CHAP. II. OF THE MEANS EMPLOYED IN PREPARING THE AUTHORISED VERSION' OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. Speaking in our own tongue the wonderful works In the previous chapter, the account of the English translation of the Bible has been brought down to the time of Elizabeth, when the edition superintended by Matthew Parker, and called the Bishops' Bible,' received the sanction of royal authority. From this period till the year 1604, no translation or revision of the English Scriptures, of any importance, seems to have been undertaken. In this year James I. determined upon the execution of the present authorised version, and took the necessary steps to procure it. He nominated fifty-four learned men, chiefly consisting of professors and divines from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, to whom he committed the business of "re-translating, revising, or correcting preceding versions, so as to produce as perfect a translation as possible." Of these persons only forty-seven actually engaged in the work, the others having died, or declined the undertaking; or perhaps they were merely appointed as overseers of the rest. It will not be thought a misappropriation of space, if I treat pretty copiously of this edition of the Bible. It is the only one accessible to many thousands of Christians, and they are deeply concerned in the question of its fidelity, as a version of the sacred text. There has been some controversy as to the competency of James's translators to discharge the duties to which they were appointed; and a recent critic*, whose complaints against the English Bible have been both loud and deep, seems to have concentrated in his preface to an intended new translation, all the objections which had previously been urged against them. One of the principal allegations of this gentleman is, that among the authors of the Authorised Version' there was not one critical Hebrew scholar; the Hebrew language having been, in the reigns 6 * Mr. J. Bellamy. of Elizabeth and James I. most shamefully neglected in our universities. Of this gentleman's motives for thus representing the translators of the English Bible as deficient in one of the main qualities for executing their task, and thence inferring the total inadequacy of the version to the purposes of Scripture instruction, I will not presume to form an opinion; but I may express my regret that any man should pronounce an unqualified judgment upon a subject of which he is entirely ignorant. That Hebrew, and Oriental learning in general, was not so neglected at the periods to which Mr. Bellamy refers, as he would have his readers to believe, is a fact so notorious that it is difficult to conceive any man in his senses, and possessing the ordinary means of knowledge, should venture to deny it. The Oriental languages were among the ordinary philological studies at the two Universities, in the time of Elizabeth; and Fulke, in particular, speaks of many youths at Cambridge, in 1583, who were intimate with Hebrew and Chaldee.* That in public schools, emulation in these studies was excited, is exemplified in a notice of examina * Defence of Translations, p. 340. tions at the Merchant Tailors' School, in 1572, where it is stated that the Bishop of Winchester" tried the scholars in the Hebrew Psalter." At this time," the famous Richard Mulcaster," who was distinguished for his skill in Eastern literature, was master of the school; and, under him, one of the first scholars of the age, and as a linguist a second Mithridates, Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, was educated. * With the name of the venerable and learned Andrewes, the list of persons selected for undertaking the authorised version of the Bible commenced; and among his associates, may be noticed, Dr. Adrian Saravia, who was a profound scholar, and tutor of the celebrated Oriental critic, Nicholas Fuller; Dr. R. Clarke, who thoroughly understood the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages; Dr. Sayfield, to whose Hebrew criticisms the learned and acute Gataker often refers with confidence, and whose skill in the Hebrew tongue Minsheu sought and acknowledged, when he published his valuable "Guide into Tongues;" the profound Orientalist, Mr. W. Bedwell, tutor to the eminent Dr. Pocock; *Todd's Life of Walton, vol. i. D p. 102. Dr. John Rainolds, whose memory was so extraordinary that he could readily turn to all material passages in every volume, leaf, page, or paragraph of the multitude of books he had read, and who was "most prodigiously seen in all kinds of learning, and most excellent in all tongues." Drs. Holland, Kilby, Miles Smith, and Richard Brett, have each left, in their published works, undoubted proofs of their critical skill in the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Greek, and Latin tongues; and to mention no more, Mr. John Bois, "that eminent light of learning," who at five years of age had read the whole Bible, and before he was six could write Hebrew in an elegant hand, and who for ten years was chief Greek lecturer in his college, besides reading lectures in Greek at four in the morning in his own chamber; and Sir Henry Savile, the celebrated editor of Chrysostom's works in Greek, in eight folio volumes, on which he expended not less than 8000l., and also founder of the professorships of astronomy and geometry at Oxford :—these will be amply sufficient to shew that the assertion above noticed is most rash and unfounded; and that if the venerable men employed upon the author |