yesterday, with a review in it of a new Italian poem in praise of the Devil, of which the reviewer says the style is excellent.1) "You may also be interested in perusing a translation from the Latin of the only letter of the translator that has ever been discovered, and which touchingly reveals his sufferings in the castle of Vilvorde, in Flanders, shortly before he was put to death. Now I hope you will agree with me that the only house in the kingdom where so great a man resided ought not to be allowed to fall into decay and neglect as it is now doing. Part of the house is unroofed, the fine old dining-hall with its beautiful roof has been turned into a carpenter's shop, the chimney-piece and other portions of the fittings of the manorhouse having been carried off by the owner, Major Hartley, to his own residence, two or three miles off. I have appealed to the proprietor in behalf of the old house, but in vain, for he does not even condescend to reply. I should be glad if your powerful pen could draw attention to this as well as other similar cases of neglect. The interesting old church of St. Adeline, immediately behind the manor-house of Little Sodbury, and where Tyndale frequently preached, was pulled down in 1858, and the stones carried off for a new one in another part of the parish. Many would have gladly contributed towards a new church, and to save the old one, but they were never asked, or had any opportunity. I fear I have wearied you with these particulars, but I am sure you will not approve the doings I have recounted. With pleasant recollections of your kind hospitality,

"Believe me, dear Sir,

"Your faithful and obliged."

"The late Dr. Faber wrote of the English Bible, of which Tyndale's translation is the basis, as follows." (I don't understand much of this sweet writing of Dr. Faber's myself; but I beg leave to state generally that the stronghold of Protestant heresy is pure pig-headedness, and not at all a taste for pure English.)

"Who will not say that the uncommon beauty and marvellous English of the Protestant Bible is not one of the great strongholds of heresy in this country? It lives on the ear like music that can never be forgotten-like the sound of a church bell which a convert hardly knows he can forego. Its felicities seem to be almost things rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The dower of all the gifts and trials of a man's life is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of the best moments; and all that there has been about him of soft and gentle, and pure and penitent and good, speaks to him for ever out of the English Bible. It is his sacred thing which doubt has never dimmed and controversy never soiled.' (Doctor!) 'In the length and breadth of the land there is not a Protestant with one spark of righteousness about him whose spiritual biography is not in his English Bible.' "Mr. Froude says of Tyndale's version:

"Of the translation itself, though since that time it has been many times revised and altered, we may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we are all familiar. The peculiar genius-if such a word may be permitted'-(better unpermitted) which breathes through it, the mingled tenderness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the preternatural' (Do you really mean that, Mr. Froude?) 'grandeur, unequalled, unapproached in the attempted improvements of modern scholars, all are here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man-William Tyndale.'-Froude's History of England.

"The only letter of William Tyndale which has been discovered was found in the archives of the Council of Brabant, and is as follows; it is addressed to the Marquis of Berg-op-Zoom, the Governor of Vilvorde Castle, in the Low Countries; the date is 1535:

"I believe, right worshipful, that you are not ignorant of what has been determined concerning me (by the Council of Brabant), therefore I entreat your [For another reference to this work, see Letter 83, § 8 n. (p. 266).] Ch. xii. vol. iii. p. 84 (1873 edition).]

lordship, and that by the Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here (in Vilvorde) during the winter, you will request the Procureur to be kind enough to send me, from my goods which he has in his possession, a warmer cap, for I suffer extremely from cold in the head, being afflicted with a perpetual catarrh, which is considerably increased in the cell. A warmer coat also, for that which I have is very thin; also a piece of cloth to patch my leggings: my overcoat has been worn out; my shirts are also worn out. He has a woollen shirt of mine, if he will be kind enough to send it. I have also with him leggings of thicker cloth for putting on above; he has also warmer caps for wearing at night. I wish also his permission to have a candle in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But above all, I entreat and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the Procureur that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend my time with that study. And in return may you obtain your dearest wish, provided always it be consistent with the salvation of your soul. But if any other resolution has been come to concerning me, that I must remain during the whole winter, I shall be patient, abiding the will of God to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, whose Spirit I pray may ever direct your heart. Amen. W. TYNDALE.'

1 [This letter is quoted from William Tyndale: a Biography, by the Rev. R. Demaus, who gives hiemem perficiendum omnem, and translates (p. 477) as in the text above, but the true words are ante hiemem perficiendum. A facsimile of the letter was published in 1872 by Mr. Francis Fry of Bristol, with a correct translation: "if any other resolution has been come to concerning me, before the conclusion of the winter, I shall be patient," etc.]

LETTER 77

THE LORD THAT BOUGHT US1

VENICE, Easter Sunday, 1877.

