durst not do, as I hope to have my part in Christ, though the whole world should be given me for my labour'.' 1 'W. T. yet once again to the Christian Reader' in the N. T. of 1534. I cannot find this address in my copy of Tyndale's Works published by the Parker Society. Part of it is given in the Life, pp. lxii. ff. The Grenville fragment of Tyndale's first quarto Testament with glosses has been perfectly reproduced in photo-lithography by Mr E. Arber, London, 1871. The first octavo has been printed: (1) by Mr Offor, but this edition, though verbally accurate, is wholly untrustworthy in spelling; and (2) in The revised edition of 1534 (M. The final revision of 1535 [or 1534 G. H.] has not yet been published as a whole or in a collation, though it is from this that Tyndale's work has passed directly into our Authorised Version. NOTE to p. 52. Mr F. Fry has made an ample collection of the spellings peculiar to or characteristic of the edition of 1535. By the help of this, which he most kindly communicated to me, I have drawn up the following table of the substitutions of vowel sounds. They seem to me to fall (as Mr W. A.Wright has suggested) under the general description which Bosworth has given of the peculiarities of the Flemish orthography: Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. cxi. The unequal distribution of the peculiarities to which attention has been called already (p. 51, n. 1) is a most important fact in this connexion: Chap. ii. Chap. ii. 2. COVER- His early connexion with More and Crumwell. Tyndale's character is heroic. He could see clearly the work to which he was called and pursue it with a single unswerving faith in GOD and in the powers which GOD had given him. It was otherwise with Miles Coverdale, who was allowed to finish what Tyndale left incomplete. The differences of the men are written no less on their features than on their lives. But our admiration for the solitary massive strength of the one must not make us insensible to the patient labours and tender sympathy of the other1. From the first Coverdale appears to have attached himself to the liberal members of the old party and to have looked to working out a reformation from within through them. As early as 1527 he was in intimate connexion with Crumwell and More2; and in all probability it was under their patronage that he was able to prepare for his translation of Holy Scripture. How long he thus laboured we cannot tell3. In 1529 he met Tyndale at Hamburgh, and to some specific communication' from him, 'Now I begin to taste of Holy Scriptures... Nothing in the world I desire but books as concerning my learning: they once had, I do not doubt, but Almighty God 'shall perform that in me which he 'of his plentiful favour and grace 'hath begun.' Anderson fixes this in 1531. The letter however from style seems to be nearly contemporary with another addressed to Crumwell in 1527. Some sounds are expressed in different ways, especially 'o.' Thus we have aloene and aloone; boeldely and booldly; boethe and booth; coete and coote; hoeme and hoome; loeke and louke (loke 1534); noene and noane; stoene and stoone; thoese and thoose; whoem and whoom. So also we have theare and theere; tought and thaught (taught). Other exceptional forms are tappe (top), touth (to the 1534), waere and woere (where), woeld (would); te (the); mouny (money). 1 The later Puritanism of Cover. dale is consistent with this view of his character. He was a man born rather to receive than to create impressions. 2 Anderson, I. p. 186. 3 In an undated letter to Crumwell he says, evidently in reference 4 Foxe, Acts and Monuments, v. 120. I see nothing derogatory to Tyndale or improbable in Foxe's explicit statement that at this time Coverdale helped him in translating the Pentateuch; though on such a point Foxe's unsupported statement is not sufficient evidence. Chap. ii. must have continued abroad for a considerable part of the following years up to 1536. In the meantime a great change had passed over England since the 'Bill' of 15301. At the close of 1534 a convocation under the presidency of Cranmer had agreed to petition the king that he would 'vouchsafe to decree that a translation of 'the Scriptures into English should be made by certain 'honest and learned men whom the king should nomi'nate; and that the Scriptures so translated should be 'delivered to the people according to their learning". Crumwell, who must have been well aware of the turn which opinion had taken, seems now to have urged Coverdale to commit his work to the press. At any sent to the rate by 1534 he was ready, 'as he was desired,' 'to set press. 