Coverdale, Miles, one of the eariiest English re- formers, was born in Torkshh^ in 1487, and was educa- ted at Cambridge, where he became a monk of the Au- gustine order. At an early period he perceived the errors of Popery. In 1514 he was ordained priest. About 1525 he laid aside his monk's habit, and began to preach against papal errors. In 1528 he joined Tyn- dale at Hamburgh, and in 1585 his own tnmslation of the Bible appeared, with a dedication to Henry VIII. It formed a folio,' printed at Zurich. " He thus had the honor of editmg the first English Bible allowed by royal authority, and the first translation of the whole Bible printed in our language. The Psalms in it are those now used in the Book of Common Prayer. About the end of the year 1588 Coverdale went abroad again on the business of a new edition of the Bible. Graf- ton, the English printer, had permission from Francis I, at the request of king Henry YIII himself, to print a Bible at Paris, on account of the superior skill of the workmen, and the goodness and cheapness of the paper. But, notwithstanding the royal license, the Inquisition interposed by an instrument dated December 17, 1588. The French printers, their English employers, and Coverdale, who was the corrector of the press, were summoned before the inquisitors, and the impression, consisting of 2500 copies, was seized and condemned to the flames. The avarice of the officer who superin- tended the burning of the copies, however, induced him to sell several chests of them to a haberdasher for the purpose of wrapping his wares, by which means a few copies were preserved. The En^ish proprietors, who had fled at the alarm, returned to Paris when it subsided, and not only recovered some of the copies which had escaped the fire, but brought with them to London the presses, types, and printers. This impor- tation enabled Grafton and Whitchurch to print, in 1589, what is called Cranmer's, or * The Great Bible,'
COVERING
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COVETOUSNESS
in which Corerdale compared the translation with the Hebrew, corrected it in many places, and was the chief overseer of the work. Coverdale was almoner, some time afterwards, to queen Catharine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII, at whose funeral he officiated in the chapel of Sudeley Castle, in Gloucestershire, in 1548. On August 14, 1551, he succeeded Dr. John Harman, otherwise Yoysey, in the see of Exeter*' (^Engtish Cpdopadid). On the accession of Queen Mary, he was ejected from his see and thrown into prison. On his release, at the end of two years, Cot- erdale repaired to Denmark, and afterwards to Wesel, and finally to Geneva, where he joined several other exiles in producing that version of the English Bible which is usually called **The Geneva Translation," part of which, the New Testament, was printed at Ge- neva in 1557 by Conrad Badius, and again in 1560. < On the accession of queen Elizabeth Coverdale re- turned from exile ; but having imbibed the principles of the Geneva reformers, as far as respected the eccle- uastical habits and ceremonies, he was not allowed to resume his bishopric, nor was any preferment offered to him for a considerable time. In 1568 bishop Grin- dal recommended him to the bishopric of Llandaff; but it is supposed that Ooverdale's age and infirmities, and the remains of the plague, from which he had just recovered, made him decline so great a charge. In lien of it, however, the bishop collated him to the rec- tory of St. Magnus London Bridge. He resigned this living in 1566. The date of his death has been vari- ously stated. The parish register of St. Bartholomew, behind the Royal Exchange, however, proves that he was buried Feb. 19, 1568. His principal writings have been recently republished in England by the Parker Society, under the titles of ** WriHnffs and TrantkUums of Miles Coverdale, edited by G. Pearson" (Camb. 1844, 8vo) ; ''Remains of Miles Coverdale, edited by G. Pear- son*' (Cambridge, 1846, 8vo). See Bagster, Memorials of Coverdale; Johnson, English Translations ofiheBu hie; Hook, Ecdes, Biography, iv, 209.
Covering or the Etbs, a phrase of much disputed signification, occurring in the expression D^a"^? W0» Tl^"Kin, As (or this) [shall he] to thee a covering ojfthe eyes (Gen. xx, 16 ; Sept. rovra lorai troi cf c Ttfi^ Tov TTpotrwirov trov ; V ulg. hoc erii tUri in vdamen oculorum^, which is usually understood to refer to a veil that ought to have been worn by Sarah to hide her dangerous beauty, and which either her husband (if K^H be masc.) or the present (if neuter) would frimish. See Abbaham. Against this inter- pretation, however, there lies this objection, that such a piece of apparel, in modem Oriental usage, covers rather the /ace or person, and leaves the eyes fr«e. See Woman. Hence many commentators (but see BosenmQller, in loc.) explain the phrase as an idio- matic one for a peace-offering (see Gesenius, Thes. Ifeb. p. 700) or propitiatory present (comp. Gen. xxxii, 21 ; £xod. xxiii, 8 ; Job ix, 24 ; in none of which passagea, however, does this expression precisely occur); but this does not so well suit the difficult context, **unto all that are with thee," since her companions had no cause of complaint, and a reproof would then have been inapposite. We may therefore recur to the ex- planation of Kitto (Pfc^. Bible, note in loc.) : '* It is customary for all the women inhabiting towns to go about closely veiled ; while all the women of the dif- ferent pastoral people who live in tents do not com- monly wear veils, or at most only so far as to cover their foreheads and lower parts of the £sce, leaving the countenance exposed ftt>m the eyebrows to below the nose. Abimelech, according to this view, intended to give the very sensible advice, that while Sarah and her women were in or near towns, they had better conform to the customs of towns, and wear the com- plete veil, instead of that partial covering which left the eyes and lo much of the face exposed" (see also