whose character and office were expected to give weight to the new translation. Hence came the name by which it is generally known: "the Bishop's Bible." It was printed in 1568, and as presented to the Queen, with its 143 engravings of maps, portraits, and coats of arms, it was the most splendid copy of the Word of God yet issued from the press. Its title was simply "the Holie Bible." Beneath the portrait of the Queen, which, surrounded by the national arms, graced the title-page, appeared in Latin the rich and significant motto, the spirit of which had prompted and guided the series of versions to which this now belonged, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”

For forty-three years was this Bible publicly read in the churches; yet in all that time it did not supplant the Genevan in the household and the closet. It is inferior to it as a translation, and for us possesses a greater interest than its predecessors only because it was the basis of that version which we daily read.

The history of that version we proceed to consider. But before reaching that we find another translation lying in our path, in our path yet not altogether in it. It is there inasmuch as it is an English translation; it is beside it inasmuch as it is not a Protestant but a Romish one. The Saxon Church was indeed in communion with Rome when Bede faltered out the closing words of John's gospel; and the English in like manner, when Wiclif performed so unfilial an act as to give to her laity an intelligible Bible. The world had not yet witnessed the birth of Protestantism. Wiclif's translation, however, heralded the Reformation. With his begins the series of Protestant translations. The version which we propose to notice was occasioned by them, although not numbered with them. It is not a link in that chain. It is not a member of that goodly company. It is a rival, not an associate; it exists because they exist. Were they to disappear, it would vanish and its absence would be unfelt by even its professed friends.

This translation appeared in circumstances similar to those

in which the "Genevan" originated. That was made by and for English Protestant refugees in the reign of Mary; this by and for English Romish refugees in the reign of Elizabeth. As that has marginal notes defending the doctrines of the Reformed Church, so this has notes defending those of the papal.

The Romish clergy found, as the insurgents in the reign of Edward VI. declared, that they could not refute heretics while the Bible was read in English. This English Bible they had in vain attempted to suppress; the next best thing was to circulate a version of their own, of which they should be the sole interpreters. They could not restrict Bible circulation to the generally unintelligible Vulgate; their only refuge was to translate from that version, with all its errors, in a style which, nearly resembling the Latin, should be to the ignorant as sacred as it was obscure. The sword of the Spirit may well be thought harmless so far as man can rob it of its power, when it is sheathed in such words as “impudicity," "ebrieties," "commessations," "longanimity" and "promerited."

The New Testament of this version was printed at Rheims in France in 1582, and is called the Rhemish Testament. The Old Testament, delayed in its publication by the poverty of the English papal refugees, appeared at Douay in the same part of the kingdom, in 1609-10. The two together are known as the "Douay Bible," the only English Bible the Romanist is permitted to use.

When, upon the death of Elizabeth in 1603, her "awkward and learned" Scotch cousin, James I., ascended the English throne, the non-conforming party of England had strong hopes of favor from a monarch who had been reared under Presbyterian influence. A petition signed by about 1000 ministers, and thence called the Millenary petition, met him on his arrival in his new kingdom. It begged for reformation in the matters of the church service, the ministry, their livings and maintenance, and the system of ecclesiastical discipline. Although the University of Oxford an swered this petition, the conceited and pedantic King longed

to meddle with the affair, and therefore issued a proclamation dated October 24, 1603, "touching a meeting for the hearing and for the determining things pretended to be amiss in the church."

This meeting was held on the 14th, 16th and 18th of January, 1604, in the drawing room of Hampton Court, and is thence called the "Hampton Court Conference."

Sixty years, with all their sudden and often evil changes, had now passed since within these stately walls Henry VIII. had studied the canon law to justify to himself his divorce from Katharine of Arragon; since here Anne Boleyn had revelled in all the luxury offered her by her fickle husband; since here Jane Seymour had been delivered by a natural death from all the perils which surrounded a wife of Henry; since here, in her turn, Anne of Cleves had awaited her divorce, Katharine Howard had spent a brief holiday, and Katharine Parr had given her hand to the adulterous monarch whom she was destined to survive. A new scene was now to be enacted here by the successor of the Tudors. On New Year's day of this year Shakspeare's company performed before the King in the great hall of the palace. On the 14th of the same month, James I. in his privy chamber prepared a drama of another sort, in which he was to be the chief actor. With the Lords of the Council, the Bishops and the church dignitaries of the realm, he met the delegates of the Millenary petitioners, Dr. John Reynolds and Dr. Thomas Sparks of Oxford, Mr. Chadderton and Mr. Knewstubbs of Cambridge.

