complete list of these changes is given in Appendix A at the end of this volume, to which the student is referred once for all the attempt therein made to assign the period at which they were severally admitted into the text, although great pains have been bestowed upon the investigation, must be regarded as sometimes only approximately successful. Other copies, of an earlier date than that cited, may occasionally have anticipated it in making the given correction; but these inaccuracies will hardly affect the general results, or impair the conclusions to which they lead. One class of variations has been advisedly excluded from the Catalogue, as seeming rather curious than instructive or important; namely, that arising from errors which, having crept into editions later than that of 1611, after holding a place in a few or in many subsequent issues, have long since disappeared from the Bibles now in use. Of this kind is that notorious misprint in the Cambridge folio of 1638, once falsely imputed to ecclesiastical bias, "whom ye may appoint over this business" ("ye" for "we") Acts vi. 3;. a blemish which obstinately maintained its ground in some copies, at least as late as 1682'. The several editions of

cautious and well-informed a writer as Dr Cardwell: "There is only one case, perhaps, in which it would become the duty of the privileged editor to enter into questions of criticism, without some express authority to support him. If a given mistake of the Translators had already been corrected before his time, if the public opinion had concurred, either avowedly or tacitly, in the change, he might reasonably hope that the general acknowledgment of the truth would relieve him from the obligation of returning into error. I say nothing of the boldness which first made the alteration; I

only commend the sound judgment which, after it was generally adopted, did not hesitate to retain it" (Oxford Bibles, 1833, p. 2, by Edward Cardwell, D.D., Principal of S. Alban's Hall, Oxford).

Hartwell Horne, to whose Introduction all English students of the Bible owe more than they can ever duly acknowledge, adds another instance of less importance (though he does not quite know its true history), which shall serve as a sufficient specimen of the whole class. In i Tim. iv. 16 for "the doctrine" of the books from 1611 to 1630, we read "thy doc. trine" in 1629 (Camb.) down to

the Authorized Version which have been used in the formation of our Catalogues and in our suggested revision of the text are chiefly, though not exclusively, the following.

(1) The standard or primary one published in 1611, "Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie." Here, however, we are met on the threshold of our researches by the perplexing fact that at least two separate issues bear the date of that year, yet differ from each other in so many minute particulars, that we cannot help raising the question which is the earlier or more authoritative, and consequently the more suitable to be taken as the model to which subsequent reprints ought to be accommodated. On this subject, so interesting to students of the English Bible, much information has been imparted by Mr Fry of Bristol, whose materials will be thankfully used by many that feel unable to adopt his conclusions, and might desire a little more scholarlike precision in the method of his investigations'. The two chief issues of 1611 may be respectively represented by a folio now in the British Museum (3050. g. 2), and another in the same Library (3050. g. 1) of which Mr Fry says in a manuscript note that "it is every leaf correct, and may be taken as a standard copy of this issue." There is yet a third class of books, bearing date the same year, containing (some more, some less) sheets of six leaves or twelve pages cach, or occasionally only two or four leaves of a sheet, which appear to be reprints of portions of one or the other of the aforenamed issues, the preliminary matter being made up from the folio of 1617 or elsewhere, a circumstance which compli

1762. Blayney (1769) restored "the," but Horne has seen "thy" in Bibles of the commencement of the present century. Introduction, Vol. 11. Pt. 1. p. 79 note (1834).

A Description of the Great

Bible, 1539.......also of the editions, in large folio, of the Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures, Printed in the years 1611, 1613, 1617, 1634, 1640. By Francis Fry, F.S.A., folio, London, 1865.

