptvres | conteyned in | the Olde and Newe| Testaments. |'Translated accor| ding to the Ebrue and Greke, and conferred With | the best translations in diuers langages. | With moste profitable annota|tions vpon all the hard places, and other things of great | importance as may appeare in the Epistle to the Reader.’ Below is a woodcut of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, bordered by texts in small italic character. On the reverse of the title is a list of the books of the Bible, including the Apocrypha (ending with 2 Mac.). Leaves ii and iii are occupied by a Dedication to ‘the moste vertvous and noble Qvene Elizabeth,’ from her ‘humble subjects of the English Churche at Geneva.’ Leaf iiii is filled on both sides with an Address ‘to ovr Beloved in the Lord, the Brethren of England, Scotland, Ireland, &c.,’ dated ‘from Geneua, 10 April, 1560.’ The regular foliation begins on the fifth leaf, and
* A series of useful articles on this subject, by N. Pocock, will be found in vols. ii. and iii. of the Bibliographer, 1882-83. See alsoan essay on ‘ The English Bible from Henry Vil. to James 1.,’ by H. W. Hoare, in The Nineteenth Centwry for April 1899.
+ He is said to have been Calvin’s brother-in-law ; but this is disputed by A. F. Pollard in his art. on W. Whittingham in the Dict. of Nat. Biography.
ends with the close of the Apocrypha on f. 474. The NT begins with fresh foliation, and ends on f. 122, being followed by 12 unnumbered leaves, containing proper names, with interpretation, and chronological tables. A map, folded into two leaves, is placed next after the title of the NT.
If we inquire into the causes which made the Genevan Bible so long a favourite one (Hoare estimates that 160 editions of it appeared between 1560 and the outbreak of the Civil War in Eng- land), they are not far to seek. The mere shape and size of the volume as it first appeared, a handy 4to,* was a recommendation as compared with the ponderous folios of the Great, or the Bishops’, Bible. It was printed throughout in Roman and italic, not Gothic, letter. It adopted the division into verses, first introduced by Stephen in 1551, and followed by Whittingham in his NT of 1557. It retained the marginal notes, Calvinist in tone, but generally free from offensive asperity, of the NT of 1557, with the addition of similar notes for the OT,—the Apocrypha being but slen- derly furnished with them. It indicated by marks of accent the pronunciation of proper names. It had woodcuts,+ and convenient maps and tables.