tors, soon enabled them to claim the second place in this goodly series of Bible translators. The Moso-Goths and the Anglo-Saxons, separated from one another by but a short interval, stand for centuries alone as the possessors of a popular version of the Scriptures. The first efforts made by the Anglo-Saxons in this department of translation, were made in the seventh century, and like the rude beginnings of every national literature, were poetical. So singular and so unlooked for were these attempts, that the superstitious piety of that early age invented a miracle to account for them. An unlettered cowherd of the monastery of Whitby, so says the devout legend, mortified at his inability to imitate or to equal the lyrical performances of his fellow servants, retired to his couch in the Abbey grange. A heavenly visitant appeared to him in his troubled dreams, bade him sing, and silencing his confession of want of skill, gave him as his theme the origin of Created Things. At once the poetical inspiration fell upon him; his tongue was loosed; the task was accomplish- ̈ ́ ed; and remembered and recorded on his waking, gained for him the reputation of an inspired poet. Nor did his labors stop here. Educated by the monks and admitted into their fraternity, Cædmon devoted himself to a popular paraphrase of the Old and the New Testament. Fragments of the work in its rude Saxon verse have come down to us. The monkish paraphrast has been indebted for his materials as much to his imagination as to the Scriptures. His conceptions and even his language, however, remind us not a little of the "Paradise Lost" of Milton. We know not which to admire the more, the boldness of the imagery which he employs, or the useful practical spirit which prompted him thus to popularize the facts and the doctrines of the hidden and unknown Scriptures. But the strong common sense of our Saxon forefathers, the spirit which led their scholars to record useful knowledge in laborious prose while other nations were producing naught but national heroic legends and warlike songs, and made them sacrifice the honor of original composition to the desire of communicating to their countrymen in their own tongue the wisdom of earlier ages, both demanded and prompted something more authentic and instructive than a poetical paraphrase. The Saxon Church in the eighth century was not destitute of learned men fitted to translate correctly the Word of God. Then lived Bede, the monk of Wearmouth, whom the church and the world alike honor as a historian, a commentator, a Christian; but he has no better title to the epithet "venerable," which since the tenth century has been prefixed to his name, than his having been the first translator of any portion of the New Testament into the native tongue of his countrymen. With a spirit kindred to that of the beloved disciple, he selected John's Gospel, and consecrated to its translation the closing hours of his life. The evening shadows of the day of the Feast of the Ascension were gathering around him, as with failing strength, dictating to his scribe, he hastened towards the completion of the task which was to be his last. "It is now done," said the youth, as with faltering tones the last verse was dictated. "It is done," said the dying scholar; and with the words of the "Gloria Patri" upon his lips, he went from his work to his reward. The feeble light of ecclesiastical tradition shines upon the labors of other less noted translators of portions of the Bible in this early period. English libraries, and the collections of English antiquaries contain many MSS. attesting the scholarship, the piety, and the zeal for the diffusion of religious knowledge possessed by these Saxon Ecclesiastics. The golden bosses and precious stones of the binding of the Durham Book, in which, in 680, Eadfrid, bishop of Lindisfarne, had copied Jerome's version of the four Gospels, have long since disappeared; but the richly illuminated parchment on which, in the 10th century, Aldred added an interlinear translation, may still be seen in the Cottonian Library of the British Museum; while the Bodleian Library of Oxford is enriched with the translation of the four Gos - pels, known as the Rushworth gloss, at the close of which Owen, one of the translators, asks in return for what he considers a good and worthy labor, to be remembered in the prayers of his readers. The pious Alfred, whom even critical history consents to call the best king who ever swayed the sceptre of England, sought to give the Divine sanction to his code of laws, by prefixing to it a translation of the Decalogue and its immediate context; and added to his other valued translations a version of a part of the Book of Psalms. Ælfric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, evinced his desire to feed the church of God, over which he had been made an overseer, by making a translation of seven of the Books of the Old Testament, to which is given the name of the Heptateuch. Other versions, e. g., one of the four Gospels, now the standard text of the Anglo-Saxon Testament, made just before the conquest; and two or three others in the Anglo-Norman dialect, made a little later have survived even the names and the fame of