"The King sits as Moderator," says a lively modern writer; "His notion of moderation is not altogether uncommon, to have all the talk to himself, and to abuse every one who ventured to hint a difference of opinion. Little did he allow the Divinity Professors to say; and when he was exhausted with his own harangues, he exclaimed that, if they had disputed so lamely in a college, he would have had them up, and flogged them for dunces; and that, if that was all they could say, he would have them all conform, or hurry them out of the land, or do worse for them."

"I peppered them soundly,' said the conceited pedant; and he shuffled about in his padded trunk hose, and chuckled and winked as the Bishop of London went down on his knees and protested that his heart melted with joy, and acknowledged God's singular mercy in giving them such a king." A dismal prospect this for non-conformity! But this conference, though it did little if anything for the cause of the non-conformists, did more than afford James an opportunity to display his self-conceit and his arrogance. For, on the second day of the conference Dr. Reynolds, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, the chief speaker on the part of the petitioners, moved his majesty that, inasmuch as the existing translations were manifestly incorrect, there might be a new translation of the Bible. To this proposal Bancroft, Bishop of London, replied that, if every man's humor should be followed, there would be no end of translating. The king, however, assented to the proposal, saying that he had never yet seen a good English version, though of all he had seen "the worst was the Genevan," the one it will be remembered which was now most popular, but one whose notes showed no favor to the King's favorite doctrine of the royal supremacy. He proposed that a translation should be made by learned men in both universities, that it should then be revised by the bishop, laid before the Privy Council, and last of all ratified by the authority of his own kingly scholarship.

It will be recollected that at this time two versions were in use, the "Bishops," preferred by the Church party, the "Genevan," used by the non-conformist. While Reynolds'

proposal seems to have aimed at supplanting the former, James's evidently aimed to supplant the latter. From these mutual jealousies came forth the decree for a new translation, which was to be published without note or comment.

On the 22d of July, 1604, the king wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury (Bancroft, translated from the see of London), stating that he had appointed fifty-four learned men for this work, and making provision for their support and compensation during its prosecution. These men were

in some instances nominated by the universities, and then appointed by the king; and in others selected directly by him for their known accomplishments and scholarship.

The kingdom could not have presented a nobler array of oriental, classical, and theological learning than that offered by this company of translators.

Dr. Launcelot Andrews, Dean of Westminster, and afterwards bishop of Chichester, the most celebrated preacher and the sternest defender of High Church doctrines in the reign of James, brought to the work his brilliant talents and sincere devotion. Adrian de Saravia, previously Divinity Professor at Leyden, a celebrated linguist, lent the aid of his profound knowledge of the original tongues. Dr. Laifield contributed his skill in architecture, to the details of the structure of the tabernacle and the temple. Cambridge and Oxford both offered to the work their Regius Professors of Hebrew and of Greek. There were Doctors of Divinity, learned dignitaries of the principal sees of the English Church, whole libraries of Biblical learning, and men of equal scholarship and as unquestionable piety, from the ranks of the non-conformists.

Though fifty-four persons are, in James's letter, said to have been appointed, the names of but forty-seven appear in the list of actual translators. The remaining seven were probably the bishops who were to revise the whole work. The translators met in three companies; the appointees of each university within their respective precincts; those of the king at Westminster. Each of these companies was again divided; so that there were six sections in all.

In July, 1604, their instructions were given to them. The substance of these was as follows: Inasmuch as they proposed only to make a good version better, the Bishops' Bible was to be taken as the basis of translation, and altered as little as possible. The preferences of the Puritan Churches for the superior Genevan version were, therefore, neither consulted nor indulged. Little, if any, alteration, was to be permitted in the division of chapters, or in proper names; and no change in the ecclesiastical phraseology, Church,