wanting distinctive character, was soon withdrawn from circulation.1

The marginal references grew and multiplied in the course of years. In the first edition of 1611 they amounted in the canonical books to 8,418, increasing to 23,895 in the edition of Hayes, Cambridge, 1677; to 33,000 in that of Scattergood, Cambridge, 1678; in Lloyd's to 39,466; in Blayney's to 64,983; in Crutwell's to 66,955, to 66,955, Bath, 1785. Such references to parallel passages became, therefore, unduly multiplied; especially in Canne's Bibles, which were long very popular, and his gauge seems to have been simply the capacity of the margin.

The punctuation has varied much in the humerous editions, and the stopping was heavy in the earlier issues. The connection, if connection there be, between the second and third verse of John i, depends on the punctuation adopted, and similarly in Matt. xix, 28, and Titus ii, 11. The full stop at the end of a verse sometimes interrupts the sense: Ps. lxxxiv, 5, 6, "in whose hearts are the ways of them, who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well"-with a simple comma after them "-" those that dwell in His house are blessed, and those who make a pilgrimage to it." Luke xiii, 24, 25, "many will seek to enter in and shall not be able, when once the master of the house is risen up and hath shut to the door"-when the door is shut but not till then, is entrance impossible. Luke xxiii, 32, was printed thus, "and there were also two other malefactors led with him." This is the literal rendering, though there is a difference of reading. But "other" was then a plural form, as in Gen. viii, 10, Matt. xiii, 8; “others” is never found in Shakespeare-the sense being that there were two other, or two besides him, they being malefactors. "Other" was by and by changed into "others" with a new punctuation. And there were also two others, malefactors, led with him." The clause is liable still to be misunderstood. The reading of the Bishops' is, “and there

2

1 Report of the Committee, New hand column of the first note on York, 1851. page 311.

2 See the first line of the right

XLVIII.]

PUNCTUATION.

309

were other two evildoers led with him." The Great Bible cuts the knot by simply omitting the word "other," "and there were two evildoers led with him to be slain"-a version unfaithful to the Greek. The Rheims has, "and there were led also other two malefactors with him, to be executed.” 1 The Genevan has "and there were two others, which were evildoers, led with him."

It is strange that there are no paragraph marks in the Authorized Version beyond the twentieth chapter of Acts, as if the printing had been hurried toward the conclusion. The division into chapters and verses is so familiar that it cannot be easily set aside—as Bibles in all languages adopt it, and all concordances are based upon it. That there are unfortunate breaks in the sense in several places no one questions. How could it be otherwise among 1,189 chapters and 31,173 verses. The matter contained in a paragraph might be brought more closely together without the hiatus of verses, or the verses might be marked in the margin.

It would serve no purpose to dwell on the splendid editions of Macklin or that of Baskerville for license to print which he is said to have paid a large sum to the University of Cambridge, or those of Bishop Wilson, Pine, Reeves, Heptinstall, and Bowyer, or to enumerate many others of recent years, superbly got up, with good paper, excellent printing, and many magnificent illustrations. A Cambridge Bible of 1858 may be for its general correctness pronounced a very good edition,

An edition was published in Dublin in 1714, and Dr. Cotton, Archdeacon of Cashel, confesses, "I am ashamed to say that this is the earliest edition of the Bible printed in Ireland, which I have been able to discover." The first New Testament published in America bears the imprint of Mark Baskett, London, 1742. But it was stealthily printed in Boston, and the issue consisted of 2,000 copies. A Bible was printed in the same place, with the same fictitious imprint to evade the patent, in 1752. But the Bible was first printed without disguise in America in 1782 (4to, Philadelphia, R. Arthur, 1 "Alii duo nequam," Vulgate.

an emigrant Scotchman.)1 This took place 162 years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers; and, strange to say, a Genevan Bible had been already published in 1743. The most thorough critical examination of the text of the Authorized, with a collation of the most famous editions, has been made by Dr. Scrivener, who is noted for his patient, minute, and accurate research, and his long and intimate familiarity with the subject. His Cambridge Paragraph Bible, 1873, bears witness on every page to the truth of our

CHAPTER XLIX.

IN N the course of the story we have seen that hostility to a vernacular Bible was as intense in Scotland1 as it was in England. The Scottish poets, like Lyndsay, often refer to English translators, and the enmity and terror which they created. According to George Buchanan, the clergy gave out that Luther had composed a book called the New Testament.2 The priest Hamilton, whose virulent critical notes on the Genevan we have given on pp. 55, 56, is equal to his fellows: "Are all merchands, tailours, souters, baxters, wha cannot learne thair awin craftes without skilful maisters, ar thir, I say, and uther temporal men, of whatsomever vocation or degree, sufficient doctor of thame selfis to reid and understand the hie mysteries of the Bible?What folie is it that wemen, wha cannot sew, cairde, nor spin, without they lerne the same of uther skilful wemen, suld usurp to reid and interpret the Bible?"

In spite of all hostility and jealous espionage, various versions found their way into the country, like the written

'See vol. I, p. 243.

2 Halle, the old English Chronicler, p. 806 (ed. 1808), records under date 25th year of King Henry VIII, "This yere also, one Pavier, town clerk of London, hanged himself, which surely was a man that in no wise could abide to heere that the Gospel should be in Englishe, and I myself heard him once saie to me

and other that were by, swearing a great oath, that if he thought the kyngs highness would set forth the Scripture in Englishe, and let it be red of the people by his authoritie, rather than he would so long live he would cut his owne throte, but he brake promise, for as you heard he hanged himself."

Bible of Wycliffe and the volumes of Tyndale, and of the Genevan translation which it reprinted, but it never had any indigenous translation.1 This strange negligence is the more unaccountable as there was no lack in Scotland of learned men, and no scarcity of books printed at home, or brought in from abroad-a traffic conducted under royal license. Readers were also abundant, and it is somewhat astonishing to find that in fifty-six years (namely, from 1558 to 1614), fourteen complete editions of the works of Sir David Lindsay were published, including two printed at Paris, and three in England. There were three editions of Buchanan's History, in 1582, 1583, 1584; and there were thirty-one editions of Buchanan's Psalms between 1566 and 1610, printed at Paris, London, and Antwerp, but not one in Scotland. Of the works of Principal Rollock who died in 1598, at least sixteen volumes were published before 1605; all of which passed rapidly through successive editions. The works of W. Guild, J. Abernethy, A. Symson, P. Symson, and others, passed through many editions between the year 1610 and 1633. During all this prolific time no complete edition of the Bible was printed in Scotland, and no edition of the New Testament, Psalms, or Catechism. As Principal Lee also asks, "If readers were not numerous, how is it that there were so many printers and so many booksellers in Edinburgh in the time of Queen Mary and James IV ?"

Scotland was a poor country, and every one knows Sydney Smith's humorous translation of the Latin motto, first proposed for the Edinburgh Review, "Tenui musam meditamur avena,' "We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal." "This was too near the truth to be admitted," but it was the actual truth at a bygone time, when university students were in the habit of going about and begging their bread. An Act of Parliament of 1579, which threatens to punish various kinds of mendicants, adds with special emphasis, "all vagabound schollers of the Universites of Saint Andrewes, Glasgow, and Aberdene, not licensed by the Rector or Deane of Facultie of the Universitie to ask almes." Yet Scotland, so poor was also proud, and was 1 See p. 40. 2 Dunlop's Parochial Law, p. 358.