1

30

4. The first printed Protestant Belgic version was made from Luther's, and appeared in 1527.

It had been preceded by a version of the Four Gospels, printed in 1472; and by one of the whole Bible, print ed at Cologne in 1475; at Delft in 1477; at Gouda in 1479; and both at Antwerp and Louvain in 1518.

It is needless to extend these enquiries.

VIII. I shall close this letter, already too long, by some account of the English Catholic versions of the

Bible.

1. An English version of the New Testament was printed in 1582, in one volume quarto, by the Clergy of the English College, first established at Doway, but then removed to Rheims. Their translation of the Old Testament was published at Doway (to which town the College had then returned), in two volumes quarto, in the years 1609 and 1610.

2. The Rhemish version of the New Testament, but with some variation, both in the text and notes, was reprinted at Douay in 1600.

The version of the New Testament was often reprinted. In 1738 it was beautifully printed in London, in one voJume folio; and in the title-page is called the Fifth Edition.

3. In 1730 an English Translation of the New Testament, but on the ground-work of the Rhemish and Douay version, was published, at Douay, by Dr. Witham, the President of the English College in that town, with many concise and useful

notes.

4. In 1749-50 a new edition, both of the Old and New Testament, with some alteration in the text, and much in the notes, was published from this version, by Dr. Challoner, in 5 vols. 8vo. The New Testament of that edition has been often reprinted; but it is asserted that the editions subsequent to that of 1749 are incorrect, and that the edition of 1749 is to be preferred to any of them.

It is much to be desired that we had a good literary history of the English versions of the Bible by the Roman-Catholics; and of the controversies to which they have given rise. The account given of them by Mr. Lewis, in his "History of the Trans

[Jan

lations of the Holy Bible and New Testament into English," is very imperfect, and written with an evident prejudice against the Catholic reli gion.

5. Two editions of the Catholic version of the whole Bible, in folio, and one of Dr. Challoner's version of the New Testament, in octavo, are now in the press. A stereotype edition also of the latter, in octavo (in which cheapness has been particularly consulted), will soon make its appear

ance.

It is highly probable that, with more time for the inquiry, and (I should certainly add) with more knowledge of the subject, many other instances of the zeal of the Catholic Church to spread the Sacred Writings might be collected. But surely those which I have mentioned abundantly shew that it has always been her wish that the Sacred Volumes should be circulated in every country into which the Christian religion has penetrated ; and that the charge made against her of withholding the Bible from her flock, has, to say no more, been unmercifully exaggerated. The. exaggeration has been carried so far, as to have made it nearly the universal belief of Protestants, that withholding the Bible from the general body is the rule, and the liberty to read it the exception; whereas it is much nearer the truth to say, that the withholding of it is the exception, and the liberty the rule. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

C. B.

Jan. 18. Tis not any narrow view of civil

I'

society, any bigoted attachment to any thing which has existed, merely because it has been sanctioned by Time, which can support itself in these days of bold inquiry and philosophic light. That which was proper for one stage of national progress to wealth, glory, and greatness, may be unsuited to another. Evils gradually cease with their causes; and imperceptibly change their course, when the disadvantage of the accustomed channel is greater than the good.

It is thus, I presume, that we are to console ourselves, while looking closely at the violent changes which have taken place in the internal structure and combination of ranks in old Eng land within the present reign. We know well enough that social institu

tions are not made for the happiness of one or two classes, but of the whole. The convulsions of the world have shaken to pieces, and huddled together, all minor partitions; and have left no traces of them in minds not exquisitely formed-such as those which, when the pressure is removed, can shew the original images in all their freshness.

"If we admit these facts, and their consequences," it may be asked, "who is to blame for the cause?" Perhaps they may arise partly out of events beyond the controul of a single kingdom; out of the dreadful convulsions on the Continent; out of the finan cial difficulties we have undergone; out of the very glut of Commerce, which has flowed in upon us as the only safe depository of its stores! Hence the cunning and successful application of a paper currency !. Hence stock-jobbers, loan-jobbers, contractors, and enormous sudden wealth! All these things may happen with

During this sad period, the race of Country Gentlemen has-1 will not say become absolutely extinguished, but has approximated to the verge of extinction. If this class have not formed an useful link in society; if they have not contributed widely to the happiness of others, and those a most important branch of the national strength, then, perhaps, their extinction ought to excite no loug and serious regret. But I am indubitably convinced that all the peasantry-all the agricultural classes of the lower orders, that first and best source of national power, feel it in the loss of comforts, morals, gentleness, loyalty, and patriotism!

