summer the scholars who were to be responsible for the task were chosen-how this was done does not appear-and the list was approved by the sovereign. Peace was about this time concluded with Spain, and Bancroft wrote to Cambridge that he was persuaded the king was happier in the prospect of a new translation of the Bible than even in the assurance that his most formidable opponent among the courts of Europe was reconciled to him.

The peace with Spain was celebrated on a Sunday, given up to rejoicing. There was a grand banquet and ball, and the king, with the Spanish ambassador, witnessed the baiting of bears and bulls. The other project was not so readily disposed of; but James was able by the end of July to write to Bancroft-now acting as archbishop of the vacant see of Canterbury—that he had "appointed certain learned men to the number of four and fifty to do the work." Besides these, the bishop was to consult the scholarly clergy in their dioceses, that so "our intended translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned men within this our kingdom."

It is amusing to see how James managed the matter of remunerating the translators. He requested patrons of church preferments not to fill up vacancies until his pleasure had been con

sulted, and in this way seven of the forty-seven translators were raised to Episcopal dignity, and more than twice seven were settled in other comfortable livings."' Their immediate expenses the king was very ready of his most princely disposition to have borne, but some of my lords, as things now go, did hold it inconvenient." Consequently, the bishops and chapters were requested to contribute toward this work. For himself, he would be the patron of "this our intended translation," and would take pains to be "acquainted with every man's liberality." This arrangement is highly characteristic of James. He did none of the work, paid nothing toward its cost, and took to himself all the credit of it. As a fact, the bishops seemed to have followed the king's example rather than his precept. Nothing was subscribed, and all that the translators received was free entertainment when they met.

Although the king's letter announces that fiftyfour revisers had been selected, it was probably owing to delay and unavoidable inability to serve that in the final list only forty-seven names appeared. Death may have arrested some in their purpose; for although the preliminaries were settled before the end of 1604, two whole years passed before the work was formally begun.

By 1607, however, the enterprise was fairly

1 Westcott, p. 145.

launched. The forty-seven scholars were divided into six parties, and they met at Westminster, at Cambridge, and at Oxford, according to the plan indicated below.1 The names of these men as we read them now are most of them names only; but a few of them live in our history as scholars, preachers, and theologians. All of them merit perpetual honor for carrying through the great achievement of the seventeenth century. Most distinguished of them all was Launcelot Andrewes, dean of Westminster, afterward bishop of Chichester, whose name stands at the head of the first list, a man of rich scholarship, master of fifteen languages, with a brilliant reputation as a preacher, and worthy of the praise of Milton, who dedicated to his memory one of his early elegies.

How well he understood his royal master is seen in the story which the poet Waller tells about him. The king one day sitting at dinner with Andrewes and his brother bishop, Neale of Durham, inquired: "My lords, cannot I take my subjects' money when I want it, without all this formality in Parliament?" Neale answered the question first: "God forbid, sir, but you should; you are the breath of our nostrils." James turned to Andrewes, "Well, my lord, what say you?" But Andrewes excused himself from replying. "He had," he said, "no skill to judge of parliamentary cases." James would take no denial. "No put-off, my lord; answer me presently." "Then, sir," said he, "I think it lawful for you to take my brother Neale's money, for he offers it."

Reynolds, to whom we have already alluded as the leader of the Puritan party in the church, was one of the Old Testament committee at Oxford. It was at his house that they met to complete their portion, and he had the chief hand in this final revision, although "sorely afflicted with the gout.” His prodigious learning, in the extravagant language of his contemporaries, placed him above all writers-profane, ecclesiastical, and divine; and also above all the councils of the church. He was more diligent than even Origen; and of him, as of Athanasius, it might be said that "to name Reynolds is to commend virtue itself."

Reynolds died before the completion of the work, and so did Lively, a very accomplished scholar, "our Hebrew reader in Cambridge," on whom the king had especially relied for assistance. Although the formal work of the translators did not begin before 1607, yet the fact of Lively's death in 1605, after something had been done, lends color to the belief that the more enthusiastic scholars started work much earlier. Fuller, the church historian, says as much, and adds that the rest "vigorously, though slowly proceeded in this hard, heavy, and holy task; nothing offended with the censures of impatient people condemning their delays though indeed but due deliberation-for laziness.'' 1

Certainly Bois, of Cambridge, could not have exposed himself to the charge of indolence, for he only subtracted time to return to his parish every Saturday night, and by Monday morning was at his task again; when he had finished his own portion he undertook that of another scholar to whom it had been assigned, and after four years of incessant labor he formed one of the band of six who finally revised the whole at Stationers' Hall, London. In three-quarters of a year their crowning work was completed, and Bois could return to his parish again. The Stationers' Company, probably interested in the profits of the printing, paid

1 Stoughton, pp. 247, 248.