'forth' (i.e. to print) his translation3, and the work was finished in October, 1535. But up to the present time the place where it was printed is wholly undetermined, though most bibliographers agree that it was printed abroad. Various conjectures have been made, but when examined minutely they are found to be unsupported by any substantial evidence. The wood-cuts and type are certainly not those used by Egenolph of Frankfort, to which however they bear a very close resemblance. On the other ' and others, to the intent they should 3 The date is added in the edition 4 Mr F. Fry on Coverdale's Bible of 1535, p. 32. On this point I have satisfied myself completely. His Bible Chap. ii. pages. hand, no book printed by Froschover of Zurich has yet been found with more than the two larger kinds of type Three title used in Coverdale's Bible'. The question is further complicated by the fact that the title-page and preliminary matter were reprinted in a different (English) type", and the five remaining title-pages represent three distinct issues, two in 1535, and one in 1536. Two copies have a title-page corresponding to the body of the book, dated 1535, and one of them preserves a single page of the original preliminary matter. Another copy has a titlepage in English type, corresponding to the English preliminary matter, dated also 1535. The two other titlepages are printed in English type, but with the date 15363. Thus there can be no reason to doubt that the book was issued both with the foreign and English titlepages, &c., though it may still be doubted whether the English title-page, &c. belongs to 1536 or to 15355. The differences of the title-pages. One important difference between the foreign and 1 Mr Fry, l.c. p. 28. It is right to add that I am convinced, on internal grounds, that Froschover was the printer, though at present no satisfactory direct evidence of the fact can be adduced. Froschover, it may be add ed, printed the edition of 1550. [Dr Ginsburg informs me that he has complete typographical proof that the Bible was printed by Froschover.] 2 Probably, as Mr Fry shews, by Nycolson: I. c. p. 20. In the same way the title-page and preliminary matter of the edition of 1550 printed abroad were cancelled, and a new title-page &c. printed in England substituted in their place. 3 See App. II. 4 The fragment of the foreign printed Prologue offers only one important variation from the corresponding part of the English Prologue: Mr Fry, l. c. p. 18. It is of course impossible to deter mine the cause of the suppression of 5 It is possible (as has been sug gested to me) that when some copies of the English title-page had been struck off with the date 1535, corresponding to the imprint, this date was afterwards changed in the setting of the page to 1536 to suit the actual time of the English issue; so that the two title-pages belong really only to one issue. The only difference observable in the fac-similes of the two title-pages is the inversion of one of the ornaments on the side of BIBLIA. English title-pages must be noticed. In the former it is said that the book is 'faithfully and truly translated out 'of Dutch [German] and Latin into English:' in the latter the sources of the version are left unnoticed, and it is said simply to be 'faithfully translated into English.' It is possible that the explanatory words taken in connexion with some further details in the original prologue may have been displeasing to the promoters of the edition, and that a new and less explicit title-page, &c. was substituted for the first. However this may have been, the statement itself, as will be seen afterwards, was literally true, and Coverdale describes clearly enough in the existing prologue the secondary character of his work1. Chap. ii. account of Coverdale indeed disclaims the originality which Coverdale's friends and detractors have alike assigned to him. And his work. it is in this that the true beauty and truth of his nature are seen. He distinctly acknowledges that he could but occupy for a time the place of another; nay he even looks to this as the best fruit of his labours that he should call out a worthier successor to displace himself. " Though Scripture,' he writes, 'be not worthily 'ministered to thee [good reader] in this translation 'by reason of my rudeness; yet if thou be fervent in 'thy prayer, GOD shall not only send it thee in a 'better shape by the ministration of other that began 'it afore (Tyndale), but shall also move the hearts 'of them which as yet meddled not withal to take it 1 The supposition that the publication of the work was delayed by the fall of Q. Anne Boleyn is quite baseless. The substitution of the name of Q. Jane without any other alteration in the edition of 1537 is like that of the name of Edward VI. for Henry VIII. in the edition of 1550. The appropriateness of epi- |