If I have dwelt at what may be deemed disproportionate length on what is merely a minor version, it is because, as will appear further on, there is good reason for believing that, indirectly through the Translation of Rheims, it has made its influence felt upon the Bible of English-speaking people.

Miles Coverdale was born in 1487. He became a friar of the Augustinian order at Cambridge, where he was ordained priest in 1514. Little more is known about his early history, except that in some way or other he came under the notice of Cromwell, the powerful minister of Henry VIII, and gained his patronage and that, like many others in those times of religious persecution, he found it convenient to pay, from time to time, protracted visits to the Continent. His fame chiefly

rests on his Biblical labours carried on in connexion not only with his own, but, as will presently be related, with many of the succeeding versions of the English Bible. In 1551 he was made Bishop of Exeter. On the accession of Mary he was banished from England and took up his residence first in Denmark and afterwards at Geneva. On his return to England at the commencement of Elizabeth's reign, he took part in the consecration of Archbishop Parker; and, after holding for some time the rectory of St. Magnus, London Bridge, died in 1569. MATTHEW.

The Bible which bears the name of Matthew on its titlepage, and is so referred to in the rules prescribed to the Translators of the Authorized Version, was really the compilation of John Rogers. At the end of the Exhortation to the study of the Holy Scriptures' prefixed to Matthew's Bible, the letters I. R. are printed in large capitals; and in an official document of grave interest to Rogers, in which accuracy of designation was essential—the legal sentence which condemned him to the stake-the words Johannes Rogers alias Matthew occur four times1. If Matthew be not simply a pseudonym, he may have furnished funds for the publication of the Bible, or assisted in some other way. Matthew's version has no claim to originality. The object of the editor seems to have been to supply the English public with a complete Bible formed out 1 Eadie, vol. i. p. 313.

of existing materials-the principle guiding the selections being to give the preference to direct translation from the 'Hebrew and Greek. Thus Tyndale is followed as far as he goes-use being made not only of the books printed by him, but also of the manuscript material he had prepared 1and the portions untranslated by him are supplemented from Coverdale. A few unimportant changes introduced into the text, and some alternative renderings given in the margin, are the only signs of revision that can be assigned to Rogers.

Matthew's Bible was printed, probably at Antwerp, in 1537. When the copies arrived in England in the same year, Cromwell, at the solicitation of Cranmer, procured for the work the royal licence. The title-page bears, equally with Coverdale's, the coveted formula 'set forth with the Kinges most gracious lycence.' It thus appears that this stamp of royal approval was conferred almost simultaneously on two Bibles, Coverdale's and Matthew's. Fulke 2, in his Defence of Translations of the Bible, 1583, assigns the honour of priority to Matthew's version, asserting that it was the first printed in English with authority.

A reprint of Matthew's Bible was issued in 1549.

John Rogers was born about 1500. He was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and became the Rector of the Holy Trinity, London, in 1532. Resigning this post in 1534, he removed to Antwerp, where he was appointed Chaplain to the Merchant Adventurers, and came under the influence of Tyndale and Coverdale. On the accession of Edward VI Rogers returned to England, and received Church preferment, culminating in the Prebend of St. Pancras and the rectory of Chigwell in Essex. He met his end in the fires of Smithfield, Feb. 4, 1555.

TAVERNER.

A revision of Matthew's Bible by a lawyer named Taverner was published in two editions in 1539. The New Testament

1 See above, p. 4.

3

2 P. 112, Parker Society edition.

A guild of English merchants established in Antwerp, 1474. See Demaus, Tyndale, p. 413.

of this work was printed separately three times in 1539 and 1540, and the Old Testament formed part of a Bible of 1551. Although, in a few cases, Taverner anticipates renderings which were subsequently adopted in King James's Version, there is little probability that his Bible was consulted by the Translators of 1611.

THE GREAT (CRANMER'S) BIBLE.

