withdrawn from the collar. 'Put on your frock and jacket and go to your seat. The rest of you may open your books again.' The school breathed again. Paper rustled, feet were carefully moved, the seats slightly cracked, and all things went stilly on as before. Abijah kept his promise. He became an altered boy; obedient, peaceable, studious. This long and slow process of preparing for the punishment was artfully designed by the master gradually to work up the boy's terrors and agonizing expectations to the highest pitch, until he should yield like a babe to the intensity of his emotions. His stubborn nature, which had been like an oak on the hills which no storm could prostrate, was whittled away, and demolished, as it were, sliver by sliver."

This we call pictorial writing; and if it does not tempt our readers to go straightway and get the book, it is pretty clear that we cannot prevail on them to do so.

ART. VI.—1. A Complete History of the several Translations of the Holy Bible and New Testament into English, both in MS. and in print; and of the most remarkable Editions of them since the Invention of Printing. By JOHN LEWIS, A. M. The Third Edition. To which is now added, a List of various Editions of the Bible, and Parts thereof, in English, from the Year 1526 to the Present Time, extracted from Bishop NEWCOME's "Historical View of the English Biblical Translations" ; with a Continuation by Another Hand London: 1818. nother Hand 8vo. pp. 415. 2. The Existing Monopoly, an Inadequate Protection of the Authorized Version of Scripture. Four Letters to the Right Hon. and Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of London; with Specimens of the intentional and other Departures from the Authorized Standard. To which is added a Postscript, containing the Complaints of a London Committee of Ministers on the subject; the Reply of the Universities; and a Report on the Importance of the Alterations made. By THOMAS CURTIS, of Grove House, Islington, Secretary to the Committee. London: 1833. 8vo. pp. 115.

3. Oxford Bibles. An Article published in "The British Magazine" for March, 1833. - Mr. Curtis's Misrepresentations Exposed. 8vo. pp. 19.

THE people of this country are as much interested in whatever relates to King James's Bible, as the people of England. It is the authorized, or at least the generally received and accredited version of the Scriptures, wherever the English language is spoken. In England and most of its dependencies, and in this country, it is looked upon, not so much as a translation of the Bible, as the Bible itself. Mr. Curtis's pamphlet mentioned above, and Mr. Cardwell's tract on the "Oxford Bibles," contain much curious information respecting the present state of the text of this version, and the changes it has undergone since its first publication in 1611. We propose to spread this information before our readers; but as the subject has not been much attended to in this country, we have thought it would be well to introduce it here with a pretty full account, chiefly historical and bibliographical, of the version itself, and the principal English versions by which it was preceded.

The common authorities on the subject are, Lewis's Complete History of the Translations of the Holy Bible and New Testament into English," which we have set at the head of this article, Johnson's "Account of the several English Translations of the Bible," and Archbishop Newcome's "Historical View of the English Biblical Translations." Lewis's work is particularly valuable for its references and citations; but on all questions of taste or criticism his judgment is entitled to but little weight. Johnson's account, though often adduced as an authority, and honored with a place among Bishop Watson's "Theological Tracts," is not only meagre and unsatisfactory, but full of inaccuracies. Newcome relied for his historical information almost wholly on Lewis, whom he often copies word for word.

Fox, the martyrologist, in the Dedication to his edition of the Four Gospels in Saxon, published in 1571, says, that "our countryman Bede did translate the whole Bible in the Saxon tounge; that he translated againe the gospell of St. John in the English tounge a little before his departure: that K. Alfrede translated both the olde and the newe Testament

into his own native language: and that if Histories be well examined, we shall finde both before the Conquest and after, as well before John Wickliffe was borne as since, the whole body of Scriptures by sondry men translated into thys our country tounge; insomuch, that Thomas Arundell, then Archbyshop of Yorke and Chauncellour of England, at the funeral sermon of Queene Anne, who dyed 1394, as Polidore seith, did avouch, that she had the Gospells in the vulgare tounge with divers expositors upon the same, which she sent unto hym to be viewed and examined." Mr. Lewis shows very satisfactorily, that by Fox's "English tounge" we are here to understand the Anglo-Saxon, and that Queen Anne's Gospels were in this language, and not in English as it began to be spoken and written after the Conquest.

Sir Thomas More refers repeatedly in his Dialogues to the translations, "that were already well done of old before Wiclif's daies," and says expressly that "the hole byble was longe by fore his daies by vertuouse and wel-learned men translated into the englysh tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion and soberness wel and reverently red." It is also observed in a Prologue, printed as Wiclif's in 1550, and said to be taken from a manuscript Bible then in the King's Chamber, that "the common latine bibles had more need to be corrected than had the english bible lately translated." On these authorities Lingard,* Charles Butler, t and others hold, that several versions of the sacred writings had been made into English, properly so called, by Catholic hands, and were already in circulation, before Wiclif's was undertaken. Others, among whom we may mention, as of the highest authority on this question, Lewis, Baber, § and Vaughan, || incline to the opinion, that More must have intended Anglo-Saxon Bibles, or that he mistook the antiquity of some of the English Bibles extant in his time, or that he referred to English versions of parts of the Bible. "If,"

* History of England, Vol. IV. p. 267, English Edition.

