Approximately to the same period as these early renderings of the Psalter belongs a version of the Apocalypse with a Commentary, the earliest MS. of which (Harleian 874) is written in the dialect of the North Midlands. This Commentary, for a long time attributed to Wycliffe, is really nothing but a verbal rendering of the popular and widely-spread Norman Commentary on the Apocalypse (Paul Meyer and L. Delisle, L'Apocalypse en Français au XIIIe siècle, Paris, 1901), which dates back as far as the first half of the 13th century, and in its general tenor represents the height of orthodoxy. The English apocalypse, to judge from the number of MSS. remaining, must have enjoyed great and lasting popularity. Several revisions of the text exist, the later of which present such striking agreement with the later Wycliffite version that we shall not be far wrong if we assume that they were made use of to a considerable extent by the revisers of this version.

To the North Midlands or the North belongs further a complete version of the Pauline Epistles found in the unique MS. 32, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, of the 15th century. Commentaries on the Gospels of St Matthew, St Mark and St Luke, we are told by the heading in one of the MSS. (Univ. Libr. Camb. Ii. 2. 12), were also translated into English by "a man of þe north cuntre." The translation of these Gospels as well as of the Epistles referred to above is stiff and awkward, the translator being evidently afraid of any departure from the Latin text of his original. The accompanying commentary is based on the Fathers of the Church and entirely devoid of any original matter. The opening lines of the third chapter of Matthew are rendered in the following way:

MS. Camb. Univ. Libr. Ii. 2. 12.

(iii. 1.) In po dayes come Ihone baptist prechand in desert of pe Jewry, & seyand, (2) Do 3e penaunce; forwhy be kyngdome of heuyne sal come negh. (3) Pis is he of whome it was scide be Isay be prophete, sayand. " be voice of be cryand in be desert, redye 3e be way of God, right made 3e pe lityl wayes of him." (4) & Ihone his kleping of be hoerys of camels, & a gyrdyl of a skyn about his lendys; & his mete was be locust & hony of be wode.

A version of the Acts and the Catholic Epistles completes the

number of the New Testament books translated in the northern

parts of England. It is found in several MSS. either separately or in conjunction with a fragmentary Southern Version of the Pauline Epistles, Peter, James and 1 John in a curiously compiled volume, evidently made, as the prologue tells us, by a brother superior for the use and edification of an ignorant "sister," or woman vowed to religion. The translation of this, our only southern text, surpasses all previous efforts from the point of view of clearness of expression and idiomatic use of English, and, though less exact, it may be even said in these respects to rank equal with the later or revised Wycliffite version.

Apart from these more or less complete versions of separate books of the Bible, there existed also numerous renderings of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, accounts of the Life, Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, translations of the

1 H. R. Bramley, The Psaller and Certain Canticles... by Richard Rolle of Hampole (Oxford, 1884); cf. H. Middendorff, Studien über Richard Rolle von Hampole unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Psalmen-Commentare (Magdeburg, 1888).

A. C. Paues, A Fourteenth-Century English Biblical Version (Cambridge, 1904), pp. xxiv. ff.

familiarizing the people with Holy Scripture. It was the custom of the medieval preachers and writers to give their own English version of any text which they quoted, not resorting as in later times to a commonly received translation. This explains the fact that in collections of medieval homilies that have come down to us, no two renderings of the Biblical text used are ever alike, not even Wycliffe himself making use of the text of the commonly accepted versions that went under his name.

It is noteworthy that these early versions from Anglo-Saxon times onwards were perfectly orthodox, executed by and for good and faithful sons of the church, and, generally speaking, with the object of assisting those whose knowledge of Latin proved too scanty for a proper interpretation and understanding of the holy text. Thus Richard Rolle's version of the Psalms was executed for a nun; so was in all likelihood the southern version of the epistles referred to above. Again the earliest MS. (Harl. 874) of the Commentary on the Apocalypse gives the owner's name in a coeval hand as " Richard Schepard, presbiter," and the Catholic Epistles of MS. Douce 2503 were probably glossed for the benefit of men in religious orders, if one may judge from a short Commentary to James ii. 2, " & perfore if eny man come into 3oure sigt, þat is, into 3oure cumpenye þat bep Godes religiouse men in what degre so 3e be." Nor do any of the remaining works contain anything but what is strictly orthodox.

