737). Tills commission, which included Hugh, and William Latimer among its members, reported against the expedi ency of setting forth a vernacular translation until there was a more settled state of religious opinion, but states that the king " intended to provide that the Holy Scripture shall be, by great, learned, and Catholic persons, translated into the English tongue if it shall then seem to His Grace con venient to be " (ibid. 740). The convocation of Canterbury refreshed the royal memory on the subject by petitioning the king on December 19, 1534, "that His Majesty would vouchsafe to decree, that the Scriptures should be translated into the vulgar tongue by some honest and learned men, to be nominated by the king, and to be delivered to the people according to their learning" (ibid. 770). It was doubtless in response to this petition that the measures were taken of which a very slight historical record remains in some notes of Ralph Morrice, Cranmer s secretary. " First," he says, the archbishop " began with the translation of the New Testament, taking an old English translation thereof," the Wickliffite probably, for Tyndale s was only eight years old, "which he divided into nine or ten parts, caus ing each part to be written at large in a paper book, and then to be sent to the b est learned bishops and others, to the intent that they should make a perfect correction thereof. And when they had done, he required them to send back their parts so corrected unto him at Lambeth, by a day limited for that purpose ; and the same course, no question, he took with the Old Testament." (Camd. Soe. Xarr. of Ref., p. 277.) A letter from Bishop Gardiner to Cromwell is preserved among the state papers, dated June 10, 1535, in which the former writes that he had translated St Luke and St John for his portion of the work, and that he had expended great labour upon them ; and of the rest, with the exception of Stokesley, bishop of London," when the clay came," says Morrice, " every man sent to Lambeth their parts corrected. 1 Some further steps of revision and preparation for the press would no doubt be taken, and the subject was again before convocation in 1536 (Burnet s Rcf., i. 314 ; Pococke s ed. 1865) ; but, as in the case of later re visions of the Bible, the detailed history is lost to us, all that is known further relating to the printing, e au- For reasons not now known, it was determined that this rized authorized version should be printed by Francis Regnault, 184011 the Paris printer, who provided most of the service-books that were used in England. At the request of Henry VIII., " noster carissimus frater," a licence was granted to Regnault for this purpose by Francis the French king, while Coverdale and Grafton were sent over in 1537, the one as a learned editor the other as a practical printer, to superintend the work as it passed through the press. Por tions of the printed sheets w r ere sent home by Bonner Avho was then ambassador at the court of Paris, as ambassador s baggage, and were thus conveyed out of France free from any difficulties with the French authorities ; but when the printing was far advanced, on December 17, 1538, its further progress was interdicted by the inquisitor-general, and orders were given to seize the whole of the impression. Coverdale and Grafton left Paris quickly, leaving a great number of finished sheets, which were condemned to be burned in the Place Maubert ; but, through the connivance of the officer appointed to see this done, the whole of them were sold to a haberdasher as waste paper, and " four great dry vats" full of them sent over to England. As the licence to print them had been given at the special request of Henry VIII., it is probable that the escape of the men and the books was facilitated by the civil authorities to prevent any unpleasantness with the English king. A short time afterwards the types, printing press, and workmen followed the printed sheets, and the volume which had been begun in Paris in 1537 was completed in London, the 387 colophon stating that it was c< Fynisshed in Apryll, Anno M.CCCCC. xxxix. It is a splendid folio " Bible of the largest volume," and was distinguished from its predecessors by the name of " The Great Bible." The title-page describes it as "The Byble in Englyshe, that is to saye, the content of all the Holy Scripture, bothe of the Olde and Newe Testament, truly translated after the veryte of the Hebreue and Greke texts by ye dylygent studye of dy verse excellent learned men, expert in the forsayde tongues. Prynted by Rychard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum, 1539." This was the first of seven editions of this noble Bible which issued from the press during the years 1539-41, the second of them, that of 1540, having the important addition "This is the Byble apoynted to the vse of the churches " on the title-page. Seventy years afterwards it assumed, the form ever since known as the " Authorized Version, but its Psalter is still embedded, without any alteration, in the Bcxk of Common Prayer. The " Great Bible " was, however, a dignitary among books, its size and its price (about 6 of modern money) making it comparatively inaccessible as a home volume for private use. The demand for the vernacular Scriptures which the supply of them had caused was at the same time so enormous that before the end of Edward VI. s reign 26 editions of folio and quarto Bibles, and about double that number of editions of New Testaments, had .been printed. This demand for household Bibles was effectually and unex pectedly met by one on the production of which the English refugees were engaged at Geneva during the last year of Tue Queen Mary s reign and the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and which became the household Bible of the 1560* English middle classes for at least two generations. The Geneva Bible was not an original translation, but a revision of the Great Bible by Hebrew and Greek scholars, who were quite competent to compare the English translation with the original. It was begun in 1558 when Coverdale was at Geneva, and his ample experience was no doubt enlisted in the work ; but after his return to England in the middle of 1559, the responsible editors were William Whittingham, afterwards lay dean of Durham, Anthony Gilby, after wards for a short time dean of Christ Church and then pre bendary of St Paul s, and Thomas Sampson, afterwards dean of Christ Church. The revision was carried on with such industry that the printing of the Bible was finished in April 1560. It became popular immediately on account of its handy size, usually that of a small quarto, and of its being printed in a readable Roman type instead of black letter. It also contained a marginal commentary, which proved a great attraction to the Puritans ; and, above all, an improve ment which Whittingham had already introduced into an independent English New Testament which he had pub lished in 1557 was also introduced into the Bible of 1560, that of dividing the chapters into verses. Like all Bibles hitherto printed, and nearly all that were printed until the latter part of the 17th century, the Geneva Bible contained the Apocrypha, but copies are occasionally found from which it was omitted by the binder. 1 The popularity of 1 The Geneva Bible has often been called the " Breeches " Bible from the translation of Gen iii. 7, " They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves breeches." But this had been familiar long before, in Caxton s Golden Legend and in the Wickliffite Bible. An edition of Matthew s Bible, printed in 1551, is similarly called the " Bug " Bible, from the reading in Ps. xci. 5, " So that thou shalt not nede to be afraycd for any bugges by night ;" but Coverdale s and Taverner s Bibles use the same word, equivalent to tho modern " bogie. A Bible of 1631 has been called the "Wicked Bible," because the important little word " not " is left out of the Seventh Commandment, an accident which also happened in a German Bible of the last century ; and another almost as wicked a volume is a small pearl Bible of 1653, in which St Paul is made to ask " Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall inherit the Kingdom of God ? "