The first English translation of the Bible was executed by an unknown individual in the year 1230. Of this there exist three manuscript copies in the libraries of England. Nearly a hundred years after this, one John de Travesa, of Gloucester, at the instance of Lord Berkeley, is said to have translated the Old and New Testament into the English tongue. But this has perished. The old English translations of any note are these:

I.

Wycliffe's Version.-John de Wycliffe was born in 1324, and died in 1384. He knew but little of the original languages, and his version is based upon the Latin Vulgate. The characteristics of his work are: (1.) The general plainness of its style; (2.) The substitution of equivalent for technical terms; (3.) The extreme literalness with which the Vulgate text is followed. It was given to the English public sometime in 1378 or 1380. This was before the invention of printing. The whole book had to be copied by hand. Hence the scarcity and costliness of the version, amounting to more than two hundred dollars of our money for a single copy. A bill was brought into the English House of Lords for suppressing it-although it was acknowledged to be a faithful translation of the Vulgate, which the church had pronounced accurate in every particular."

In the discussion of the bill, the Duke of Lancaster, uncle to the King, is reported to have said, "We will not be the dregs of all; seeing other nations have the law of God, which is the law of our faith, written in their own language, and that if the Gospel by being translated into English was the occasion of running into error,

they might know that there were more heretics among the Latins than among the people of any other language," and that "he would contend for having the law in our own tongue." But, in a convocation held at Oxford in the year 1408, it was decreed that "no one thereafter should translate any text of Holy Scripture into English by way of a book; and that no book of this kind should be read that was composed lately in the name of John Wycliffe or since his death." The version by Wycliffe had no perceptible influence on later translations, as these have been based on the Greek originals, while his was upon the Latin Vulgate.

II. Tyndal's Version.-William Tyndal, a native of Wales, devoted his life to the noble work of giving the oracles of God to his countrymen in their own tongue. At thirty-six years of age he left his position as private tutor in the neighborhood of Bristol, and went abroad to enter fully upon his life work. "Ere many years," he exclaimed, "a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of Scripture than the great body of the clergy" then knew. He prepared himself for the work by long years of study in Greek and Hebrew. First, the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark were published tentatively. In 1525 the whole of the New Testament was printed in 4to, at Cologne, and in small 8vo, at Worms. In England it was received with denunciations. Tonstal, Bishop of London, asserted that there were at least 2,000 errors in it, and ordered all copies of it to be bought up and burnt. An act of Parliament forbade the use of Tyndal's "false translation." But editions were printed one after another. The last appeared in 1535, just before his death. His heroic life was brought to a close in 1536. His last prayer was, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." To Tyndal belongs the honor of having given the first example of a translation based on true principles, and the excellence of later versions has been almost in exact proportion as they followed his. Believing that every part of Scripture had only the sense which was in the mind of the writer, he made it his work to attain that sense. He believed that the duty of a translator was to place his readers as nearly as possible on a level with those for whom the books were originally written. This kept him free from the fault of writing for scholars instead of for the people.

III.

Coverdale's Version.-A complete translation of the Bible, different from Tyndal's, bearing the name of Miles Coverdale, printed probably at Zurich, appeared in 1535. The undertaking itself, and the choice of Coverdale as the translator, were probably due to Lord Cromwell. Tyndal's controversial treatises, and the polemical character of his prefaces and notes, had irritated the leading ecclesiastics and embittered the mind of the king himself against him. There was no hope of obtaining the king's sanction for anything that bore his name. But the idea of an English translation began to find favor. To Coverdale accordingly it was intrusted. It was done, as might be expected, in a very different fashion from Tyndal's. Of the two men one had made this the great object of his life; the other merely accepted it as a task assigned to him. He was content to make the translation at second hand "out of the Douche (Luther's German Version) and the Latine." It is not improbable, however, that as time went on he added to his knowledge. He, at any rate, continued his work as a painstaking editor. Fresh editions of his Bible were published, keeping their ground in spite of rivals, in 1537, 1539, 1550, 1553. He was called in at a still later period to assist in the Geneva Version.

IV. Matthew's Bible.-In the year 1537, a large folio Bible appeared as edited and dedicated to the king, by Thomas Matthew. No one of that name appears at all prominent in the religious history of Henry VIII, and this suggests the inference that the name was adopted to conceal the real translator. The tradition which connects Matthew with John Rogers, the proto-martyr of the Marian persecution, is all but undisputed. Matthew's Bible reproduces Tyndal's work in the New Testament, entirely; in the Old Testament as far as 2 Chr., the rest being taken with occasional modifications from Coverdale. The printing of the book was begun apparently abroad, and was carried on as far as the end of Isaiah. At that point a new pagination begins, and the names of London printers appear. A copy was ordered, by royal proclamation, to be set up in every church, the cost being divided between the clergy and the parishioners. This was, therefore, the first really authorized version. There are signs of a more advanced knowledge of Hebrew than

in Tyndal's version. Even more noticeable are the boldness and fulness of the exegetical notes scattered throughout the book. Strong and earnest in asserting what he looked on as the central truths of the Gospel, there was in Rogers a Luther-like freedom in other things which has not appeared again in any authorized translation or popular commentary.

V. Taverner's Bible appeared in 1539. The boldness of the pseudo-Matthew had frightened the ecclesiastical world from its propriety. Coverdale's Version was too inaccurate to keep its ground. It was necessary to find another editor, and the printers applied to Richard Taverner. But little is known of his life. The fact that, though a layman, he had been chosen as one of the canons of the Cardinal's College at Oxford indicates a reputation for scholarship, and this is confirmed by the character of his translation. In most respects this may be described as an expurgated edition of Mat

thew's.

VI. Cranmer's Bible.-In the same year as Taverner's, and coming from the same press, appeared an English Bible, in a stately folio, with a preface containing the initials T. C., which imply the archbishop's sanction. Cranmer's Version presents many points of interest. Words not in the original are printed in a different type. It was reprinted again and again, and was the authorized version of the English Church till 1568—the interval of Mary's reign excepted. From it, accordingly, were taken most, if not all, the portions of Scripture in the Prayer-books of 1549 and 1552. The Psalms, as a whole, the quotations from Scripture in the Homilies, the sentences in the Communion Services, and some phrases elsewhere, still preserve the remembrance of it.

VII. The Geneva Bible.-The exiles who fled to Geneva in the reign of Mary-among them Whittingham, Goodman, Pullain, Sampson, and Coverdale himself-labored, "for two years or more, day and night." Their translation of the New Testament was "diligently revised by the most approved Greek examples." The New Testament was printed in 1557, and the whole Bible in 1560. Whatever may have been its faults, the Geneva Bible, commonly called the Breeches Bible, from its rendering of Gen. iii. 7, was unquestionably, for sixty years, the most popular of all versions. Not