WychMite

It is first with the appearance of Wycliffe (q.v.) and his followers on the arena of religious controversy that the Bible in English came to be looked upon with suspicion by the orthodox The party within the Church. For it is a well-known fact that Wycliffe proclaimed the Bible, not the Church Versions. or Catholic tradition, as a man's supreme spiritual authority, and that he sought in consequence by every means in his power to spread the knowledge of it among the people. It is, therefore, in all likelihood to the zeal of Wycliffe and his followers that we owe the two noble 14th-century translations of the Bible which tradition has always associated with his name, and which are the earliest complete renderings that we possess of the Holy Scriptures into English."

The first of these, the so-called Early Version, was probably completed about 1382, at all events before 1384, the year of Wycliffe's death. The second, or Later Version, being a thorough revision of the first, is ascribed to the year 1388 by Sir Frederic Madden and the Rev. Joshua Forshall in their edition of these two versions."

It is a matter of uncertainty what part, if any, Wyclifie himself took in the work. The editors of the Wycliffite versions say in the Preface, pp. xv. ff.—“The New Testament was naturally the first object. The text of the Gospels was extracted from the Commentary upon them by Wycliffe, and to these were added the Epistles, the Acts and the Apocalypse, all now translated anew. This translation might probably be the work of Wycliffe himself; at least the similarity of style between the Gospels and the other parts favours the supposition." The Wycliffte authorship of the Commentaries on the Gospels, on which the learned editors base their argument, is, however, unsupported by any evidence beyond the fact that the writer of the Prologue to Matthew urges in strong language " the propriety of translating Scripture for the use of the laity." The Biblical text found in these Commentaries is in fact so far removed from the original type of the Early Version as to be transitional to the Late, and, what is still more convincing, passages from the Early Version, from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, are actually

quoted in the Commentary. Under such circumstances it would be folly to look upon them as anything but late productions, at all events later than the Early Version, and equal folly to assign these bulky volumes to the last two years of Wycliffe's See Paues, op. cit. p. 210.

For a different view as to the authorship of the Wycliffite versions, see F. A. Gasquet, The Old English Bible and Other Essayi (London, 1897), pp. 102 ff.

Sir F. Madden and Rev. J. Forshall, The Holy Bible... made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and His Followers (4 vols, Oxford, 1850), pp. xix., xxiv.

life merely because the text used in them happens to be that of the Early Version. It is therefore at present impossible to say what part of the Early Version of the New Testament was translated by Wycliffe.1

The Old Testament of the Early Version was, according to the editors (Preface, p. xvii.), taken in hand by one of Wycliffe's coadjutors, Nicholas de Herford. The translator's original copy and a coeval transcript of it are still extant in the Bodleian library (Bodl. 959, Douce 369). Both break off abruptly at Baruch iii. 19, the latter having at this place a note inserted to the following effect: Explicit translacionem Nicholay de herford. There is consequently but little doubt that Nicholas de Herford took part in the translation of the Old Testament, though it is uncertain to what extent. The translator's copy is written in not less than five hands, differing in orthography and dialect. The note may therefore be taken to refer either to the portion translated by the last or fifth hand, or to the whole of the Old Testament up to Baruch iii. 19. Judging from uniformity of style and mode of translation the editors of the Bible are inclined to take the latter view; they add that the remaining part of the Old Testament was completed by a different hand, the one which also translated the New Testament. This state

ment is, however, not supported by sufficient evidence. In view of the magnitude of the undertaking it is on the contrary highly probable that other translators besides Wycliffe and Nicholas de Herford took part in the work, and that already existing versions, with changes when necessary, were incorporated or made use of by the translators.

