A very

is generally seen through the second version. familiar passage will shew how closely the rendering can approach our own even in the Prophets:

6 For a little childe is borne to vs, and a sonne is geuen to vs, and principalitie is made vpon his shoulder: and his name shal be called, Meruelous, Counseler, God, Strong, Father of the world to come, the Prince of peace.

7 His empire shal be multiplied, and there shal be no end of peace; he shal sit vpon the throne of Dauid, and vpon his kingdom: that he may confirme it, and strengthen it in iudgement and iustice, from this time & for ever: the zeale of the Lord of hostes shal doe this.

The Psalter is the most unsatisfactory part of the whole book. Even where the sense is sufficiently clear to remain distinct through three translations, from Hebrew to Greek, from Greek to Latin, from Latin to English, the stiff, foreign style sounds strangely unsuited to words of devotion; and where the Latin itself has already lost the sense, the English baffles understanding. One specimen of each kind may be added:

8 The Law of our Lord is immaculate conuerting soules: the testimonie of our Lord is faithful, geuing wisedome to litle ones.

9 The iustices of our Lord be right, making hartes ioyful: the precept of our Lord lightsome; illuminating the eies.

10 The feare of our Lord is holie, permanent for euer and euer; the iudgmentes of our Lord be true. iustified in themselues.

II To be desired aboue gold and much precious stone: and more sweete aboue honie and the honie combe. 12 For thy seruant keepeth them, in keeping them is much reward.

13 Sinnes who vnderstandeth? from my secrete sinnes cleanse me and from other mens spare thy seruant.

This is not what a translation of the Psalms should be, but the following passage is positively painful from the ostentatious disregard of meaning in the words':

9 As waxe that melteth, shal they be taken away: fyre hath falne on them, and they haue not seene 'the sunne.

10 Before your thornes did understand the old bryar: as liuing so in wrath he swalloweth them.

II The iust shal reioice when he shal see reuenge: he

Ishal wash his handes in the bloud of a sinner.

12 And man shal say: If certes there be fruite to the iust: there is a God certes iudging them on the earth.

The translation of the New Testament is exactly similar to that of the Old; and next to the Psalter the Epistles are most inadequately rendered. Neither the Psalter, indeed, as translated by the Rhemists, nor the Epistles had the benefit of Jerome's independent labour. He revised the Latin texts of both hastily and imperfectly, but in both he left much which he would not himself have written. A few isolated quotations will be enough to shew the character of the Rhemish Version:

Rom. v. 18 Therfore as by the offence of one, vnto al men to condemnation: so also by the iustice of one, vnto al men to iustification of life.

vi. 13 Exhibite your selues to God as of dead men, aliue.

vii. 23 I see another law in my members, repugning to the law of my minde, and captiuing me in the law of sinne that is in my members.

viii. 18 I thinke that the passions of this time are not condigne to the glorie to come.

ix. 28 For, consummating a word, and abbridging it in equitie: because a word abbridged shal our Lord make vpon the earth.

1 The translation follows the Gallican Psalter verbally. Jerome's own

translation is wholly different.

Eph. vi. 12 Our wrestling is...against Princes and Potestats, against the rectors of the world of this darkenes, against the spirituals of wickednes in the celestials.

Heb.xiii. 16 Beneficence and communication do not forget: for with such hostes God is promerited'.

Such translations as these have no claim to be considered vernacular renderings of the text: except through the Latin they are unintelligible. But still they only represent what there was in the Vulgate incapable of assimilation to an English version. And on the other hand a single Epistle furnishes the following list of Latin words which King James' translators have taken from the Rhemish Testament: separated (Rom. i. 1), consent (mg.) (i. 32), impenitent (ii. 5), approvest (ii. 18), propitiation (iii. 25), remission (id.), grace (iv. 4), glory in tribulations (v. 3), commendeth (v. 8), concupiscence (vii. 8), revealed (viii. 18), expectation (viii. 19), conformable (viii. 29), confession is made to salvation (x. 10), emulation (xi. 14), concluded (xi. 32), conformed (xii. 2), instant (xii. 12), contribution (xv. 26)2.

