zation with great ability and skill, though not always to the satisfaction of those among the clergy who had inclinations towards Puritanism.

It seems to be generally allowed, that his great undertaking, of revising the version of the Scriptures, was executed by men furnished with ampler resources of learning, theological, classical, and oriental, than any that had yet been applied in England to the sacred task. His version, which was published in 1568, is usually called the Bishops' Bible, a majority of the fifteen translators having been selected from the bench. Those of them whose names are most widely known were probably the following: Grindal, Parker's energetic successor in the Primacy; Bentham, who was esteemed as a commentator; the despotic and learned Sandys; and Cox, the venerable bishop of Ely, who had been the tutor of Edward the Sixth.

Thenceforth, till our last step, the two new versions were, with hardly any exception, the only ones that issued from the press. We are told that, in the course of Elizabeth's reign, there appeared eighty-five editions of the English Bible, and forty-five of the New Testament; sixty of the former being impressions of the Geneva version.

It is right also to note, in passing, the dates of the Roman Catholic version, commonly known as the Douay Bible. The New Testament appeared in 1582, and the Old Testament in

1610.

3. Our current translation, as every one knows, belongs to the reign of James. The first movement towards it was made in the celebrated Conference at Hampton Court, when the learned Raynolds, the leader of the puritanical party, and then president of Corpus Christi College in Oxford, proposed to the king that there should be a new version. In 1604, a royal letter, addressed to the Primate Bancroft, announced that the sovereign had appointed fifty-four learned men for translating the Bible, and ordered that measures should be taken, by securing the co-operation of eminent Greek and Hebrew scholars, and otherwise, for the commencement and progress of the undertaking. The la bours of these persons, however, did not begin till the spring of 1607; they lasted about three years; and the version which was the fruit of them was published in 1611. Among the other instructions issued to the translators, are articles directing, that the Bishops' Bible "shall be followed, and as little altered as the original will permit;" but that the translations of Tyndale, Matthew, Coverdale, Cranmer, and the Geneva Bible, shall " be used when they agree better with the text than the Bishops' Bible,"

Of the forty-seven translators whose names are recorded, there were many in regard to whom enough is known to show, that, in the kinds of knowledge qualifying for such a task, they were among the most learned men in a learned age. Oxford, Cambridge, and Westminster, supplied their most eminent scholars, who were distributed into sections, varying in number from ten to seven; the work being apportioned among these, and provision made for an exchange of corrections among the several companies, and for a final revision by a committee. Perhaps Bishop Andrewes was the most famous man among the translators, Raynolds the most profound theologian, and Sir Henry Saville the most distinguished for classical and general accomplishment. The array of Oriental and Rabbinical erudition seems to have been particularly strong.

The Geneva version still for a time retained its popularity; and a new version was one of the abortive schemes of the Long Parliament. A committee of the Protector's Parliament of 1657 consulted several profound scholars, among whom were the philosophical Cudworth, the celebrated Orientalist Brian Walton, and Edmund Castell, his chief coadjutor in the Polyglott Bible. On the evidence of these competent judges, they reported to the House that, taken as a whole, King James's is "the best of any translation in the world." Its reception may be considered as having thereafter been universal.

it

It is needless to say how nobly simple are the style and diction of this, the book in which all of us read the Word of Truth. Just as little does any one require to be informed, that it has had a wide influence for good on the character of our language. But may be well that we call to mind the manner in which it was concocted and that we remember how, as a necessary consequence of this, its phraseology is considerably more antique than that of the time in which it appeared. It was well for the purity of the English tongue, that the history of the English Bible took the course it did.

ORIGINAL THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS,

4. Our brief memoranda of original writings, produced by the Old English Divines, open auspiciously with the venerable name b. 1553. of Hooker. His great work, the "Ecclesiastical Polity," d. 1600. is highly valued as an exposition and defence of those views of the relations between church and state, according to which the Reformed Church of England was organized; but it is also a noble effort of philosophical thinking, which is conducted with especial force and mastery in the ethical disquisitions making up

its First Book. In point of eloquence, the work is at this day, perhaps, the very noblest monument which our language possesses it is certainly unapproached by anything that appeared in the next century. More than Ciceronian in its fulness and dignity of style, it wears, with all its richness, a sober majesty which is equally admirable and rare.

*

*RICHARD HOOKER.

From the First Book of the Treatise "Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity;" published in 1594.

Albeit much of that we are to speak in this present cause may seem to a number perhaps tedious, perhaps obscure, dark, and intricate; (for many talk of the truth, which never sounded the depth from whence it springeth; and therefore, when they are led thereunto they are soon weary, as men drawn from those beaten paths wherewith they have been inured;) yet this may not so far prevail as to cut off that which the matter itself requireth, howsoever the nice humour of some be therewith pleased or no. They unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injured by us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they are not willing to endure. And if any complain of obscurity, they must consider, that in these matters it cometh no otherwise to pass, than in sundry the works both of art and also of nature, where that which hath greatest force in the very things we see, is notwithstanding itself oftentimes not seen. The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them, delighteth the eye: but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth concealed; and if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labour is then more necessary than pleasant, both to them which undertake it and for the lookers-on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort; albeit the grounds and first original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the greatest part of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vitious; for better examination of their quality, it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest well-spring and fountain of them, to be discovered.