The Early Version, apart from its completeness, shows but little advance upon preceding efforts. It is true that the translation is more careful and correct than some of the renderings noticed above, but on the other hand it shares all their faults. The translation of the Old Testament as far as Baruch iii. 19 is stiff and awkward, sometimes unintelligible, even nonsensical, from a too close adherence to the Latin text (e.g. Judges xx. 25). In the remaining parts the translation is somewhat easier and more skilful, though even here Latinisms and un-English renderings abound.

It is small wonder, therefore, if a revision was soon found necessary and actually taken in hand within a few years of the completion of the Earlier Version. The principles of work adopted by the revisers are laid down in the general prologue to their edition, the so-called "Later Version."

For these resons and othere.. a symple creature hath translatid the bible out of Latyn into English. First, this symple creature hadde myche trauaile, with diuerse felawis and helperis, to gedere manie elde biblis, and othere doctouris, and comune glosis, and to make oo Latyn bible sumdel trewe; and thanne to studie it of the newe, the text with the glose, and othere doctouris, as he miste gete, and speciali Lire on the elde testament, that helpide ful myche in this werk; the thridde tyme to counseile with elde gramariens, and elde dyuynis, of harde wordis, and harde sentencis, hou tho mi3ten best be vndurstonden and translatid; the iiij tyme to translate as cleerli as he coude to the sentence, and to haue manie gode felawis and kunnynge at the correcting of

the translacioun.

Early Version.

(Psalm i. 1.) Blisful the man, that went not awei in the counseil of vnpitouse, and in the wei off sinful stod not; and in the chaser of pestilence sat not. (2) But in the lawe of the Lord his shal sweteli thenke dai and ny3t. wil; and in the lawe of hym he

(Matthew iii. 1.) In thilke days came loon Baptist, prechynge in the desert of Iude, sayinge, (2) Do 3e penaunce, nei), or cume nize. (3) Forsothe for the kyngdom of heuens shal this is he of whome it is said by Ysaye the prophet, A voice of a cryinge in desert, Make 3e redy ri3tful the pathes of hym. (4) the wayes of the Lord; make 3e Forsothe that ilk loon hadde cloth of the heeris of cameylis, and a girdil of skyn aboute his leendis; and hony of the wode. sothely his mete weren locustis,

Late Version.

(i. 1.) Blessid is the man, that 3ede not in the councel of wickid men; and stood not in the weie of synneris, and sat not in the chaier of pestilence. (2) But his wille is in the lawe of the Lord; and he schal bithenke

in the lawe of hym dai and ny3t.

(iii. 1.) In tho daies loon Baptist cam, and prechide in the desert of Iudce, and seide, (2) Do 3e penaunce, for the (3) For this is he, of whom it is kyngdom of heuenes shal neize. seid bi Ysaie, the prophete, seyinge, A vois of a crier in desert, Make 3e redi the weies pathis of hym. (4) And this of the Lord; make 3e rist the loon hadde clothing of camels hecris, and a girdil of skynne aboute his leendis; and his mete was honysoukis and hony of the wode.

The

The 15th century may well be described as the via dolorosa of the English Bible as well as of its chief advocates and supporters, the Lollards. After the death of Wycliffe violence and anarchy set in, and the Lollards came Lollards. gradually to be looked upon as enemies of order and disturbers of society. Stern measures of suppression were directed not only against them but against " Goddis Lawe," the book for which they pleaded with such passionate carnestness. The bishops' registers bear sufficient testimony to this fact.2 It would appear, however, as if at first at all events the persecution was directed not so much against the Biblical text itself as against the Lollard interpretations which accompanied it. In a convocation held at Oxford under Archbishop Arundel in 1408 it was enacted "that no man hereafter by his own authority translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue, by way of a book, booklet, or tract; and that no man read any such book, booklet, or tract, now lately composed in the time of John Wycliffe or since, or hereafter to be set forth in part or in whole, publicly or privately, upon pain of greater excommunication, until the said translation be approved by the ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by the council provincial. He that shall do contrary to this shall likewise be punished as a favourer of heresy and error.' 113

