The translators' manuscript has been lost. Accord- ing to a pamphlet published in 1660, it was, five years previously, in the possession of the king's printers. It has not since been heard of. The manuscript of the Translators' Address to the Reader is said to be preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Copies of this edition are now pretty scarce. The commonest loss, as with other books, is of title-pages.
Much care is necessary to identify an imperfect copy of this edition, for a second was printed in 1611, and" others in 1613, 1617, 1631, and 1640, from the same type, and running page for page. Each edition pre- sents typographical errors peculiar to itself. The only clew we have here space to give is, that the two edi- tions of 161] are the only ones in which the signatures rcei mmence with the New .Testament, and the second of that year has the before-mentioned errors corrected. Many bad ones, however, are found in it, not the least of which is the enumeration of "1 Corinthians" and "2 Corinthians" in the list ofthe books ofthe Old Tes- tament instead of Chronicles. In 1833 a reprint of this first edition, page for page, but in Roman letter, wa made at Oxford, so exact as to follow even the most obvious typographical errors, and showing the ancient spelling throughout. Bag6ter's English Hexa- pla also contains the text of the New Testament print- ed verbatim from this edition; and where the bock itself is unattainable, these are perhaps the best sub- stitutes for those who, for anj reason, require to go behind the Bibles now in use
A close scrutiny ofthe volume reveals indisputably the tacts that no member of the original companies of translators took cognizance ofthe volume as it passed through the press, but that the printer was depended
on to secure accuracy ; and that, notwithstanding the lapse of three, perhaps four years between the comple- tion of the translation and its publication, it was run through the press with great haste. Add to this the fact that from 1600 to 1670 the British press was at its lowest point in improvement, and it will at once be seen that the chances of obtaining correct Bibles at first, or subsequently, were very small. Upon its pub- lication, editions were very rapidly multiplied. Each new one partly copied and partly corrected the errors of its exemplar; but each, to some extent, created new errors of its own, to be in like manner perpetua- ted. In 1638, for instance, a Cambridge Bible printed "ye" for "we" in Acts vi, 3, thus throwing the ap- pointment of deacons into the hands of the laity rather than the apostles; and this error continued down to 1691. It has been insinuated that the Independents made this change intentionally; DTsraeli, indeed, goes so far as to charge Field, the king's printer, with re- ceiving a present of £1500 to make it; and only the fact of its being first found in a Cambridge University edition disproves the statement. Many other errata, curious, whimsical, absurd, and shocking by turns, might be brought up from Bibles of the period, such as, for a few instances, "I pray God it may be laid to their charge," 2 Tim. iv, 16, in 1613; "Thou shalt commit adultery," in 1632; "the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God," 1 Cor. vi, fj, in 1653. In each of these cases "not" is omitted ; but often words are transposed or changed, and the quarto of 1013 leaves two verses entirely out. The first attempt at correcting these errors seems to have been made by a Dr. Scattergood about 1680. From a collation of various old Bibles, we have ecme to the conclusion that he did but little. The next notable edition was that of Archbishop Tenison, 1701. This was intended for a standard, but unluckily was so full of typographical errors that a complaint was entered against the print- ers by Convocation.
2. Bkiyncy'.- Edition-— Sufficient care not being yet taken, King George I, in 1724, directed that the per- sons licensed to print the Bible — for in England, for the sake of insuring accuracy as far as possible, the book can only be printed by the universities, the king's printers, and persons by them licensed — should em- ploy such correctors of the press, and pay them such salaries as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London should approve. Errors, however, most per- tinaciously crept in, and r.t length the University of Oxford employed Dr.Blayney to revise the English Bible and correct it throughout. His work was pub- lished in 1701*. It was issued in two forms, folio and quarto, the former being claimed to be the most cor- rect. His collation was made by comparing through- out the edition of 1611 (but which one cannot now be known, for it has only recently be< n settled that two editions were published in that year), that of 1701, which has already been mentioned for its incorrect- ness, and two recent Cambridge copies. Firm th»se somewhat unpromising materials he claims to have reformed the text "to such a standard of purity as, it is presumed, is not to be met with in any other edition hitherto extant." How far this is the case will be seen by-and-by. Besides this, the punctuation was revised throughout "with a view to preserve the true sense;" upon comparison with the Hebrew and Greek originals, many alterations were made in the words printed in italic; "considerable alterations" were made in the "heads or contents prefixed to the chap- ters;" many proper names were translated in the mar- gin, where the narrative contained an .illusion to their meaning ( this should have been done fully) ; the chro- nology, which was first added in 1680, was rectified ; and the marginal references were compared and cor- rected throughout, besides having 30,495 new ones added.