historian of the English Bible, as "a falsehood of that buffoon's own inventing, in order to make the English Reformation as ridiculous as his little wit and ill manners could." The same historian states that the archbishop's project was never submitted to convocation at all; but was carried out privately, by such bishops and members of the Universities as his grace considered best qualified for the work.

That the project, too, was not wholly an ecclesiastical manœuvre to defeat the anti-prelatic designs of the Puritans, appears from the tenor of a letter written by Parker, after it had been announced that a new translation was contemplated. The exclusive privilege of printing the Geneva Bible in England for a period of seven years, had been conferred on John Bodleigh, father of the more famous man who founded in Oxford the Bodleian library. Before the expiry of this patent, it was proposed to publish a revised edition of the Geneva version; and, in March 1565, Bodleigh wrote to Cecil, the Secretary of State, on the subject, knowing that Parker and some of the bishops were "intending themselves speedily to publish an English translation of their own providing." Cecil was unwilling to give any encouragement to the new Geneva edition, without the advice of these prelates, and he therefore submitted to them the communication he had received from Bodleigh. Parker replied to the Secretary, in a spirit of much greater generosity than was common in those days, or is even yet, that "he and the Bishop of London thought so well of the first impression of this Bible (the Geneva), and the review of those who had since travelled therein, that they wished it would please him (Cecil) to be a means that twelve years longer term might be, by special privilege, granted to Bodleigh, in consideration of the charges sustained by him and his associates in the first impression and the review since; that though another special Bible, for the churches, was intended by them to be set forth, as convenient time and leisure should hereafter permit, yet it should nothing hinder, but rather do much good, to have diversitie of translations and readings."

1 Lewis' History of the Translations of the Bible.

2 Lewis, p. 234-5.

In the prosecution of his scheme, Parker adopted the principle of divided and distributed labour. He "sorted out the whole Bible into parcels," and distributed these for examination and revision among qualified divines. The task of reviewing the corrections and amendments of the several revisers he reserved to himself. To each of the revisers he sent a copy of instructions regarding the spirit and method in which their task was to be conducted. These instructions were of a most praiseworthy conservative character. The labours of previous translators were to be respected. Alterations were not to be made in a spirit of wantonness. The first of the instructions, or "observations," as they were courteously termed, gave direction that the revisers should "follow the common translation used in the Churches, and not recede from it, but where it varieth manifestly from the Hebrew or Greek original," in other words, that the new version should be based on the Great Bible. Another instruction was that the editors should "make no bitter notes upon any text, nor yet set down any determination in places of controversy." And a third recommendation was that "all such words as sound in the old translation to any offence of lightness or obscenity be expressed with more convenient terms and phrases."

Four years were spent on this commendable undertaking of Parker's, and in 1568 the new translation was published. Most of the persons to whom the work of translation and revision was entrusted were occupants of the episcopal bench. The book accordingly obtained the soubriquet, by which it is still known, of the Bishops' Bible. "Every thing was done to make it attractive." It was issued in magnificent style; profusely ornamented with wood engravings; embellished in questionable taste with copper-plate portraits of the Queen, Leicester, and Burleigh; furnished with a map of Palestine; and supplemented by an elaborate series of genealogical tables. When all had been done that could be done by mechanical means to make the book perfect, Parker wrote to the Queen, "beseeching her highness that it might have her gracious favour, license, and protection, to be communicated abroad; as well for that in many Churches they want their books and

have long time looked for this, as for that in certain places be publicly used some translations which have not been laboured in (this) realm, having inspersed diverse prejudicial notes, which might have been also well spared."

For some reason, or another the favour thus besought was not granted, and the Bishops' Bible never was, in the regal or parliamentary sense of the term, authorised. In some editions it is stated on the title-page to be " set forth by authoritie," but this authority was only ecclesiastical. In 1571, an order was issued by convocation that "every arch-bishop and bishop should have at his house a copy of the holy Bible of the largest volume, as lately published at London, and that it should be placed in the hall or large dining room, that it might be useful to their servants or to strangers. The order was likewise extended to Cathedrals; and to all Churches, as far as it could be conveniently done." But this order met with the general fate of ecclesiastical edicts. It received only partial attention from ecclesiastical persons. In 1587, the primate wrote to one of the bishops: "I am credibly informed that divers, as well parish churches as chapels of ease, are not sufficiently furnished with Bibles, but some have either none at all, or such as be torn and defaced, and yet not of the translation authorised by the synod of bishops. These are, therefore, to require you strictly in your visitations, or otherwise, to see that all and every the said churches and chapels in your diocese be provided of one Bible or more, at your discretion, of the translation allowed as aforesaid."