It must be allowed that an enactment of this kind was not without justification. The Lollards, for instance, did not hesitate to introduce into certain copies of the pious and orthodox Commentary on the Psalms by the hermit of Hampole interpolations of their own of the most virulently controversial kind (MSS. Trin. Coll. Camb. B.V. 25, Brit. Mus. Reg. 18. C. 26, &c.), and although the text of their Biblical versions was faithful and true, the General Prologue of the Later Version was interlarded with controversial matter. It is small wonder if the prelates and priests sought to repress such trenchant criticism of their lives and doctrines as appeared more especially in the former work, and probably in many others which since have perished in faggots and burning."

For all this, manuscripts of Purvey's Revision were copied and re-copied during this century, the text itself being evidently approved by the ecclesiastical authorities, when in the hands of the right people and if unaccompanied by controversial matter.

Of the Lollard movement in Scotland but little is known, but a curious relic has come down to our times in the shape of a New Testament of Purvey's Revision in the Scottish dialect of the early 16th century. The transcriber was in all probability a certain Murdoch Nisbet, who also showed his reforming tendencies by adding to it a rendering of Luther's Prologue to the New Testament.

? See Foxe, Acts and Monuments, iv. 135 ff. (ed. Townsend, 1846). Wilkin's Concilia, iii. 317.

T. G. Law, The New Testament in Scots, being Purvey's Revision of Wycliffe's version turned into Scots by Murdoch Nisbet, c. 1520 (Scot. T. S., Edinburgh, 1901-1905).

16

2. The Printed Bible.—It is singular that while France, Spain, Italy, Bohemia and Holland possessed the Bible in the vernacular before the accession of Henry VIII., and in Germany the Scriptures were printed in 1466 and seventeen times reprinted before Luther began his great work, yet no English printer attempted to put the familiar English Bible into type. No part of the English Bible was printed before 1525, no complete Bible before 1535, and none in England before 1538. Versions of the Scriptures so far noticed were all secondary renderings of the Vulgate, translations of a translation. It was only with the advent of the "new learning" in England that a direct rendering from the originals became possible. Erasmus in 1516 published the New Testament in Greek, with a new Latin version of his own; the Hebrew text of the Old Testament had been published as early as 1488.

William Tyndale.