I do not blame the rich Farmer! I do not expect that he will be without education that which nothing but education can make him! I do not expect that, with intellects bent from boyhood to look upon the earth, and all around him in his employ, solely with a view to his own selfish profit, he should be impressed with the relative demands of complicated interests! that custom-that the impulse of sentiments treasured up in youth, and daily renewed by conversation or reading, or both, should do no more for the man of more liberal birth and independence, than Nature, narrowed by a vulgar occupation, does for him!

may be necessary evils connected with a preponderating good; and such, I presume, they have been considered. But I am by no means convinced that we could not have had all the beneficial effects, without quite as much of the ill. Mr. Pitt was a great Minister; great in intellect, and patriotic in intention; but even in Mr. Pitt's mind there were strange prejudices and weaknesses, which I think still pervade almost all of his school. Mr. Pitt came too early into the fullest employment of public life to have laid up a deep store of digested wis dom. There were certain opinions, which he seems to have inherited from his Father, not equally suitable to his own times; but which he had never leisure enough so to examine, as to see their fallacy, and throw them off. When Lord Chatham emerged into public life, the boldness of his aspiring mind induced him to attack, over come, and trample under foot those great family cabals which governed parties, and which stood in the way of his solitary interest. Hence there grew in him an inveterate scorn for the hereditary predominance, of an established aristocracy. "Give me," he cried, "the man who is fittest for my purpose! I care not for his edu cation, his birth, or his fortune!"

That this was the principle, sentiment, and rule of conduct with the Son, will scarcely be denied. If strictly and justly applied, I do not deny its rectitude; but the danger lies in the application. The temptations to the abuse of this principle are, alas ! constant and frightful; and I reluctantly express my conviction that Mr. Pitt himself, wise as he was, continually fell into the snare, of which the whole

system

aystem of our domestic society will long feel the effects! Many of the arrangements, and even some of what are called the prejudices of civil life, are but aids to the human understand ing, which the combined experience of ages has formed. There is a little too much presumption in any man who trusts too much to his own unassisted judgment on first appearances in the human character. "To take the fittest man for your purpose," is right; but the question is, "who is fittest ?" A cunning man, without education, who is practised in the world, may often appear fitter for some important business than an educated man of talent, because he is readier; but cunning and readiness are not wisdom, as Mr. Pitt often found out in his instruments, alas! too late.

The advantages of Commerce are great; but Mr. Pitt over-estimated them, and consequently the importance of that class who are engaged in it. He came into power on the shoulders of the East India Company, who always retained too great an influence over his mind. He was the god of the City; and the City and Stock Exchange were his gods in returo. He considered a Coronet a feather, which was light payment for any favour, without caring on whose head it fell. The House of Lords he nearly, if not quite, doubled; taking out of the other House almost all the large landed property.

When a Coronet became thus cheap, a Baronetage sunk into perfect insignificance. Then it fell in profusion on Citizens, East-Indians, Placemen, and small Country-gentlemen, of new families, or sudden fortunes. Society was turned upside-down; and the mud came uppermost! Superficial thinkers laughed at these things; more especially while they heard the roar of the great game which was playing on the Continent. They were comparative trifles; but, if we should survive the shock of that great game, they were not likely to continue trifles hereafter. Why, so plentiful has been this work, that men as new as the revolutionists of France are considered here as already grey in their honours! They have taken place of the old Country Gentlemen in almost every County in England, and shoved them into insignificance. A. F. A.

(To be continued.)

