Dr. Miles Smith has atoned for his dedication to James, with its offensive adulation of that most high and mighty Prince, by an "Address to the Reader," which remains to us still as one of the noblest compositions of the age when our English tongue was at its best. The printers, doing the thing which they ought not to do, and leaving undone the thing that they should do, have removed this preface from our modern editions of the Bible, although until quite lately they have persisted in printing the epistle dedicatory to the king. To us it is valuable as the only existing account of the labors of the revisers. Contrasting their deliberate course with the traditional haste with which the Septuagint was prepared, Dr. Smith says of the new book that "it hath not been huddled up in seventy-two days, but hath cost the workmen, as light as it seemeth, the pains of twice seven times seventy-two days, and more." He acknowledges the labor of previous translators, both in England and beyond seas, owning that God had raised them up to do their good work, and saying that

they deserve to be held of us and of posterity in everlasting remembrance." In one or other of them the true rendering might be found, and in this new setting whatever is sound "will shine as gold more brightly, being rubbed and polished.” The revisers had never dreamed of making a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good

one, but rather to make a good one better, and from all to compile a Bible not justly to be excepted against. This had been their endeavor and work. Consequently they had consulted the translators and commentators in all languages-Chaldee, Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and German. Nor did they disdain to revise what they had done, but brought back to the anvil that which they had hammered. They had used prayer as Augustine used it, crying: "Oh, let thy Scriptures be my pure delight; let me not be deceived in them, neither let me deceive by them." With this purpose, and in this spirit had they met together, "not too many, lest one should trouble another; and yet many, lest many things haply might escape them." So using all needful helps, not caring for the charge of slowness, nor coveting praise for expedition, they conclude by declaring in the same spirit of brave humility which had distinguished them from the beginning, "We have at length, through the good hand of the Lord upon us, brought the work to that pass that you see."

The revised version, newly translated out of the original tongues, and with the former

translations diligently compared and A. D. 1611. revised by his majesty's special command, appeared in 1611. Richard Barker was the printer, paying well for the perpetual right.' The print1 Stoughton, p. 236.

ing of the Bishops' Bible had virtually ceased when the authorized Bible was undertaken. The weight of ecclesiastical authority was given exclusively to the new version. It was appointed to be read in churches. The favor of the king would naturally be accorded to a work which he himself had planned, and his inordinate vanity would find no difficulty in believing that his literary fame had indeed reached "the farthest parts of Christendom," while the church recognized in him her most tender and loving nursing-father, and the nation at large saw in him that "sanctified person who under God was the immediate author of its true happiness."'1

And yet, after so much royal and ecclesiastical patronage had been bestowed upon it, we are surprised to learn that "no evidence has yet been produced to show that the version has ever been publicly sanctioned by Convocation, or by Parliament, or by the Privy Council, or by the king.

The critics were soon in the field tilting at it after their usual fashion. Poor Hugh Broughton, disappointed in his private enterprise, declared that the new version bred in him a sadness which would grieve him while life lasted. "It is," said he, "so ill done." He assured the king that he would rather be torn in pieces by wild horses than see it urged on the churches. The witch

1" Epistle Dedicatory."

* Westcott, p. 158.

mania, which soon after this time sent its disastrous consequences even into New England, was already in the air, and the translators were accused of giving in to the superstition of the king in their use of such words as "familiar spirit," witch," and "wizard." Kilbye, the learned Hebraist, who had sat in the Oxford company, happening one day to worship in a village church in Derbyshire, was amused when the young preacher-ignorant that one of the revisers was among his hearers—inveighed against the translation of several words, and in the case of one which seems to have been especially objectionable to him, gave three reasons why it ought to have been differently rendered. After the evening service the doctor had his revenge, telling the preacher that he had wasted his opportunity with the poor people in his congregation. As to his three reasons, he and his colleagues "had considered all of them, and found thirteen more considerable reasons why it was translated as now printed.

With more serious objections to the Authorized Version we shall concern ourselves in a later chapter. For the present, it is sufficient to say that before fifty years had passed it had won its way to the hearts of the English people, not so much because the king, the bishops, and the universities lent it the sanction of their august

1 Walton's "Lives."--Sanderson.

names, as because it was intrinsically superior to all others. Even the Genevan Version gradually disappeared. The fickle fortunes of the house of Stuart waxed and waned. Long after his dynasty had vanished, the praises of James perplexed the boys and girls in the parish churches when they relieved the dullness of the sermon by poring over the famous dedication. For two centuries and a half the Bible of King James continued to merit the praise of Selden, the great lawyer: "The English translation of the Bible is the best translation in the world, and renders the sense of the original best." Designed for public reading, it still answers its end admirably, and for majesty and sweetness will never be rivalled, certainly never surpassed. "It lives on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten; like the sound of church bells. Its felicities often seem to be things rather than words. It is part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness."'1

1 Faber