The first to take advantage of these altered conditions was William Tyndale (q.v.), " to whom," as Dr Westcott says, "it has been allowed more than to any other man to give its characteristic shape to the English Bible." Of Tyndale's early life but little is known. Be it enough for our purpose to say that he thoroughly saturated his mind with the "new learning," first at Oxford, where in 1515 he was admitted to the degree of M.A., and then in Cambridge, where the fame of Erasmus still lingered. Before the beginning of 1522 we find Tyndale as chaplain and tutor in the family of Sir John Walsh of Old Sodbury in Gloucestershire. He was there constantly involved in theological controversies with the surrounding clergy, and it was owing to their hostility that he had to leave Gloucestershire. He then resolved to open their eyes to the serious corruptions and decline of the church by translating the New Testament into the vernacular. In order to carry out this purpose he repaired in July or August 1523 to London, and to the famous protector of scholars and scholarship, Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall. His reception was, however, cold, the bishop advising him to seek a livelihood in the town. During a year of anxious waiting, it became clear to him "not only that there was no rowme in my lorde of londons palace to translate the new testament, but also that there was no place to do it in all englonde."" ." In May 1524 he consequently betook himself to Hamburg, his resolution to carry out his great work never for a moment flagging, and it was probably during his stay in this free city and in Wittenberg, where he may have been stimulated by Luther, that his translation of the New Testament was actually made. At all events there is no doubt that in 1525 he was in Cologne, engaged in printing at the press of Peter Quentel a quarto edition of the New Testament. This edition was provided with prefaces and marginal glosses. He had advanced as far as the tenth sheet, bearing the signature K, when his work was discovered by Johann Cochlaeus (q.v.), a famous controversialist and implacable enemy of the Reformation, who not only caused the Senate of Cologne to prohibit the continuation of the printing, but also communicated with Henry VIII. and Wolsey, warning them to stop the importation of the work at the English seaports. Tyndale and his assistant, William Roye, managed, however, to escape higher up the Rhine to Worms, and they succeeded in carrying with them some or all of the sheets which had been printed. Instead of completing Quentel's work, Peter Schoeffer, the Worms printer, was employed to print another impression of 3000 in a small octavo size, without prefaces to the books or annotations in the margin, and only having an address "To the Reder" at the end in addition to the New Testament itself. Two impressions, the quarto having possibly been completed by Schoeffer, arrived in England early in the summer of 1526, and were eagerly welcomed and bought. Such strong measures of suppression were, however, at once adopted against these perilous volumes, that of the quarto only a single fragment remains (Matt. i.-xxii. 12), now preserved in the British Museum (Grenville, 12179),' 1 B. F. Westcott, History of the English Bible (3rd ed.), revised by W. Aldis Wright (London, 1905), p. 25.

Pref. to Genesis, p. 396 (Parker Soc.).

Photo lithographed by Edw. Arber (London, 1871).

of the octavo only one perfect copy (the title-page missing' in the Baptist College at Bristol, and one imperfect in the library of St Paul's cathedral.

But Tyndale continued his labours undaunted. In 1520 the manuscript translation of Deuteronomy is mentioned as having perished with his other books and papers in a shipwreck which he suffered on the coast of Holland, on his way to Hamburg In 1530, however, the whole of the Pentateuch was printed in Marburg by Hans Luft; it is provided with prefaces and marginal annotations of a strongly controversial character. The only perfect copy is preserved in the Grenville library of the British Museum. It was reissued in 1534 with a new preface and certain corrections and emendations in Genesis, and again in London in 1551.

In 1531 the Book of Jonah appeared with an important and highly interesting prologue, the only copy known of which is in the British Museum.

Meanwhile the demand for New Testaments, for reading or for the flames, steadily increased, and the printers found it to their advantage to issue the Worms edition of the New Testament in not less than three surreptitious reprints before 1534This is testified by George Joye in his Apology, who himself brought out a fourth edition of Tyndale's New Testament in August 1534, freed from many of the errors which, through the carelessness of the Flemish printers, had crept into the text, but with such alterations and new renderings as to arouse the indignation of Tyndale. The only remaining copy, a 16mo, is in the Grenville library. To counteract and supersede all these unauthorized editions, Tyndale himself brought out his own revision of the New Testament with translations added of all the Epistles of the Old Testament after the use of Salisbury. It was published in November 1534 at Antwerp by Martin Emperowr. Prologues were added to all books except the Acts and the Apocalypse, and new marginal glosses were introduced. Three copies of this edition are in the British Museum, and it was reprinted in 1841 in Bagster's Hexapla. In the following year Tyndale once more set forth a revised edition, " fynesshed in the yere of oure Lorde God A.M.D. and XXXV.," and printed at Antwerp by Godfried van der Haghen. In this heading were added to the chapters in the Gospels and the Acts, and the marginal notes of the edition of 1534 were omitted. It is chiefly noted for the peculiarities of its orthography. Of this edition one copy is in the University library, Cambridge, a second in Exeter College, Oxford, and a fragment in the British Museum. It is supposed to have been revised by Tyndale while in prison in the castle of Vilvorde, being the last of his labours in connexion with the English Bible. His execution took place on the 6th of October 1536, and about the same time a small folio reprint of his revised edition of 1534 was brought out in England, the first volume of Scripture printed in this country, probably by T. Berthelet. A perfect copy is found in the Bodleian library. In later years, between 1536 and 1550, numerous editions of Tyndale's New Testament were printed, twenty-one of which have been enumerated and fully described by Francis Fry.'