cates the question not a little, so that in what we have to say it will be advisable to exclude all considerations respecting these reprinted portions'. This may be done the better, inasmuch as Mr Fry's researches have discovered only six such leaves in the Pentateuch, five in the Apocrypha, none in the New Testament. These reprints are bound up with and form a complete book with portions of each issue in two other Bibles in the Museum (1276. 1. 4 and 3050. g. 3) respectively. The textual differences between the two original issues have been diligently collected below in Appendix B, from which only very manifest misprints of both books have been excluded: by a careful examination of our collation, in those portions where there are no known reprints, the student can form an independent judgment respecting the internal character of each of them. In preparing the present volume, a Bible belonging to the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press (A. 3. 14, wanting sheet A containing the Title-page, Dedication, and part of the Translators' Preface) has been substituted for the Museum book 3050. g. 2, and for 3050. g. 1 the Oxford reprint of 1833, as being a well-known publication which exactly resembles it in all places consulted, and was itself taken verbatim, with unusual care for insuring accuracy, from a Bible in the Library of the Delegates of the Oxford Uni

1 Gen. xlvi. 12—xlix. 27; Num. xxi. 2-xxvi. 63; Josh. x. 9—xi. 11; xv. 13—xvii. 8; Judg. xiv. 18-xx. 44; Ruth i. 9—2 Sam. ix. 13; xi. 26—xiv. 19; xv. 31–xvii, 14; xix. 39-xxii. 49; 1 Kin. i. 17-xvi. 3; xvii. 20-xxii. 34; 2 Kin. i. 15-2 Chr. xxix. 31; Ezra ii. 55-Job xxii. 3; xxv. 4—xxxi. 28; xxxiv. 5-xli. 31; Ps. vi. 3— Prov. vi. 35; ix. 14—xiv. 28; xvii. 3-Eccles. ii. 26; vi. 1—Cant. vii. ¡; Isai. i. 1—xxxii. 13; xli. 13

-xiii. 1; Jer. i. 7-vii. 26; xi. 12-xv. 10; xxvi. 18-Ezek. xiv. 22; xvii. 22-xx. 44; Zech. xiv. 9-Mal. ii. 13; 1 Esdr. iv. 37-v. 26; Ecclus. xvi. 7—xx. 17; Baruch iii. 1-iv. 28; Song, ver. 20-Hist. Susanna, ver. 15: in all 244 leaves (but not so many in any one copy), distinguished by the comparison of B. M. 3050. g. 2 with 44 other copies, in respect to initial letters and minute typographical variations (Fry, Table 2).

versity Press at that time in actual use. Copies of both issues or recensions of 1611 survive in great numbers in private as well as in public hands, since, when the Translation was completed, every Church had to be furnished with at least one without delay. Fifteen copies of that which it followed, twelve of the other, are enumerated in the Advertisement which preceded the publication of the Oxford reprint (dated Jan. 14, 1834), and Mr Fry has seen at least seventy, although he seldom gives us information as to where they are severally located'.

The question which of the two recensions is the earlier must be decided partly by external, partly by internal considerations. The latter will speak for themselves, and it may be taken for granted that no one will doubt the great superiority on the whole of the text of the Oxford reprint to the other, or hesitate to mark in it many designed improvements and corrections which betray a later hand (Appendix B.), while the instances in which the Syndics' book is superior or not inferior to the other (App. B § 1.) are scanty, slight, and incapable of suggesting the converse inference'.

1 Besides those named above the author has examined (not to mention some in private hands) resembling Camb. Synd. A. 3. 14, S. John's Coll. Cambridge (T. 2. 24); King's College (53); Jesus Coll. Cambridge (A. 7. 7 with the false date of 1613 on the title-page of the O. T.); Lambeth Muniment Room: resembling the Oxford reprint, Brit. Mus. (466. i. 6); Sion College Arch. x. 3; Cambridge University Library (1. 13, 16); Emmanuel College (B. 1. 23), and the very fine copy in the Bod. leian.

A few instances are as good as a thousand, if only they be unequivocal. We would press Ezek.

xliv. 29, where what we call the first issue treats the final mem as if it were double; Amos vi. 7, where the second issue corrects the wrong number of the first; but i Macc. x. 47 seems conclusive, where our second issue, deeming "true peace" too strong a rendering οἱ λόγων εἰρηνικῶν, banisherl "True" into the margin. There are no reprints in these leaves. It is fair to add two instances in App. B which we have found tending to an opposite conclusion, in the false arrangement of the margins of Wisd. iii. 14; Mark vii. 4, in the Oxford reprint. But the general drift of the internal evidence sets strongly the other way.