In 1659, a second edition of the Bishops' Bible was published; and in 1572, a third. In the last named of these editions, a considerable number of amendments or changes were introduced into the New Testament. In the ninth chapter of St. John's gospel, for instance, which contains forty-one verses, there are about a dozen of such variations, of which the most notable are parents, for "father and mother," v. 2; made manifest, for "shewed," v. 3; anointed the clay upon the eyes, for "anointed with the clay the eyes,” v. 6; of age, for "old enough,"

1 Mombert, p. 270, 271.

v. 21; had agreed, for "had decreed," v. 22; doeth his will, for "obedient unto his will," v. 31. Of six variations in Acts xiv. the only one worth noting is speaking boldly, for "quit themselves About twelve variations may be counted in

boldly," v. 3. I Cor. ix., such as, by all means, for "at the least wey," v. 22; be partaker, for "have my part," v. 23: know ye, for "perceive ye,” v. 24; and a corruptible crown, for "a crown that shall perish," v. 25. But a more important amendment than any of the foregoing was made on the sixth verse of that chapter. In the first edition, 1568, that verse reads, as in the Great Bible: "Either only I and Barnabas have not power this to do." In the edition 1572, this rendering was changed into, "Is the liberty of not labouring taken from me and Barnabas only ?" x One of the oddest readings in the first edition is, Col. ii. 13, "Ye being dead to sin, and to the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened." The version that in this chapter shall be treated, and quoted from, as the Bishops' Bible is that of 1572.2

Practically, the Bishops' Bible was a failure. It was issued from laudable motives, and it was framed under excellent instructions, but it lacked the qualities that procure popularity. It was too timid a version. It got a footing in the Church of England by the force of ecclesiastical precept, but it never succeeded in ingratiating itself into the favour of either laity or clergy. "Of all the English versions," says a living dignitary of the English Church, "the Bishops' Bible had probably the

1 In the Epistle to the Ephesians, the 1572 version of the Bishops' Bible differs from the 1568 version in about fifty places; and among the new readings in the later of these editions are the now familiar phrases "less than the least of all saints," "middle wall of partition," and "fellow-citizens with the saints." Moulton's History of the English Bible, 178. See also Westcott.

2 The edition of the 1572 version quoted from in this chapter, viz., Barker's quarto, 1584, is not free from misprints. In Prov. ix. 17, it is said that "stolen wares," instead of stolen waters are sweet. and in Amos ii. 14, "the flight shall not perish," instead of “shall perish from the swift." The other edition of the 1572 version of the New Testament quoted from in this chapter, viz., that printed along with the Rhemes Testament in Dr. Fulke's folio, 1633, is erroneously stated in several books of high authority, such as Cotton's Editions of the Bible (p. 68), and Eadie's History of the English Bible (vol. ii. p. 294), to be not the Bishops' translation at all, but the authorised translation of 1611,

least success. It did not command the respect of scholars, and its size and cost were far from meeting the wants of the people. Its circulation appears to have been practically limited to the Churches that were ordered to be supplied with it." 1 The following remarks on the Bishops' Bible by an American divine are not only just in the verdict they convey, but probably sound also in the theory they present: "It is a work of unequal merit from first to last; there being in the edition of 1568 a very marked difference qualitatively between the different books, and a very great improvement in the edition of 1572 over that of 1568. Perhaps, the peculiar plan adopted in the preparation, the want of concert and discussion of the different parts of the work by all the collaborators, and the impossibility of the archbishop, with such aid as he could command, to stamp upon the whole a consistent and harmonious unity of spirit, style, and expression, are sufficient to account for all its faults."

Parker himself was a scholarly, judicious man ; but his team were not all that could have been desired. Not to speak of their learning or literary taste, some of them had special crotchets, theories, and prejudices, which, if allowed indulgence, might have led the bishops to play havoc with what they were only very cautiously to amend. It is, in these circumstances, rather strange that the Bishops' Bible is so colourless a revision. The archbishop was sorely put to it by some of his employés. They afflicted him with tiresome letters, in which they postulated untenable principles of translation, and submitted to him impracticable suggestions. But Parker managed them with tact. He did not enter into fruitless controversy with them, but quietly took note of their folly, and contrived to set them to a piece of work in which they would have little scope to air their whims. Grave, stolid doctors of divinity, in recounting this adroitness of Parker's, grow radiant with smiles, and

I Professor Plumptre, in Dictionary of the Bible, article "Versions." "It seems to have fared somewhat the worse through the intemperate zeal of the sticklers for the Geneva translation, and Broughton's ambition of being employed in making a new one."-Lewis,