"The history of our English Bible begins with the work of Tyndale and not with that of Wycliffe," says Dr Westcott in his History of the English Bible, p. 316, and it is true that one of the most striking features of the work of Tyndale is its independence. Attempts have been made to show that especially in the Old Testament he based a great deal of his work on the Wyclifte translations, but in face of this we have his own explicit

He translated straight from the Hebrew and Greek originals, although the Vulgate and more especially Erasmus's Latin version were on occasion consulted. For his prefaces and marginal notes he used Luther's Bible freely, even to paraphrasing or verbally translating long passages from it.

Apart from certain blemishes and awkward and even incorrect renderings, Tyndale's translation may be described as a truly noble work, faithful and scholarly, though couched in simple and popular language. Surely no higher praise can be accorded to it than that it should have been taken as a basis by the translators of the Authorized Version, and thus have lived on through the centuries up to the present day.

The following specimens may prove of interest:

The thryde Chapter.

(Matthew iii. 1-4.) In those dayes Ihon the baptyser cam and preached in the wyldernes of Iury, saynge, Repent, the kyngedom of heven ys at hond. Thys ys he of whom it ys spoken be the prophet Isay, whych sayth: the voice of a cryer in wyldernes, prepaire ye the lordes waye, and make hys pathes strayght. Thys Thon had hys garment of camelles heere, and a gyrdyll of a skynne about hys loynes. Hys meate was locustes and wyldhe ony. "Locustes are more then oware greshoppers, souche men vse to eate in divres parties of the est (marginal note). (Matthew vi. 9-13.) O oure father which art in heven, halewed be thy name. Let thy kingdom come. Thy wyll be fulfilled, as well in erth, as hit ys in heven. Geve vs this daye oure dayly breade. And forgeve vs oure treaspases, even as we forgeve them whych treaspas vs. Lede vs nott in to temptacion, but delyvre vs from yvell. Amen. (Grenville 12179.)

Miles

Meanwhile a complete English Bible was being prepared by Miles Coverdale (q.v.), an Augustinian friar who was afterwards for a few years (1551-1553) bishop of Exeter. As the Coverdale. printing was finished on the 4th of October 1535 it is evident that Coverdale must have been engaged on the preparation of the work for the press at almost as early a date as Tyndale. Foxe states (op. cit. v. 120) that Coverdale was with Tyndale at Hamburg in 1529, and it is probable that most of his time before 1535 was spent abroad, and that his translation, like that of Tyndale, was done out of England.

In 1877 Henry Stevens, in his catalogue of the Caxton Exhibition, pointed out a statement by a certain Simeon Ruytinck in his life of Emanuel van Meteren, appended to the latter's Nederlandische Historie (1614), that Jacob van Meteren, the father of Emanuel, had manifested great zeal in producing at Antwerp a translation of the Bible into English, and had employed for that purpose a certain learned scholar named Miles Conerdale (sic). In 1884 further evidence was adduced by W. J. C. Moens,

1550, and that the sheets were sent for binding and distribution to James Nicolson, the Southwark printer. This first of all printed English Bibles is a small folio in German black letter, bearing the title: "Biblia, The Bible; that is, the Holy Scripture of the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of Douche (German) and Latyn into Englishe, M.D.XXXV." The volume is provided with woodcuts and initials, the title-page and preliminary matter in the only two remaining copies (British Museum and Holkam Hall) being in the same type as the body of the book. A second issue of the same date, 1535, has the title-page and the preliminary matter in English type, and omits the words "out of Douche and Latyn"; a third issue bears the date 1536. A second edition in folio, "newly oversene and corrected," was printed by Nicolson, with English type, in 1537; and also in the same year, a third edition in quarto. On the title-page of the latter were added the significant words, "set forth with the Kynge's moost gracious licence."