But at the same time it must be added that the scrupulous or even servile adherence of the Rhemists to the text of the Vulgate was not always without advantage. They frequently reproduced with force the original order of the Greek which is preserved in the Latin; and even while many unpleasant roughnesses occur, there can be little doubt that their version gained on the whole by the faithfulness with which they endeavoured to keep the original form of the sacred writings. Examples of this simple faithfulness occur constantly, as for instance: Matt. xviii. 9, hauing one eye to enter into life; id. 27, the dette

1 All the quotations are made from the first editions. In the later (Challoner's and Troy's) editions of the Rhemes and Doway Bible and New Testament there are considerable alterations, and the text is far nearer to that in the A. V. Examples are given by Dr Cotton, Rhemes and

Doway...Oxford, 1853, pp. 183 ff.

2 [But consent is found in the Genevan margin, revealed in the Genevan text of i. 17, 18, viii. 19; impenitent is in Coverdale, and propitiation, grace, instant are in the Bishops' Bible in the passages quoted. W.A.W.]

he forgave him; xx. 12, the burden of the day and the heates; id. 23, My cuppe in deede you shal drinke of; xxi. 41, The naughtie men he wil bring to naught; xxiii. 13, those that are going in, you suffer not to enter; xxvi. II, the poore you haue.

The same spirit of anxious fidelity to the letter of their text often led the Rhemists to keep the phrase of the original where other translators had unnecessarily abandoned it: e.g. Matt. xviii. 1, houre; id. 6, it is expedient; id. 9, the hel of fire; xx. 20, the sonnes of Z.; xxii. 2, likened; id. 44, the foote stole of thy feete; xxvi. 25, Is it I Rabbi? (contrasted with v. 22) and so v. 49.

When the Latin was capable of guiding them the Rhemists seem to have followed out their principles honestly; but wherever it was inadequate or ambiguous they had the niceties of Greek at their command. Their treatment of the article offers a good illustration of the care and skill with which they performed this part of their task. The Greek article cannot, as a general rule, be expressed in Latin. Here then the translators were free to follow the Greek text, and the result is that this critical point of scholarship is dealt with more satisfactorily by them than by any earlier translators. And it must be said also that in this respect the revisers of King James were less accurate than the Rhemists, though they had their work before them. For example the Rhemish version omits the definite article in the following passages where it is wrongly inserted by A.V. and all earlier versions : Matt. ii. 13 (an angel); Luke ii. 9 (an angel); John vi. 26 (signes, not the miracles). Much more frequently it rightly inserts the article where other versions (including A.V.) omit it e.g. Matt. iv. 5 (the pinnacle); vi. 25 (the meate, the rayment); xiv. 22 (the boate); xxv. 30 (the vtter darknesse); xxviii. 16 (the mount); John v. 35 (the lampe); I Cor. x. 5 (the more part); Gal. iii. 25 (the faith); Apoc. vii. 13 (the white robes)'.

1 For most of these and of the other references to the Rhemish Ver

sion, I am indebted to the kindness of Prof. Moulton, who placed at my

There are also rarer cases in which the Rhemists furnish a true English phrase which has been adopted since, as felow seruant (Matt. xviii. 28), kingdom against kingdom (Matt. xxiv. 7), faile (Luke xvi. 9), darkened (Rom. i. 21), foreknewe (Rom. xi. 2). Elsewhere they stand alone in bold or idiomatic turns of expression: thratled him (Matt. xviii. 28), workemen (Matt. xx. 1), stagger not (Matt. xxi. 21), vipers broodes (Matt. xxiii. 33), bankers (Matt. xxv. 27), ouergoe (1 Thess. iv. 6).

§ 9. THE AUTHORISED VERSION.

The Rhemish Version of the New Testament, supported by Martin's attack on the English Bible, had once again called attention to the importance of the Latin Vulgate before the revision of King James was undertaken. During the sixteenth century this had been in a great degree thrust out of sight by the modern translations of Erasmus and Beza, which had influenced respectively the Great and the Genevan Bibles. At the same time the study of Hebrew and Greek had been pursued with continued zeal in the interval which had elapsed since the publication of the Bishops' Bible; and two important contributions had been made to the interpretation of the Old Testament.

In 1572 Arias Montanus, a Spanish scholar not unworthy to carry on the work of Ximenes, added to the Antwerp Polyglott, which he edited by the command of Philip II., an interlinear Latin translation of the Hebrew text, based on that of Pagninus, whose readings he added to his own. The translation is rigidly verbal, but none the less it helped to familiarize ordinary scholars with the exact forms of Hebrew idioms which were more or less hidden in the earlier versions. Seven years afterwards Tremellius, by birth a Jew, published an original Latin translation of the Old Testament (1579), with a commentary, which rapidly obtained a very extensive currency. disposal a most exact collation of the portion of the Gospels. English versions, reaching over a large