long, he doubles it. Thus we have ‘taak’ (take), ‘swijn’ (swine), ‘ameen,’ ‘ propheet,’ ‘Herood,’ and the like. ‘Church’ (p. 67) is said to be sounded ‘moor corruptly and frenchlike ’ than the north-country ‘ Kurk.’ Speaking generally, the value of the work is philological rather than biblical.
* Printed in H. B.’s collected Works, Lond. 1662, p. 557 ff. For several particulars in this account the present writer is indebted to the Rey. Alex. Gordon’s art. in the Dict. of National Biography.
+ Sloane MSS, No. 3088, leaf 120 verso,
+ Works, p. 661.
§ Works ; Dr, John Lightfoot’s Pref., sig. 0.
ment on the subject. In it they complained of the faultiness of these Dutch editions. To substantiate their charge, they were content with three instances only ; but these, it must be admitted, were enough : —Gn 3624 ‘found the rulers’ for ‘found the mules’ ; Ru 4 ‘gave her corruption’ for ‘gave her concep- tion’; Lk 218 ‘your condemnation’ for ‘your re- demption.’ The Assembly’s report was followed up by an appeal from the learned Dr. John Light- foot. Inasermon preached before the Long Parlia- ment, Aug. 26th, 1645, he urged upon the members the necessity for a ‘review and survey of the translation of the Bible,’ that by this means people ‘might come to understand the proper and genuine reading of the Scriptures by an exact, vigorous, and lively translation.’ *
It does not appear that either report or sermon produced any immediate effect. There exists, in- deed, the draft of a bill, proposed to be brought before Parliament in 1653, authorizing the appoint- ment of a committee ‘to search and observe wherein that last translation appears to be wronged by Pre- lates or printers or others.’ + But the spirit which prompted the motion for such an inquiry was too obvious, and nothing came of it. There were, in truth, vested interests at stake, and abuses con- nected with them, not easy to reform, even under a Protectorate.
Henry Hills and John Field (who had obtained his patent from Cromwell) were the licensed printers to the University of Cambridge. But the fact that they had to pay for their privilege a yearly bribe of £500 to certain persons in power, prepares us to expect from them little conscientious work. Accordingly, when, in 1659, William Kilburne, Gent., printed at Finsbury his Dangerous Errors in Severall Late printed Bibles: to the great scandal and corruption of sound and true Religion, it was chiefly against these two printers that his attack is directed. The longer title, or Advertise- ment, of the tract§ describes it as ‘ discovering (amongst many thousands of others) some per- nicious erroneous & corrupt Erratas Escapes & Faults in several Impressions of the Holy Bible and Testament within these late years commonly vended & dispersed, to the great scandal of Re- ligion, but more particularly in the Impressions of Henry Hills and John Field, printers...’ Kilburne brings heavy charges; but he fully justifies them. Two specimens must suffice. Both are from pocket Bibles printed by Field, in 1656 and 1653 respectively: —Jn 7° ‘this spake he of the spirits’ for ‘this spake he of the Spirit’; 1 Co 6° ‘the unrighteous shall inherit’ for ‘the unrighteous shall not inherit.’
The improvement which authority, regal and republican alike, had seemed powerless to effect, was brought about by private effort and the slow but unvarying growth of public opinion. If any one will take the trouble to go through a list of editions of English Bibles, and parts thereof, which have appeared from about the middle of the 17th to the middle of the 19th cent., he can hardly fail to be struck with the steady increase, first, of paraphrases, and then of new or emended versions of separate books of Holy Scripture. The names of Edward Wells and Zachary Pearce, of Chandler, Harwood and Gilbert Wakefield, of Archbishop Newcome and Bishop Lowth, not to mention many others, will meet him at every turn in this field of inquiry. Or let him apply a simple numerical test to the first fifty years of the 19th cent., taking Cotton’s List of Editions as a con-
* Newth, Lectures on Bible Revision, p. 92.
+ 1b. p. 98.
} Scrivener, Authorized Hdition, p. 26; Loftie, Century of Bibles, pp. 12, 13.
§ Reprinted by Loftie, ib. pp. 31-49.
VERSIONS (ENGLISH)
venient basis for his calculation. He will find that there are only nine years out of the fifty in which there has not appeared some fresh transla- tion, or new edition of such translation, of some or all the books of the Bible. And Cotton’s List is not exhaustive. *
Whatever might be the merits or defects of these versions—and some of them are very de- fective, especially in point of style +—they had the effect of keeping alive an interest in the sub- ject. Men were constantly reminded that the revision of 1611, with all its high qualities, could not be accepted as final. Moreover, by the labours of Brian Walton, Kennicott, Mill, entley, and others, the only sure foundation for the reviser’s work had been laid, or had at least begun to be laid, in fixing, on sound principles, the original texts. ,
Forces were thus slowly gathering, which cul- minated during the middle third, or nearly so, of the last century. Many causes contributed to bring about this result. The after-swell of the Reform Bill agitation and of the Oxford movement was still felt, making men less satisfied with things as they were, simply because they were. It was the period of the biblical labours of Tischendorf and Tregelles, of Wordsworth and Alford, of Trench and Scrivener, of Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort. Public attention had been called afresh to the subject of revision by a series of pamphlets and reviews. In 1849 appeared the third and enlarged edition of Professor Scholefield’s learned Hints Sor an improved Translation of the New Testa- ment. In October 1855 an Edinburgh reviewer, discussing the merits of an Annotated Paragraph Bible, published by the Religious Tract Society two years before, in which corrections of the AV had been freely introduced, expressed the con- viction, not only that ‘our Common Version requires a diligent revision, but that the great body of the people are aware of it; and that their trust in its perfection, which has been so long opposed against wa suggestion of improve- ment, can no longer be alleged as a pretext for de-