Now, if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were, through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixtures, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the

"His periods, indeed, are generally much too long and too intricate; but portions of them are beautifully rhythmical; his language is rich in English idiom without vulgarity, and in words of a Latin source without pedantry. He is perhaps the first in England who adorned his prose with the images of poetry. But this he has done more judiciously, and with greater moderation, than others of great name; and we must be bigots in Attic severity, before we can object to some of his grand figures of speech."

b. 1565.

Of the turn of theological writings in the times of James, an adequate idea might probably be gained from the pulpit-oratory of two of its divines. The first who has already been named for his eminent learning and his position as an ecclesiastical leader, was the most popular preacher of the day: the other, whom we took as the representative of the poetry of his time, transferred himself in middle age from civil life to the church, and appears to have become particularly acceptable to refined and well instructed hearers. The sermons of Bishop Andrewes exemplify, very perd. 1626. tinently, the chief defects in style that have been attributed to the writers of his period; while to these they add other faults, incident to the effusions of a mind poor in fancy, coarse in taste, ingeniously rash in catching at trivial analogies, and constantly burying good thoughts under a heap of useless phrases. Yet, though they were corrupt models, and dangerous in proportion to the fame of the author, it is not surprising that they made the extraordinary impression they did. They contain, more than any other works of their kind and time, the unworked materials of oratory; and of oratory, too, belonging to the most severe and powerful class. There is something Demosthenic in the impatient vehemence with which the pious bishop showers down his short, clumsy, harsh sentences; and the likeness becomes still more exact, when we hear him alternating stern and eager questions with sad or indignant answers. His Latin quotations, though incessant, are always brief; his field of erudite illustration is prudently confined; and his multiplied divisions and sub-divisions, being quite agreeable to the growing fashion, may have helped to increase the respect of the hearers for the great strength and ingenuity of

fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief: what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world?

*Hallam: Introduction to the Literature of Europe.

There is often

thought which the preacher so often showed. much aptness in the parallels, which it is his besetting fault to accumulate so thickly, and overdraw so grotesquely; and an overpowering effect must sometimes have been produced by the dexterous boldness with which, anticipating an adverse opinion or feeling, he throws it back in the teeth of those who are likely to entertain it. Thus, in a charity sermon, catching at a phrase of Latimer's, which (it appears) was not yet forgotten, and briefly admitting the justice of the censure which it implied, he suddenly turns away, to work out, in an opposite direction, the very vein of thought which we found in the martyr's Sermon on the Plough.*

Donne's Sermons are of a very different cast. They are imb. 1573. measurably superior in every point bearing on style; d. 1631. and, if the taste of the writer cannot be called pure, it errs, as in his poetry, by being fantastic, not by being coarse. The poet's fancy sometimes prompts images, and figures of speech, that are full of a serious and thoughtful beauty; and

*BISHOP ANDREWES

From the Sermon (1 Tim. vi. 17, 18, 19,) preached at Saint Mary's Hospital.

Well then! if to "do good" be a part of the charge, what is it to do good? It is a positive thing (good); not a privative to do no harm. Yet, as the world goeth now, we are fain so to commend men: "He is an honest man: he doth no hurt:" of which praise any wicked man, that keeps himself to himself, may be partaker. But it is to do some good thing:-What good thing? I will not answer as in the schools: I fear I should not be understood. I will go grossly to work.

This know, that God hath not given sight to the eye to enjoy, but to lighten the members; nor wisdom to the honourable man, but for us men of simple, shallow forecast; nor learning to the divine, but for the ignorant; so neither riches to the wealthy, but for those that want relief. Think you Timothy hath his depositum, and we ours, and you have none? It is sure you have. We ours in inward graces and treasures of knowledge; you yours in outward blessings and treasures of wealth. But both are deposita; and we both are feoffees of trust.

I see there is a strange hatred, and a bitter gainsaying, everywhere stirred up against unpreaching prelates (as you term them), and pastors that feed themselves only: and they are well worthy. If I might see the same hatred begun among yourselves, I would think it sincere. But that I cannot see. For that which a slothful divine is in things spiritual, that is a rich man for himself and nobody else in things carnal: and they are not pointed at. But sure you have your harvest, as well as we ours; and that a great harvest. Lift up your eyes and see the streets round about you; the harvest is verily great, and the labourers few. Let us pray (both) that the Lord would thrust out labourers into both these harvests: that, the treasures of knowledge being opened, they may have the bread of eternal life: and the treasures of well-doing being opened, they may have the bread of this life: and so they may want neither.