But in fact the concessions made to the Puritan party at the Hampton Court Conference itself, with regard to the use of the Apocr. in the Lectionary of the Church, and the large excisions then agreed to,§ furnish evidence enough, if any were still needed, of the diminished esteem into which the Apocryphal books were falling, and help to explain the comparative carelessness with which these books were revised in 161]. That the revision of the Apocr. then made shows signs of less care and deliberation than was bestowed upon the canonical books, is certain. The task was assigned to the second Cambridge Company, a body which comprised perhaps fewer scholars of eminence than any of the others. They were the first to finish their allotted share of the work, ‘For the rest,’ says Scrivener, || ‘they are con- tented to leave many a rendering of the Bishops’ Bible as they found it, when nearly any change must have been for the better; even where their predecessor sets them a better example they resort to undignified, mean, almost vulgar words and phrases ; and on the whole they convey to the reader’s mind the painful impression of having disparaged the importance of their own work, or of having imperfectly realized the truth that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well.’ One peculiarity of the AV of the Apocr. could
* This was noticed by Pusey in his Hirenicon. See the Church Quarterly Rev., Oct. 1888, p. 140. In the first part of the Sermon of Swearing, a quotation from Wisdom is intro- duced by the words: ‘ Almighty God by the wise man saith.’
+ Churton, Uncanonical and Apocr. Scripture, Introd. p. 21.
t Salmon, Gen. Introd. (/.c.) p. xxxvii.
Hist. of the Eng.
§ A full list of these is given in Perry, Church, i. pp. 105, 106.
|| Authorized Edition, p. 140. Serivener notes that Dr, Robert Gell in his Hssay, 1659, formed a like unfayourable opinion of the revision of the Apocr. in the AV.
VERSIONS (ENGLISH)
VERSIONS (ENGLISH) 267
hardly fail to strike the reader, though it might not occur to him to ascribe it to its true cause— simple negligence. This is the scarcity of words in italics, or, in case of the early black - letter editions, insmall Roman type. As first published, there were only fifty-four examples to be found in the whole Apocrypha. ‘In fact only three instances occur at all later than Sir 454, after which [], or sometimes (), are substituted in their room.’ *
It may be of service for forming a just estimate of the merits of the AV and RV respectively, so far as the Apocr. is concerned, to set down two or three short extracts, taken almost at random from the Bishops’ Bible, and notice some of the changes made in the revisions of 1611 and 1895. The copy of the Bishops’ Bible used is one of the 2nd ed. of 1572. The first passage taken shall be from the description of a friend in Sir 6. And here we are struck at the outset by the advantage the later Revisers have gained in recognizing, by a system of parallelisms, the poetical character of the book. The same remark applies to Wisdom. This in turn suggests the question: why, if the principle of stichometry was admitted in the case of the Sapiential books, it should have been ignored in other parts of the Apocrypha. Why should it not have been applied to portions, at least, of Baruch, to the psalmic Prayer of Manasses, and to the Song of the Three Children ? The result, as we have it, seems to point to a want of uniformity of plan.
Srracu 6 (Bishops’ Bible, 1572).
6 Holde frendship with many, neuerthelesse haue but one counseller of a thousande.
7 If thou gettest a freende, prooue him first, and be not hasty to geue hym credence.
8 For somme man is a freende but for his owne turne, and wyl not abide in the day of trouble.
9 And there is somme freende that turneth to enmitie, and taketh part agaynst thee: and yf he knoweth any hurt by thee, he telleth it out.
10 Agayne, somme freende is but a companion at the table, and in the day of neede he continueth not.
11 But in thy prosperitie he wyl be as thou thee selfe, and deale plainely with thy householde folke.
12 If thou be brought lowe, he will be agaynst thee, and wyl be hydden from thy face.
Here, in v.6, for ‘Holde frendship,’ etc., the AV has, more literally, ‘Be in peace with many’; the RV, still more exactly, ‘Let those that are at peace with thee be many ’—ol éipyvebovres rot torwcay roaro:. Inv.7, for ‘If thou gettest’ (Coverdale and Bish.) the AV and RV needlessly, ‘If thou wouldest get.’ It is exactly ‘If thou art getting’ (or ‘acquiring’), e zraces. For ‘to geue hym credence’ (so, too, Cov.), the AV, not so well, ‘to credit him.’ The RV, more simply, ‘to trust him.’ In v.8, for the cumbrous ‘somme man is,’ etc., retained by the AV, the RV has, more neatly, ‘there is a friend that is so for,’ etc. Not to delay over lesser matters, a more important question is, What is the friend referred to in vv.11-12? Is it a faithful friend (so the Lat. ‘Amicus si permanserit fixus,’ followed by Cover- dale, ‘But a sure frende,’ etc.), or is it the time-server of v.10? The Bish. and AV are undoubtedly right in taking the latter view, but obscure the sense by beginning v.11 with ‘ But’ instead of ‘And,’ The RV makes the meaning clear—