their authors. The century which followed the Norman invasion saw no new attempt at translation. Romish bishops and priests occupied the sees and the livings of the Saxon Church. The conquering race thought more of wealth and power than of popular instruction; and the conquered, bowing beneath the foreign yoke, had no leisure or inclination to increase or even to preserve their stock of religious knowledge. The invidious distinctions between the two nations were, however, gradually effaced. The Saxon tongue firmly fixed in the affections of the people, and possessing an undiminished vitality, in daily contact with the Norman French, underwent those changes which have made it English. The restoration of quiet and confidence to the realm was marked by a renewal of the attempts at translation. Again, as in the first instance, poetry led the way; and the Ormulum, a metrical Saxon paraphrase of the Gospels and the Acts, so called from its author, Ormin or Orme, and belonging probably to the 12th century, together with an anonymous paraphrase of the Old and the New Testament, bearing the homely but significant title "Sowlehele," made before the 13th, indicates the attainments and the religious zeal of the ecclesiastics of that period. Our limits forbid us to dwell upon the other poetical versions belonging to the 13th century. The name of Richard Rolle, the Hermit of Hampole, is associated with a prose translation of the Psalms, and a metrical version of a part of Job, of a part of the Psalms and the Lord's Prayer. A few other translations and paraphrases of Gospels and Epistles, for the names of whose authors we search in vain, complete the list of versions made before the middle of the 14th century. We have dwelt thus at length upon the labors of our Saxon forefathers for several reasons. The Saxon tongue is but English in its oldest form; we felt, therefore, that we must present the history of the Saxon Bible translation if we would open to our readers the first page in the history of the English versions. We wished moreover to show how early in their history the race to which we belong displayed that earnest zeal for popular instruction and Christian culture which has made them a blessing to the very ends of the earth. Already did Bede and Aldhelm and Elfric possess the spirit which gave Wiclif and Tyndale and Coverdale no rest till Englishmen had an English Bible, and sent Morrison to China, and Carey to India, and Judson to Burmah, to do for their pagan people what had been already done by other hands for their own countrymen. Nor was this all. We wished to contrast with a later state of things the religious freedom which prevailed in the Saxon Church. No papal decree as yet prohibited either the translation or the reading of the Scriptures by the people. The remote and insular position of the British Church withdrew them from the heaviest yoke and burden of the Papacy. The doors of the Lollards' tower were not yet closed upon prisoners for the faith, and Smithfield as yet witnessed no agonies of burning martyrs. Nevertheless no complete translation of the Scriptures had yet been produced. English scholarship and laborious ness and Christian zeal had not yet been equal to so great a toil. It was reserved for the 14th century to give birth to so noble and so large an undertaking. That century may be said to have witnessed the dawn of the English Reformation. It certainly beheld the rising of its "Morning Star." From that period until the bond which bound the English to the Romish Church was finally severed, there existed men on British soil, who, in the purity of their lives, and the boldness of their speech, protested against the corrupt faith and practices of Popery. The instrumentality which God employed in communicating to them and perpetuating in them right religious impulses, was the life and labors of John Wiclif. Of these labors the most important was the translation into English of the entire Scriptures. The career of this parish priest of Lutterworth, and teacher of Divinity in Oxford, was an uninterrupted struggle against the exactions and the corruptions of the papal see. Now he exposed the emptiness of its claims on the revenues of the English Church and State; then he denied in no measured terms the infallibility and the temporal authority of the successor of St. Peter. Now he stripped from the mendicant friars the cloak of affected poverty and humility with which they concealed their avarice and their crimes; then he sent forth priests" poor priests" as they were worthily called, who should preach truth in place of error, and occupy in the esteem and affections of the people the position usurped by the vicious Franciscans and Domini cans. The University of Oxford silenced his voice within her precincts. The ecclesiastical authorities of the realm bade him retract his errors. The king and the nobility at length withheld from him their support. The Pope even summoned him to Rome, and threatened him with temporal and eternal woes. But, nevertheless, he made the walls of the Church of Lutterworth resound with his denunciations of Papal errors, and none the less filled all England with his brief writings against the vices and the errors of the times. |