Coverdale, however, was no independent translator. Indeed, he disavows any such claim by stating expressly, in his dedication fully translated this out of fyue sundry interpreters, hauyng to the king, "I have with a cleare conscience purely & faythonely the manyfest trueth of the scripture before myne eyes,' and in the Prologue he refers to his indebtedness to "The Douche (German) interpreters: whom (because of theyr synguler gyftes and speciall diligence in The Bible) I haue ben the more glad to folowe for the most parte, accordynge as I was requyred." These "fyue interpreters" Dr Westcott (ibid. p. 163) identifies as Luther, the Zürich Bible, the Latin version of Pagninus, the Vulgate, and, in all likelihood, the English translation of Tyndale. Though not endowed with the strength and originality of mind that characterized Tyndale's work, Coverdale showed great discrimination in the handling and use of his authorities, and moreover a certain delicacy and happy ease in his rendering of the Biblical text, to which we owe not a few of the beautiful expressions of our present Bible.

The following extracts from the edition of 1535 may serve as examples of his rendering:—

the wildernes of Jury, saynge: Amende youre selues, the kyng(iii. 1-4.) In those dayes Ihon the Baptyst came and preached in dome of heuen is at honde. This is he, of whom it is spoken by the prophet Esay, which sayeth: The voyce of a cryer in je wyldernes,

28 May 1609, to the effect that "he was brought to England

anno 1550 by his father, a furtherer of reformed religion, and he that caused the first Bible at his costes to be Englisshed by Mr Myles Coverdal in Andwarp, the w'h his father, with Mr Edward Whytchurch, printed both in Paris and London" (Registers of the Dutch Reformed Church, Austin Friars, 1884, p. xiv.). Apart from the reference to Whytchurch and the place of printing, this statement agrees with that of Simeon Ruytinck, and it is possible that van Meteren showed his zeal in the matter by undertaking the cost of printing the work as well as that of remunerating the translator. Mr W. Aldis Wright, however, judging from the facts that the name of Whytchurch was introduced, that the places of printing were given as London and Paris, not Antwerp, and lastly that Emanuel van Meteren being born in 1535 could only have derived his knowledge from hearsay, is inclined to think that the Bible in which J. van Meteren was interested "was Matthew's of 1537 or the Great Bible of 1539, and not Coverdale's of 1535."

It is highly probable that the printer of Coverdale's Bible was Epistle to the Reader in the New Testament of 1526, reprinted by G. Offor; cf. Parker Soc. (1848), p. 390. 2 Westcott, op. cil. p. 57 note.

his garment of camels heer, and a lethren gerdell aboute his loynes. Hys meate was locustes and wylde hony.

It should be added that Coverdale's Bible was the first in which the non-canonical books were left out of the body of the Old Testament and placed by themselves at the end of it under the title Apocripha.

Bible.

The large sale of the New Testaments of Tyndale, and the success of Coverdale's Bible, showed the London booksellers that a new and profitable branch of business was Matthew's opened out to them, and they soon began to avail themselves of its advantages. Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch were the first in the field, bringing out a fine and full-sized folio in 1537, truely and purely translated into English by Thomas Matthew." Thomas Matthew, is, however, in all probability, an alias for John Rogers, a friend and fellow-worker of Tyndale, and the volume is in reality no new translation at all, but a compilation from the renderings of Tyndale and Coverdale. Thus the Pentateuch and the New Testament were reprinted from Tyndale's translations of 1530 and 1535 respectively, with very slight variations: 'See Dr Ginsburg's information to Mr Tedder, D.N.B. xii. 365. Cf. H. Stevens, Catalogue of the Caxton Exhibition (1877), p. 88, Remains, Parker Soc., pp. 11 f