In 1538, several editions of Coverdale's new version of the New Testament were published. He also is- sued several editions of the English New Testament, together with the text of the Latin Vulgate. The printing of this Diglott Testament was executed witli ' great carelessness, so that Coverdale had it speed' ily reprinted in Paris. It is probable that Nicholson the printer, hearing that Coverdale's Latin and English Testament was about to be reprinted at Paris, with more attention to accuracy, printed the one bearing the name of " Johan Hollybushe'' without delay, in order to anticipate the Paris edition. The following is a specimen of Coverdale's Testament — Matt. v. 13 :
Ye are the salt of the earth. Put yf ye salt vanishe away, wherin shal it be salted ? It is thece forth good vnto nothing, but yt it be cast out, & trode vndr of men.
In the year 1539 was published the English transla- | tion known by the name of the "Great Bible." This edition was executed under the superintendence of Grafton, to whom Coverdale lent his aid as corrector. This Bible was printed at Paris by the permission of Francis I., obtained by Henry VIII. But, notwith- standing the royal license, just as the work was well ad- vanced, the Inquisition intei posed, and issued an order, dated December 17,1538, summoning the French print- ers, their English employers, and Coverdale, the correct- or of the work, and inhibited their farther proceeding, i The impression, consisting of 2500 copies, was seized, 1 confiscated, and condemned to the flames. Four great J dry-fats full, however, of these books escaped the fire by J the avarice of the person appointed to superintend the burning of them ; and the English proprietors, who had i fled on the first alarm, returned to Paris as soon as it subsided, and not only recovered some of these copies, but brought with them to London the presses, types, ! and even the workmen, and resuming the work, fin- i ished it in the following year. This Bible, which is a revision of Matthew's version, probably by the hand of Coverdale, has been unhappily confounded with "Cranmer's Bible," issued in 1540. The preface written by Cranmer for the edition of 1540 was in- serted in some copies of the Great Bible, but subse- quently to their completion. The statesman Crom- I well, not Cranmer, was the master-spirit, not only in getting up this edition, but in securing the royal in- junction that "the whole Bible, of the largest volume in English," should be set up in the churches. This continued, with slight alterations, to be the author- | ized English version of the Bible — except, of course, during the revival of popery in Mary's reign — until, in 1568, it was superseded by the Bishops' Bible. The Psalms in this Bible were the same as those found in the book of Common Prayer, having seventeen inter- polations from the Septuagint or Latin Vulgate, but printed in a smaller type, and between parentheses. These readings were marked in Coverdale's Bible as not being in the Hebrew text ; they are also continued in Cranmer's editions. The following is a specimen, with the interpolation in smaller type, which includes three verses — Psa. xiv, 3, 4 : But they are all gone out of the waye, they are altogether
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become abbominable : there is none that doth good, no not one (tluvr thr.,te is »u open sep.il.-lire : wyth their tongee they haue .lys-
eeuuV. I, tlu. i.« .if H<|i.-, is i.ml.r tlieyr Jyppes rheyr mouth is full
:„i,l l.vtterness: tl.eyr fete lire swxtt to shede t.loude De- Btnicevoli illi.l uuhlippwios is Ml tiny r waves, liti.l tlie wave of peace haue
they not knowen, there is no feare of God before theyr eyes). ]Iane
they if knowledge that they are all such workers of mys- clie'lT. , oatyn-c up my people as it were breade.
In the year 1539, another edition of the Bible ap- peared, dedicated to the king. It was a mere recen- sion of Matthew's Bible, executed by Richard Tav- ERNEB, under the patronage of Lord Cromwell. The three editions through which this Bible almost imme- diately went prove that its circulation was consider- able, though it is to be observed that they were pri- vate readers alone who used it, as it was never, even for a time, publicly made an authorized version. Tav- erner's New Testament, of which he published two editions, is a different recension from that which ac- companied his "Recognition of the Bible."
In the year 1540 "Cranmer's Bible" was issued from Grafton and Whitchurch's press. This was probably the first complete Bible ever printed in Eng- land. This edition, of which only five hundred copies were printed, was a mere revision of the Great Bible of 1539, and had a preface by Cranmer. Another edi- tion, "overseen and perused," by the king's command, by Ccthbf.rt Tonstall, bishop of Durham, and Nicholas Heath, bishop of Rochester, who also made a few variations in the text, appeared in 1541. The following is a specimen from Cranmer's New Testa- ment— Matt, vi, 9-13:
Cure father which art in heauen, halowed be thy name. Let thy kingdome come. Thy will be fulfilled, as well in ertli, as it is in hetien. Gene vs this daye oure dayly bred. And forgeue vs oure dettes, as we forgeue oure detters. And leade vs not into temptation : but delyuer vs from euyll. For tbyne is the kyngdom and the power, and the glorye for euer. Amen.