The defects of such a There was no meeting together for the discussion of various renderings. No provision was made to secure uniformity of style. The final revision to be expected from one with so much business on hand as Archbishop Parker, one not specially dis- tinguished as a scholar, and one who had, moreover, reserved certain books as his own particular share, was not likely to be thorough, even if deputed in part to other learned men. Accordingly, we are not surprised to find traces of haste, if not of negligence, in the work. Thus the revision of Kings and Chronicles was despatched by Bishop Sandys in about seven weeks. As an incentive to diligence, the initials of each contributor were to
scheme were obvious.
be printed at the end of the books undertaken by Comparing these with a list sent by Parker
him.
VERSIONS (ENGLISH)
to Cecil, Oct. 5th, 1568,* we can identify nearly all the workers with fair certainty.
According to this list, the archbishop himself undertook, besides Prefaces and other introductory matter, Genesis, Exo- dus, Matthew, Mark, and 2 Cor.~Hebrews inclusive. Andrew Pierson, prebendary of Canterbury (a conjectural expansion, supported by the initials A. P. C., of the single word *Cantu- ari’), had Leviticus, Numbers, Job, and Proverbs. _The Bishop of Exeter (Wm. Alley) had Deuteronomy. The Bishop of St. Davids (Rd. Davies) had Joshua-2 Kings.t The Bishop of Worcester (Edwyn Sandys) had 3 and 4 Kings and Chronicles, Andrew Perne, Master ot Peterhouse and Dean of Ely (a con- jectural inference, like the former, by help of the initials A. P. E., from ‘Cantabrigiz’), had Ecclesiastes and Canticles, The Bishop of Norwich (John Parkhurst) shared the Apocryphal books with the Bishop of Chichester (Wm. Barlow). The Bishop of Winchester (Rt. Horne) had Isaiah—Lamentations ; the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (I. Bentham) taking the rest of the Greater Prophets, The Minor Prophets fell to the Bishop of London (Edmund Grindal). The Bishop of Peterborough (Ed. Scambler) took Luke and John; the Bishop of Ely (R. Cox) Acts and Romans; the Dean of Westminster (Gabriel Goodman) 1 Corinthians; and the Bishop of Lincoln (N. Bullingham) the General Epistles and the Revelation.
It will be noticed that Parker’s list omits the Book of Psalms. The initials appended to this book in the Bible itself are T. B., supposed by Strype to designate Thomas Becon, formerly one of Cranmer’s chaplains, afterwards a prebendary of Canterbury. The Psalms had in fact been originally assigned to Edmund Geste, Bishop of Rochester; and if the revised rendering had been made by him on the principles he does not scruple to avow,{ the work might well need to be sent on to some other scholar for correction. A difficulty is also caused by the fact that the initials at the end of Daniel, T. C. L., do not appear to correspond with the ‘I. Lich. and Covent.’ of the list. But the explanation of Burnet is a plausible one, that Thomas Bentham, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (1560-1580), is meant in both cases, the confusion of I. and T. being easy ; and that he was accustomed to sign himself ‘Covent. and Lich.,’ reversing the usual order.
By these united efforts there was produced, in 1568, from the press of Richard Jugge, dwelling in St. Paul’s Churchyard, what well deserved the designation by which it was often known, ‘the Bible of largest volume.’§ The title-page is chiefly occupied by an ornamental border, having within it, on an oblong label at the top, ‘The holie Bible,’ || and in the centre, within an oval, a portrait of queen Elizabeth: above it, the royal arms ; beneath, in three lines, the text Non me pudet . . . credenti from Ro 1%, The next three leaves have ‘A Preface into the Bible folowynge,’ by Archbishop Parker. The fifth, sixth, and part of the seventh leaves are taken up with Cranmer’s ‘prologue or preface.’ Other preliminary matter follows, extending to the twenty-sixth leaf, Genesis beginning on the twenty-seventh. One interesting point among the subjects treated of in the Intro- duction, peculiar, we believe, to this Bible, is the caution to ministers against heedlessly reading aloud words or phrases which might sound objec- tionable. Certain ‘semy circles’ are used as marks to denote what ‘may be left vnread in the ublique reading to the people.’ This strapdioamne which would have satistied Selden, might well have been extended to the designs used for initial let- ters; some of which (notably that at the beginning of Hebrews in the ed. of 1572) would be more appropriate for an edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses than for an English Bible. Besides the copperplate engraving of Elizabeth already mentioned, there is one of the Earl of Leicester ‘at the beginning of Joshua, and another of Sir Wm. Cecil (to represent king David?) at the beginning of the Bk. of Psalms.
* Printed in the Correspondence of Archbishop Parker (Parker Society), pp. 335, 336.
t That is, 2 Samuel.
t ‘Where in the New Testament,’ he writes to the archbishop, ‘one piece of a Psalm is reported, I translate it in the Psalm according to the translation thereof in the New Testament, for the avoiding of the offence that may arise to the people upon diverse translations.’—Parker Corresp. p. 250.
_§ In the copy before the present writer (Brit. Mus. 1. e. 2) the size of page is 154 by 104 inches,