1. I HAVE yet a word or two to say, my Sheffield friends, respecting your religious services, before going on to practical matters. The difficulties which you may have observed the School Board getting into on this subject, have, in sum, arisen from their approaching the discussion of it always on the hypothesis that there is no God: the ecclesiastical members of the board wishing to regulate education so as to prevent their pupils from painfully feeling the want of one; and the profane members of it, so as to make sure that their pupils may never be able to imagine one. Objects which are of course irreconcilable; nor will any national system of education be able to establish itself in balance of them.

But if, instead, we approach the question of school discipline on the hypothesis that there is a God, and one that cares for mankind, it will follow that if we begin by teaching the observance of His Laws, He will gradually take upon Himself the regulation of all minor matters, and make us feel and understand, without any possibility of doubt, how He would have us conduct ourselves in outward observance.* And the real difficulty of our Ecclesiastical

The news from Liverpool in the third article of Correspondence

[p. 119], is the most cheering I ever read in public papers.

1

[2 Peter ii. 1 ("But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them"). Ruskin also wrote on the wrapper of his copy "Epistle of Jude," as a summary of the contents of this Letter.]

2

party has of late been that they could not venture for their lives to explain the Decalogue, feeling that Modernism and all the practices of it must instantly be turned inside-out, and upside-down, if they did; but if, without explaining it, they could manage to get it said every Sunday, and a little agreeable tune on the organ played after every clause of it, that perchance would do (on the assumption, rendered so highly probable by Mr. Darwin's discoveries respecting the modes of generation in the Orchideæ,' that there was no God, except the original Baalzebub of Ekron, Lord of Bluebottles and fly-blowing in general; and that this Decalogue was only ten crotchets of Moses's, and not God's at all), -on such assumption, I say, they thought matters might still be kept quiet a few years longer in the Cathedral Close, especially as Mr. Bishop was always so agreeably and inoffensively pungent an element of London society; and Mrs. Bishop and Miss Bishop so extremely proper and pleasant to behold, and the grass of the lawn so smooth shaven. But all that is drawing very fast to its end. Poor dumb dogs that they are, and blind mouths, the grim wolf with privy paw daily devouring apace, and nothing said, and their people loving to have it so, I know not what they will do in the end thereof; but it is near. Disestablishment? Yes, and of more powers than theirs; that prophecy of the Seventh from Adam is of judgment to be executed upon all, and conviction of their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed."

2. I told you to read that epistle of Jude carefully, though to some of you, doubtless, merely vain words; but

1 [See Letter 46, § 15 (Vol. XXVIII. p. 183).]

2

3

seq.).]

Compare Val d'Arno, § 226 (Vol. XXIII. p. 132 n.).]

6

[Milton, Lycidas; compare Sesame and Lilies, §§ 20 seq. (Vol. XVIII. pp. 69

[Compare Jeremiah v. 31.]

5 "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed" (Jude 14, 15). Compare Letter 75, § 3 (above, p. 56).]

6

[Letter 76, § 13 (p. 95).]

to any who are earnestly thoughtful, at least the evidence of a state of the Christian Church in which many things were known, and preserved (that prophecy of Enoch, for instance), lost to us now; and of beliefs which, whether well or ill founded, have been at the foundation of all the good work that has been done, yet, in this Europe of ours. Well founded or not, at least let us understand, as far as we may, what they were.

With all honour to Tyndale (I hope you were somewhat impressed by the reward he had from the world of his day, as related in that final letter of his1), there are some points in the translation that might be more definite: here is the opening of it, in simpler, and in some words certainly more accurate, terms :—

"Judas, the servant of Jesus Christ, and the brother of James, to all who are sanctified in God, and called and guarded in Christ.

"Pity, and Peace, and Love, be fulfilled in you.

"Beloved, when I was making all the haste I could to write to you of the common salvation, I was suddenly forced to write to you, exhorting you to fight for the faith, once for all delivered to the Saints.

"For there are slunk in among you certain men, written down before to this condemnation, insolent, changing the grace of God into fury, and denying the only Despot, God; and our Lord, Jesus Christ.

"And I want to put you in mind, you who know this,- -once for all, -that the Lord, having delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, in the second place destroyed those who believed not.

"And the Angels which guarded not their beginning, but left their own habitation, He hath guarded in eternal chains, under darkness, to the judgment of the great day." 2

3. Now this translation is certainly more accurate, in observing the first principle of all honest translation, that the same word shall be used in English, where it is the same in the original. You see I have three times used the word "guarded." So does St. Judas. But our translation varies its phrase every time; first it says "preserved,"

[See Letter 76, § 22 (p. 105).]

[Jude 1-6.]

[For other passages in which Ruskin insists on this point, see Vol. XXVII. p. 202.]