| Some copies have the additional words: olde Testament and the newe.’
_ I The note is on the fifteenth leaf, signed * 1, next after the list of ‘faultes escaped,’
“conteyning the
VERSIONS (ENGLISH)
The ‘other perusal,’ of which Parker had assured Cecil that the travail of the Revisers would have the benefit, showed itself in an amended edition, published by Jugge, in 4to, the following year, with the brief title, ‘The holi Bible.’ But only negligent use had been made of the criticisms called forth. Some interesting specimens of these, by a schoolmaster named Laurence, have been fortunately preserved by Strype,* and the way in which they were incorporated in the edition of 1569 shows strikingly the want of.care exercised. Two examples must suffice. In Mt 28" the tra- ditional rendering of dueptuvous, namely ‘harmless,’ had been retained. Laurence pointed out that ‘careless’ (in the sense of secuwrus) was rather the word. But he must have been surprised to find himself taken so literally that in 1569 the render- ing appeared, ‘ We willmake you careless.’ Again, in Mt 21° the Revisers, following the Great Bible in preference to the Genevan, had rendered xard- oxwuer ‘let us enjoy’ instead of ‘let us take’ (RV). Laurence found fault with this, on the ground that the original signified ‘let us take possession or seysyn (seizin) upon.’ In the edition of 1569, and in every subsequent one, this appeared as ‘let us aria upon his inheritance’ (‘sease on’ in AV of 1611).
The most singular part of the matter is that, while corrections (of whatever value) were freel admitted into the second edition of 1569, the third of 1572 went back in many particulars to the first. A few examples will make this clear. For brevity, the editions may be denoted by A, B, C.
In Gn 36?4in A Anah isa woman : ‘she fedde’; in B, correctly, aman: ‘he fedde;’ C goes back to ‘she.’—In Jg 510 A reads, ‘ye that dwell by Middin’ (RV ‘that sit on rich carpets’); B ‘ye that syt vppermoste in iudgment’; C goes back to A.— In Mt 15° A has ‘ by the gyft that [is offered] of me, thou shalt be helped’; B ‘what gift soeuer shold haue come of me’; C agrees with A.—In Lk 22 A has ‘and this first taxing was made’; B ‘this taxing was the first and executed when,’ etc. ; C goes back to A.—In Ac 11 A and C have ‘O Theophilus’ ; B ‘deare Theophilus.’=In Ac 734 A and C have ‘I haue seene, I haue seene’; B ‘I haue perfectly sene.’—In 1 Ti 12 A has ‘a natural sonne’; B ‘ his naturall sonne’; C goes back to A.
The edition of 1572, moreover, exhibited two versions of the Psalms in parallel columns: that of the Revisers themselves, and that from the Great Bible. Many subsequent editions appeared. Dore (Old Bibles, p. 239) enumerates nineteen in all, from 1568 to 1606 inclusive; Pocock seventeen, speaking doubtfully also of one of these, as never seen by him, an alleged folio of 1606. The British Museum Catalogue does not show this last, nor yet an 8vo (included by Dore) of 1577.
The Bishops’ Bible appears never to have received the royal sanction. Parker, indeed, in his letter of Oct. 5th, 1568, before quoted, tried to procure, through Sir Wm. Cecil, such a mark of recognition. ‘The printer,’ he writes, ‘hath honestly done his diligence. If your honour would obtain of the Queen’s Highness that this edition might be licensed and only commended in public reading in churches, to draw to one uniformity, it were no great cost to the most parishes, and a relief to him for his great charges sustained.’ But, so far as is known, the application was unsuccessful. Accord. ingly, the claim to be ‘set foorth by aucthoritee, made by the editions of 1574 and 1575, must be referred to the sanction of Convocation, given in 1571... The Constitutions and Canons Eeclesias- tical of that year expressly ordain that ‘every archbishop and bishop should have at his house a copy of the holy Bible of the largest volume as
* Life of Parker, ed. 1821, vol. iii. p. 258, _ It has been con- jectured, with much probability, that the Laurence in ques- tion,‘ a man in those times of great fame for his knowledge in the Greek,’ was Thomas Lawrence, appointed head-master of Shrewsbury in 1568. §
+ See Pocock’s art. in the Bibliographer, vol. i. p. 113, where more examples are given.
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lately printed at London.’ A like injunction was laid upon cathedrals; and, ‘as far as it could be conveniently done,’ upon all churches. *
vii. RoMAN CATHOLIC.—It was not likely that English Roman Catholics should continue unmoved by this untiring work in translating the Bible. Every fresh version made by scholars of the Reformed Church was a tacit reflexion on them for making none. Accordingly, it was resolved by the leading members of the newly founded English College at Douai, that this reproach—so far as they admitted it to be a reproach—should be wiped away. The moving spirit in this under- taking, as in the foundation of the college itself, was Dr. William Allen, made cardinal afterwards in 1587. But the actual work of making the new translation devolved almost entirely on Dr. Gregory Martin, a native of Maxfield in Sussex, who had been one of Sir Thomas White’s first batch of students at St. John’s College, Oxford, in 1557. Having chosen to forsake Oxford for Douai, he was made by Allen the teacher of Hebrew and Biblical literature there.t Dr. William Reynolds, formerly of New College, Oxford, Richard Bristow, a Worcester man, and others, took a share in the work of revision.