The Authorized Versions, as they may be called, of Coverdale and Matthew, were not long left in possession of the field. A revision of the latter version was almost immediately set on foot by Cromwell, and Coverdale was appointed to undertake it. Paris, as excelling in typography and paper, was selected as the place of printing1. But after the work had commenced the Inquisitor General interfered, and presses, types, and workmen were removed to London. Here in 1539 the printing was completed under the care of Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch. By the name of the latter printer the volume is designated in the list of Bibles enumerated in the instructions given to the revisers of 1611. But the titles by which it was popularly known were, the 'Great Bible,' a tribute to its size, and Cranmer's Bible,' from a prologue by the archbishop which was inserted in a revised edition, of which six distinct impressions were issued in 1540 and 1541. This Bible retained its position as the Authorized Version for twenty-eight years, and was frequently reprinted, the last edition being issued so late as 1569. Free access to its pages was secured by an injunction of Cromwell in his capacity of king's vicegerent, that it should be set up in some convenient place in every church throughout the kingdom 2. WHITTINGHAM.

Among the refugees to the Continent in Queen Mary's reign was William Whittingham, who had been Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He put forth at Geneva in 1557 a version of the New Testament based on Tyndale and the

1 The printer employed was Francis Regnault, of whom we have heard before in connexion with Coverdale's Latin-English Testament. See above, p. 6.

2 Westcott, p. 99.

Great Bible. This is the first English version in which the division into verses appears, the convenient fashion having been set by Stephens in the fourth edition of his Greek Testament printed at Geneva in 1551. Whittingham returned to England on the death of Mary, and was made Dean of Durham in 1563.

GENEVA.

Whittingham's New Testament was the immediate forerunner of a translation of the whole Bible, which, under the name of the Genevan Bible, attained wide and lasting popularity. In the preparation of this version, which was published at Geneva in 1560, Whittingham himself took a leading part, assisted by other scholars, among whom were probably Coverdale, again a refugee, and Knox1. Whittingham's version was taken as the basis of the New Testament translation, but it was subjected to a searching revision mainly guided by the Greek original and the Latin version of Beza (1556), so that, while it retains the main features of what may be called the traditional English Translation, it exhibits a large number of distinctive renderings, many of which have passed into the Authorized Version. Some of these had been previously adopted in the Rhemish version, and thus came before the translators of 1611 with a double recommendation.

The Genevan version owed the affection with which it was regarded to more than one feature. The old black letter was discarded for Roman type. The verse division was taken over from Whittingham's version. Numerous explanatory notes filled the margin, imbued with a calvinistic flavour, which commended them to a large class of readers. The form of the book, a handy quarto, was better suited for general use than the ponderous folios of the earlier standard Bibles.

The Genevan version continued long a vigorous competitor of the successive Authorized Versions for the favour of the multitude. Five editions were printed at Geneva up to 1570. After the death of Archbishop Parker, who in the interests of the Bishops' Bible discouraged rival versions, the first English edition appeared in 1575. From that time impression 1 Strype, Life of Parker, p. 409, ed. of 1821.

after impression was struck off to meet the public demand. Up to the end of Elizabeth's reign, ninety editions in all appeared, as compared with thirty editions of the Bishops', and ten of all other versions. And even the publication of King James's version of 1611 did not at once put the Genevan Bible out of the field; editions still appeared from time to time, until in the reign of Charles I it gradually sank into disuse1. TOMSON.

In 1576 Lawrence Tomson, under-secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, brought out an edition of the Genevan New Testament, in which sundry alterations were introduced. Tomson's version had considerable popularity, and frequently took the place of the Genevan New Testament proper in editions of the Genevan Bible.

THE BISHOPS' BIBLE.

Shortly after the accession of Elizabeth a revision of the Great Bible was taken in hand at the instance of Archbishop Parker. As the scholars to whom he committed the work were mainly bishops, the version gained the popular title of the Bishops Bible.' It was completed in 1568, when it issued from the press of Richard Jugge in London. The Bishops' Bible was the first version which came out under direct ecclesiastical auspices, and the whole weight of Church authority was exerted to assist its dissemination. In the Constitutions and Canons of 1571 a direction was given that 'every archbishop and bishop should have at his house a copy of the Holy Bible of the largest volume as lately printed in London.' And it was further ordered that copies should be placed in the cathedrals, and, so far as could be conveniently done,' in all parish churches 2. A scholar named Lawrence 3 having pointed out several important errors in the first edition, these were corrected in the edition of 1572 and the subsequent

1 Eadie, vol. ii. p. 52.

2 Injunctions of Cromwell (see above, p. 10), of Edward VI, and of Elizabeth giving similar directions with regard to the Great Bible, were of State authority.

He was probably Head Master of Shrewsbury School (Eadie, vol. ii. p. 79).