Mr. URBAN, East Retford, Nov. 3. N your last Volume, Part II. p. 1308, is given, from a book printed. in 1599, "A Licence for a Mun to kepe on his Cappe." The same form of licence occurs in a volume in my possession, printed by Tottell in 1576, intituled, "A Booke of Presidens exactly wrytten in Maner of a Register, newlye corrected, with addicions of diuers necessary Presidents,meete for al suche as desire to learn the Fournie and Maner howe to make al Maner of Euidences and Instrumentes, as in the Table of this Booke more playniye appeareth." The person licensed is designated by the same initials [T. M.], and the date is the same [20th May, in the 36th year of our Reign]; but the spelling is more antient, and there is a slight transposition of the words. I take it for granted, by this Form of Licence being inserted in this Book of Presidents, that it was a licence in common use, and not specially granted to any favourite or sect. But the reason of my thus addressing you is not to make comments on the above instrument; but to ask any of your Correspondents, skilled in the games and sports of our ancestors, what they understand by the "Game of Closing, for I am at a loss to know the import of a Royal Licence to use that game which is contained in Tottell's Book, p. 121, in these words

"A Licence to use the Game of Closing.

66

Henry the Eight, &c. To the Maior, Shiriffes, and Aldermen of our City of Londo' yt now be, and yt hereafter for ye time shal be, and to al other our officers, ministers, and subjects, these our Letters hearing or seeing, greeting. We let you wit yt wee of our special grace haue lice'ced, and by these presents do lice'ce our wel-beloued R. P. and hys deputy or assignes, to kepe in any place of the same fro' henceforth from time w'in oure City of Londo' and y⚫ suburbs

to time during his life onely for Ale and Bere, and no Money, ye game of Closing, for ye disporté and recreatio' of honest p'so's resorting thither, all maner pretices and vacabo'ds only except, without any damage, penalty, da'ger, losse, or forfeiture to ensue, either of the said R. his said deputy or assigne, or to the said p'sons, or any of the' in this behalfe, Any Act, Statut, or Ordinance heretofore had or made to ye contrary hereof notw'sta'ding. Wherefore we wil and comau'd you and euerye of you to p'mit and suffer the said R. bis said deputy or as

signe

JUST as I was about to transmit to you a brief statement of the Causes of the Rarity of Books, your number for December came to my bands, containing a further Attack upon the Bibliomaniacs; and an explicit dissent signed (1. K. p. 544) from the opinion which I had ventured to advance respecting the usefulness of their labours.

The plaints of "a Book-worm" (as expressed in the same page, 544) exdited by the proceedings of the Bibliomaniacs, and of their great champion Mr. Dibdin, are certainly very amusing, though not much to the purpose of argument.

If I could be persuaded to grant to 1. K. the data he has assumed, I should consider it as inconsistent with that respect I feel for truth to controvert his doctrine, as well as a great pity to disturb his neighbour by interrupting him amidst his silent enjoyments.

But, on the contrary, it would be an act of injustice to our cause, if I did not take upon myself most unequivocally to deny the assumptions upon which I. K.'s objections to our proceedings are founded; viz. that If an old work be truly valuable, it will not be necessary to search monasteries, dive into vaults, pore over book stails, or grub up ail the trash (as he is pleased to call it) which has been consigned to the silence of centuries," &c.

Without anticipating what I mean to say upon the Causes of Rarity, I will briefly observe, that this assumption implies, first, that mankind have at all times been well and impartially GENT. MAG. January, 1814.

disposed to do justice to literary merit as soon as it presented itself to view; and, secondly, that there are not a multitude of circumstances which have thrown, and may again throw, and keep in the back ground, books which are yet highly meritorious and well worth preserving, and the value of which has been, and may again be, recognised and established many years after their publication, and when they are almost forgotten.

Neither of these propositions are, I contend, correct.

It would needlessly load your pages were I here to give, in corroboration! of my assertion, a large list of antient and good Authors, whose works have been long and culpably neglected; while parts, and even the whole of some of them, have been unfairly, and often very incorrectly, transferred into more portable, and (certainly, to those who are unable to read the black letter) more legible volumes. I will, however, instance one, and only one, of long-neglected volumes; a book of such great merit and authority as will, I humbly presume, entitle it to stand for all the rest, and thus settle the question.

