bably not in the power of any body of Englishmen to turn out such a piece of genuine English as our common version—at least, not naturally; it could only be by a perpetual vigilance, an incessant artificial care which would impart coldness and constraint to their work. That our vernacular tongue is as strong as it is, is owing, in no small measure, to the common version of the Bible. Amidst incomparably higher benefits it has conferred upon us, its literary value has not been small. It has maintained the AngloSaxon element in its vigour; it has acted as a breakwater against those encroaching restless waves of change and caprice which are perpetually undermining and breaking down portions of a language, and rendering words, and idioms, and constructions obsolete or obsolescent.

For these reasons, a modern translation of the entire Bible might be more minutely exact; and yet, on the whole, a less luminous and powerful reflection of Divine Truth.

It is observed by astronomers that the planet Venus sometimes shines brightest, not when she is in that part of her orbit where she presents to us her fullest disc, but when she is at that nearer point where she is most intensely illuminated. We see somewhat less of her, but she shines brighter. It is much the same with the translations of a book. A little less of the original may be seen in one than another; nevertheless, preserving substantial accuracy of meaning it may, in addition, be so strongly illuminated-may, by felicity or energy of diction, so influence the imagination and affec tions of the reader, as to be incontestably superior, and preserve the essential spirit of the book incomparably better.

If any one wishes to see the extent to which infelicities of diction and style may dilute even the spirit of the Bible, wonderfully as it is constructed to aid the translator, and naturally as it clothes itself in the most idiomatic forms of every language into which it is rendered, let him compare some of the passages of the New Testament in the common version with those in the Catholic translation of the Rheim's New Testament. Most thankful, indel. ought Protestants to be that such a translation is in eirenlation among British Roman Catholics; for faulty as a translation of the Bible may be, it is impossible for any translation, (if tolerably faithful), to disguise its essential facts and doctrines. Notes and glosses can alone do that, and not, even then, effectually. The candle of the Lord" shines through even the dullest horn-lantern into which the clumsiest translator may stick it; though it wi shine indefinitely brighter in proportion to the transparency of the medium. Similarly, the light may be made dim and ineffectually the lack of such transparency in the medium, and it is often just so with the renderings in the afore-mentioned version. It is as

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though our friends of the Roman Catholic Church feared there would be an explosion if they did not fix the light of truth in a "safety-lamp," and interpose between its flame and the eye an obscuring gauze. Take the following examples :

do

"Who will reform the body of our lowness?"—Phil. iii., 21.

"In like manner, ye young men, be subject to the ancients. And ye all insinuate humility one to another."-1 Peter v., 5. "God is charity, and he that abideth in charity abideth in God,”1 John iv., 16.

"And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God."-1 John iv., 3. In like manner, the frequent substitution of Latinistic terms for the strong and homely vernacular; as "solicitude" for " care,' "longanimity" for "long-suffering," "recede" for "go back," "injustice" for "unrighteousness," "divesting" for "spoiling," spoiling," "obscenity" for "filthiness," "benignity" for "gentleness," and so on, gives the whole version a certain foreign air, and produces an impression, as we read it, as if a thin veil had been drawn over the words.*

We cannot say that there are many cases in which the meaning is unintelligible, even in this version; but it is made much less vivid by the diction employed, which, even in the last revised edition of the version, is far too full of book-words. The style of the Bible is so marvellously constructed for transfusion of its thoughts into all the dialects of the world; it has such strong affinities with whatever is most energetic, simple, and idiomatic in them, that only a translator very skilled indeed in translating badly can render the histories of the Old Testament or the Gospels of the New very faulty as regards diction. But, nevertheless, one version, even of those parts, may be indefinitely better or worse than another.

But dismissing the idea of an entirely new translation, or, which would come to much the same thing, the consigning of the entire "common version" to the unlimited tinkering of any man or body of men on their sole authority, it must be confessed that a revision rigorously restricted to the passages in which error or other grave defect, (as obsolete forms), is charged, is a totally different thing. No such sweeping changes as might, and pretty certainly would, attend an entirely new version need be introduced in a cautious revision of the old. Comparatively few, (however numerous absolutely), are the passages which require any alteration, and the

An amusing collection of portentous Latinisms are given from the Rhenish Version in Trench's "English, Past and Present." "Impudicity," "ebrieties," commessations," and "longanimity" would certainly need a dictionary for the bulk of common readers.

difference between re-touching these and giving us an entirely new version, would be as the difference between repairing a little dilapidation in an old fabric, and razing it from the foundations to build it afresh. The accumulations of sacred science during two centuries and a-half are sufficiently large, at least, to justify the attempt at revision, and modern scholarship is fully equal to the task of pronouncing on the value of any proposed emendations.

But even then, we confess reluctance to allow any phalanx of critics, however learned and cautious, to undertake and complete the work without, in some sense, the co-operation of the public; that is, we should not like it to be performed on their sole responsibility; we should not like the Bible to be given (so to speak) into their hands, to expunge and alter at their pleasure, and then to be handed back to us as a "Common Version," with the socalled emendations already made, which (without a voice), we are required to accept. We should like the public to have a choice in the matter; to have means of comparison, and time to form a judgment the learned, on the value of the interpretation; and the general reader, on the merits of the expression in the altered passages.