Memoirs of the English Catholics, Vol. I. p. 221. Butler makes More say, in the extract given above, "the whole Bible," instead of "the hole (holy?) byble."

History of English Translations of the Bible, p. 44.

Historical Account of the Saxon and English versions of the Scriptures, previous to the Opening of the Fifteenth Century. Prefixed to his edition of Wiclif's New Testament.

Life of Wycliffe, Vol. II. p. 42.

VOL. XIV. -N. S. VOL. IX. NO. III.

42

says Lewis, "this were indeed so, that there were old English Bibles before Wiclif's time; or that before any such translation was made by him, the Bible was by some other person translated into the English spoken here since the Conquest, and that the Bibles so translated were allowed by the Constitution to be used and read, it seems a little strange, that there are none of them now remaining, when we have so many of Wiclif's, notwithstanding the zealous endeavours of the Catholic folk to destroy them." As for the Prologue above quoted, it is now generally, if not universally, agreed, that it is not Wiclif's, but written by one of his disciples and followers, and prefixed to a revised edition of his version. "The english bible lately translated," to which the writer refers, was probably that made a few years before by Wiclif himself.

Parts of the Bible had been translated, manuscripts of which still remain, the oldest being "the Sauter that Richard hermyte of Hampole translated into englyshe after the sentence of doctours and resoun." This is an English version of the Psalms, with a comment on each verse, by Richard Rolle, a hermit of the order of St. Augustine, known by the title of Richard of Hampole, from his residence in a nunnery of that name, near Doncaster. The author, who died in 1349, says in the Prologue, "In this werke I seke no straunge Ynglys, bot lightest and communest, and swilk that is most like unto the Latyne: so that thai that knawes noght the Latyne be the Ynglys may com to many Latyne wordis. In the Translacione I felogh the letter als-mekille as I may, and thor I fyne no proper Ynglys I felogh the wit of the wordis, so that thai that shalle rede it them thar not drede errynge. In the expownyng I felogh holi Doctors." The following is a specimen of this Psalter, as given by Mr. Lewis.

"Here bigynneth the Sauter. Psalmus primus. Beatus vir. — In this psalme he spekith of crist and his folewris blaundishyng to us, bihotyng blisfulhede to rightwise men. Sithen he speketh of veniaunce of wikkede men that thei drede peyne, sith thei wolle not loue ioye. He begynneth at the goode man and seith, Blessed is that man the whuche ghede not in the counsel of wikede, and the wey of synfule stood not, and in the chayer of pestilence satte not."

There is also in Bennet College in Cambridge a manu

script translation, with a comment, of the Gospels of Mark and Luke, and the Epistles of Paul, which, as it contains no reflections on the Friars and Catholic prelates usually found in the writings of Wiclif and his followers, was probably made before his time. A few specimens of this version have been furnished by Dr. Waterland, from which we copy the following.

Mark i. 7. "And He prechyde sayande, a stalworther thane I schal come eftar me of whom I am not worthi downfallande, or knelande, to louse the thwonge of his chawcers.

vi. 22. "When the Doughtyr of that Herodias was in-comyn and had tombylde and pleside to Harowde, and also to the sittande at mete, the kynge says to the wench."

John Wiclif was born in a small village near the town of Richmond in Yorkshire, about the year 1324, and died in his own Rectory of Lutterworth in the Diocess of Lincoln, December 31, 1384. His translation, the first, we believe, that was made of the whole Bible into English for popular use, appears, from a reference to it in one of Wiclif's own Homilies, to have been finished and published some time before 1381. Knyghton, Canon of Leicester, a neighbour and cotemporary, complains in his work De Eventibus Angliæ, "that by this means the Gospel was made vulgar, and laid more open to the laity, and even to women who could read, than it used to be to the most learned of the clergy, and those of the best understanding: and so the gospel jewel or evangelical pearl was thrown about and trodden under foot of swine. 66 Algates," says Wiclif in the Homily above referred to, speaking of the ecclesiastics generally of his day, they dyspysen that men shulden knowe Chryste's lyfe, for thenne prestes schulden schome of hyre lyves, and specially these hye prestes, for thei reversen crist both in worde and in dede." But from his own account it would seem that in other quarters his Bible met with a better reception. "On coumfort is of knyghtes that they saveren. muche the gospel, and have wylle to rede in englysche the gospel of crist's lyf." It is in allusion to this fact that Lingard, the Catholic historian, says: "Wiclif made a new translation, multiplied the copies with the aid of transcribers, and by his poor priests' recommended it to the perusal of their hearers. In their hands it became an engine of wonderful power. Men were flattered by the appeal to their