That volume, is no other than the Holy Scriptures, which, its history informs us, has twice narrowly and most providentially escaped extinction, when in apparent danger thereof through mere neglect; and once even since the invention of printing for this best of books was certainly not the first fruit of the labours of the press.

I take for granted it will not be contended that want of merit cast this book into the shade; or that the copy of the New Testament in Greek which Erasmus with such difficulty procured, or that copy of both the Testaments which Luther found covered with dust in the Monastery of Wittemburg, had been justly 46 consigned to the silence of centuries;" or properly placed "on the shelf, neg lected and forlorn,"

I by no means intend to draw disproportionate comparisons; but my argument is from the greater to the less: that if mankind could, during 14 centuries, suffer this universally important volume to decline in repu tation and in use, popularity can be no test of merit; and it is not unfair

to

to infer, what facts have often proved, that many good and useful, or cu rious books, may get out of use, or out of fashion, and thus become rare; and that such works may, with propriety, be permitted to have a second day, and pass again before the public

eye.

And why should not the honest zeal of the Antiquary, who draws them forth from their concealment, be recompensed quite as well as the exertions of the less honourable Plagiarist, who has sometimes decked himself in the brilliant feathers which he has borrowed from them, and fluttered away for his day, plumed with the wisdom of Antiquity?

Let me now proceed to specify what appear to me to have been the Causes of the Rarity of some Printed Books; observing, First, that those causes are, for the greater part, quite distinct from any expression, the result of sufficient and mature investigation, of the public opinion as to the merits of those books, and ---Secondly, that it is impossible, owing to the nature of the printing business, that the supply of books, excepting only those which are of low price, and in general use, can keep exact pace with the demand for them. By far the most numerous class of books is that which is adapted exclusively to the use of Students in different departments of Science, and of any of which a single edition supplies the slowly progressive demand of nearly half a century: when such an edition is sold, and, perhaps, several of the copies worn out, a man may wait for years, sometimes half his life, before a single copy appears in the market, to be picked up at a moderate price; unless, which will rarely hap pen, such a demand for the book should suddenly arise as will justify the publication of a new edition.

The Causes of Rarity appear to me to have been, decay; waste; smallness of impression; persecution; and the ephemeral nature or flimsy quality of some publications.

The mere lapse of time, in connexion with the various accidents, from fire, damp, and worms, to which Paper, the frail material of books, is exposed, is the first, and there can be little doubt that it has been the most extensively operative, cause of their rarity. Indeed, had

not the first specimens of printing been executed on a paper much supe rior in texture to that in modern use, and had not the binding been, as it literally was, of boards united with strong ligatures of skin, it would be difficult to imagine how so many perfect volumes could have survived the use and abuse of between three and four centuries.

But some books have, no doubt, suuk into total disuse, owing to their real or supposed want of merit, or owing to their baving been supplanted by others cheaper or more compact in their form, or in some way or other considered to be better adapted to general use. Others have been imperfected by the frequent and careless use of them. And of both these descriptions such multitudes have been from time to time wasted, as unworthy of being preserved, that in some cases it is scarcely, if at all, practicable now to procure a copy. As an instance of disuse, I will mention, that Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a Treatise, to the best of my recollection, highly spoken of by Dr. Johnson, and brought again into notice by him, and which has been lately re-printed, was for many years a waste-paper book.

Another cause of rarity has been the smallness of the number printed, or, as it is called, of the impressions, of some works, owing to their abstruse nature, the limited demand for them, or the policy or timidity of the Publisher. Under this description I reckon Chauncey's Hertfordshire, Hickes's Thesaurus, &c. &c.

A fourth and very pregnant cause of rarity has been, the persecution, religious or political, to which parti cular books have been exposed; such, for instance, as the first edition of Tindal's Testament in English, which was seized, or, as some say, bought up, and burnt at Paul's Cross by the then Bishop of London. Also, all those political or controversial tracts which have been at different times condemned to destruction by the Go vernment, or by opposite prevailing parties in the State. Such, for instance, as Algernon Sidney's Discourse on Government, and some writings of Stubbe, Prynne, Bastwick, Leighton, Milton, Toland, and others. I suppose Mr. Dibdin will add to his new edition of Ames's Typographical Antiquities, a good English Index Expurgatorius.