We will briefly state what seems to us the most unobjectionable mode in which this end might be effected.

We should like, then, to see certain public bodies, which have the requisite wealth and learning (as, for example, the Universities), or the wealth that might hire the learning (as some of our great religious societies), enlisting in the service a number of the first scholars of our day, and assigning to each a moderate portion of the sacred volume for revision. After a diligent examination of the text, and the due use of all philological and critical lights, each might suggest what alterations, in his judgment, were required in the portion consigned to his care; the suggestions of each might be submitted to the rest, and, at last, such emendations as had the general concurrence might be introduced-not into the text of the common version-but into an edition of it, printed in double columns; one of which should be devoted to the text of the common version itself, and the other to the proposed alterations -this latter column, where no alterations were necessary or proposed, being left blank. The emendations should be printed over against the verses which they affected; and, perhaps, in order to throw these out more distinctly before the eye, they might be printed in red letter. At the same time, the body of such emendations might be printed separately, in a cheap form, for ordinary readers who could not purchase the more bulky volume. Ts would obviate the objection that the public would be left, for the time during which opinion was forming on the merits of the

proposed emendations, in ignorance of what scholarship and research had done for the sacred text and its interpretation during the last two centuries and a-half. The people would have the results, though not incorporated in an edition of the common version, and they could make the comparison for themselves.

It is not for us to suggest the public body or bodies who might take upon themselves-for we would have it undertaken by themselves-this responsible task. One naturally looks to the Universities as the parties by whom it might be most hopefully entered upon. But, in fact, if the work were attempted simultaneously by two or three public bodies, it might be as well. No harm could well follow, and some good might. Larger resources of learning, critical skill, and taste would be pressed into the service, and a wider basis of ultimate comparison and selection would be secured; while agreement (and in the majority of cases there would be substantial agreement) would be an additional argument for the soundness of, at least, the interpretation arrived at.

Supposing such emendations made, we would then have them, as we have said, left in the hands of the people; that a public opinion might gradually grow up, and express itself about them, before any attempt was made to substitute them for the corresponding passages in the current version. Apart from some such ordeal, by which the value of these emendations might be tested, we fancy that the nation would be loth to give any body of men, however learned, the liberty, and that they would be equally reluctant to accept the responsibility, of using the sponge to any part of the received version, and summarily substituting something else in its place. Whatever is done should be done before the eyes of the public, and with the fullest means of judging of its propriety.

Hence the importance we attach to the condition that the proposed alterations should be deliberately submitted to the public eye; not merely that the criticism of the learned might be heard as to the interpretation, but, (what is scarcely less important in such a case), that the voice of the intelligent, though not learned, public might be heard on the translation itself; on the merits of the diction and style; whether the words substituted worthily replaced the strong sinewy English of the present version, or whether learning, as so often happens, had diluted the force of expression by fond preference for a classical diction.

Nor let it be supposed that the instincts of unlearned, unsophisticated English ears would be of little value. We have already

Some of the great societies, the object of which is the diffusion of religious knowledge-and of which the revenues are princely-might legitimately devote a moderate grant from their funds, for a series of years, to so good a work; and if several of them were to join in the object, the tax on each would be light.

said that it would be very possible for a number of learned men to give us a really more accurate translation by availing themselves of all the aids of modern learning and research, and yet systematically deteriorate the whole by dilution of phrase; by a want of tact for perceiving the full force and energy of vernacular idioms and constructions, which, by the way, is usually one of the weak points in men of mere erudition. No wonder that it is so, for learned men read much in foreign languages, and are chiedy conversant with English books in which there is an undue proportion of the foreign element; they are also very often segregated. to a great extent, from the walks of common life, in which the life of the vernacular diction (the Saxon) chiefly circulates. Ic English, the native and the foreign elements, the confluence of which forms it, are both very large; an immense number of our synonyms are derived from both; but it is those derived from foreign sources which are most naturally suggested to habits of learned thought. Unless, therefore, erudition is conjoined with unusual activity of the imagination (and great linguistic and philo logical talent is seldom allied to a poetic temperament); unless it also has its tendencies corrected by perpetual familiarity with the literature in which the dialect of common life is principally found, the diction it employs is certain to be coloured by an excessive infusion of the classical elements of our language.

Take, for example, Lowth, a man, not only of learning, but of elegant imagination and accomplished taste. His translation of Isaiah bears witness to his possession of all these qualities; yet how often has he diluted the force of the dietion in his attempt to mend the common version! No doubt his translation has still graver faults; he is often bold, even rash, in his interpretations, founded, as they not seldom are, on conjectural, or very partially sustained emendation of the text; and this shows us, by the way, how unwise it would be to give any individual men authority to substitute their translations for those of the common version till general criticism has thoroughly sifted them. But, to waive that, for it is in point of diction that we more particularly speak of Lowth's version at present. It cannot be denied that he has, in many cases, made real improvements, so that, on the whole, he has produced a version of great merit and elegance; yet it is equally undeniable, we think, that an ear thoroughly attuned to the vernacular, will detect a pervading languor of expression as compared with the energy of the common version, arising from the insensible preference of a highly-cultivated literary taste for the classical elements in our language. To go no further than the First Chapter for a specimen, who can endure the substitution of the frigid, general term "possessor" for the appropriate word