ligion, or darkness, disannulling the writers. In which kind, Job and the Prophets might be brought to speak far better unto us."

But all his hopes were frustrated by the opposition of Whitgift and Bancroft, who disliked the man, and dreaded the inexorable honesty of his principles of translation. Their avowed objections to his plan were indeed of the most pious character, and seemed dictated by a holy zeal for the interests of truth. "They feared," says Strype, "that hereby an occasion might be given to the enemies of our religion, the Papists, of discrediting our common English Bible and the doctrines that were founded on it, and weaken the reputation of that former translation then used in the churches." Broughton, who despised their hollow cant, and was as hot-tempered as he was learned, denounced their cherished version as a disgrace to English scholarship; and charged their pretended reverence for it, on their unwillingness "to lose their traps and pitfalls.' This discouragement did not, however, cause him to remi his efforts for this great object; for in a letter to Lorc Burleigh in 1596, he speaks of "having written to all the realm for the true Bible;" and he prays his Lordship to advise the Archbishop, whose opposition seems to have been generally recognized as the sole hindrance to the work, "to take heed lest he bring the realm to eternal shame, in a matter the highest for religion."*

We see, from the foregoing, that the subject of a new version of the Scriptures was one familiar to English scholars, many years before it was proposed by Dr. Rey

* For the facts in this account of Broughton's efforts for a new translation, see Strype's Life of Whitgift, pp. 382, 432, 485, 489, 585, and elsewhere.

Broughton was one of those unfortunate geniuses, who, with fine qualities

nolds in the Hampton Court Conference; and that not a few churchmen as well as others, acknowledged the absolute necessity of the work. How indeed could it be otherwise, with the fact staring them in the face, that the common people were daily reading in their homes a version every way superior to that which was read to them 'by authority,' on Sundays in the Churches? The comparison thus constantly forced on the popular mind, and converted by the warfare between Prelacy and Puritanism into a matter of lively practical interest, could not have failed to become a fruitful source of discussion among all classes greatly to the disadvantage of the State Church.

Now James, with all his mean and ridiculous traits of character, possessed an extraordinary amount of shrewdness in regard to every thing which concerned his regal interests; a faculty which he dignified with the name of KINGCRAFT, and exulted in as his peculiar gift and glory. With his eye fixed on the one object of confirming and extending the royal supremacy, he had in the course of his long reign, attained no little expertness in detecting the bearings of whatever was passing in his dominions, on this central point of interest. We have already observed, in his remarks on the prayers of the Puritan clergy, the keenand high aims in life, seem born to mar their own fortunes and ruin every cause they seek to promote, through inability to govern their tempers and tongues. His resentment, for affronts and injuries, was invariably expressed in a way to help his enemy and hurt himself. Whatever might be the consequence, he could never deny himself the pleasure of using his sting; and every real or fancied wrong was proclaimed to the public with a heat and violence, which gave his persecutors the advantage of seeming to be the injured party. His life was a series of cruel disappointments; and in most of them, he had himself furnished his more crafty foes with the weapons by which they foiled him. So necessary in this world are prudence and temper, as well as merit and honesty!

L

ness of his scent when on the track of popular tendencies. Can we doubt then that a subject so important in its relations, and so commonly agitated, as a new translation of the Bible, had been already subjected in the royal mind to the touchstone of Prerogative? As little does his speech in the Conference allow us to doubt, that his sagacity had discerned what Whitgift and Bancroft had failed to see: namely, that the demand of the age must be directed, not resisted; converted if possible into an instrument of absolutism, not suffered to become an instrument for subverting it. Sent out with a prestige of scholarship, which should silence the reproachful clamors of the Puritans and eclipse their favorite Presbyterian version, yet charged with conservative influences, and linked indissolubly with the Church and the Throne, the new version promised to become the chief agent in maintaining the established order. And hence it was, that though this measure was suggested by the obnoxious party he was resolved to crush, and was evidently relied on by the Nonconformist leaders for the promotion of the New Discipline, it was quietly appropriated by James and used for his own purposes.

*Their plan was both sagacious and liberal. While desiring to deprive Prelacy of the advantages which it derived from the Bishops' Bible, they did not ask that it might be superseded by the Genevan, though confessedly superior; but, on the ground of its acknowledged corruptions and imperfections, prayed for a new translation, firmly believing that if executed on the principles of true criticism, it could not fail to sustain what they held as truth.

CHAPTER XXII

THE COMMON VERSION-CONTINUED.

How strong a hold the project of a new version had taken of the mind of James, and how well he had considered the means for making it answerable to his ends, appears from the measures which he immediately adopted for carrying it into execution. Taking the matter into his own hands, he set on foot the necessary preliminaries. without delay, and on a scale surpassing all that had been witnessed in England in connection with Bible translation. Bancroft, now fully won over to the King's policy, and appointed general Overseer and final Reviser of the work, pushed it forward with characteristic vigor and efficiency. Before the end of July, fifty-four scholars had been selected as translators, and arranged into six companies, two of which were to meet at Westminster, and two at each of the universities. The heads of the universities were directed, moreover, to add to the number such others as they might deem qualified; and the bishops were exhorted to spare no pains for securing the suggestions and criticisms of the best scholars in their respective dioceses; "that so," in his Majesty's words, "our said intended translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned men within this, our kingdom."

The maintenance and remuneration of the translators was the King's next care. The following letter, written by him to the Bishop of London, exhibits his plan for this object.*

"Right trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. Whereas, we have appointed certain learned men, to the number of fifty-four, for the translating of the Bible, and that in this number divers of them have either no ecclesiastical preferment at all, or else so very small as the same is far unmeet for men of their deserts; and yet we of ourself, in any convenient time cannot well remedy it. Therefore we do heartily require you that presently you write, in our name, as well to the Archbishop of York as to the rest of the Bishops of the province of Canterbury,† signifying unto them that we do will, and straitly charge every one of them, as also the other Bishops of the province of York, as they tender our good favor toward them, that (all excuses set apart) when a prebend or parsonage being rated in our book of taxations, the prebend at twenty pound at the least, and the parsonage to the like sum and upwards, shall next upon any occasion happen to be void, and to be either of their patronage and gift, or the like parsonage so void to be of the patronage and gift of any person whatsoever; they do make stay thereof, and admit none unto it until, certifying us of the avoidance of it, and of the name of the patron, (if it be not of their own gift,) we may commend for the same some such of the learned men as we shall think fit to be preferred unto it; not doubting of the Bishops' readiness to satisfy us herein, or that any of the laity, when we shall in time move them to so good and

* From Regist. III. Whitgift. Copied from Wilkins' Concilia magnæ Britan. et Hibern. Vol. iv. p. 407 (Harvard Univ. library); also in Strype's Life of Whitgift, p. 590.

† Archbishop Whitgift had died in the preceding February, only a few weeks after the Hampton Court Conference. His apprehension, that the Puritan influence in the coming Parliament might undo what had been so satisfactorily settled in the Conference, is supposed to have hastened his death. So well aware was he, that the measures there carried through, with so high a hand, were in opposition to the wishes of the most substantial part of the nation!

This, it will be recollected, would be equal to many times the same sum at the present time. Thus Fuller (Vol. iii. p. 220) mentions, as an instance of Archbishop Hutton s munificence, that "he founded a hospital in the north, and endowed it with a yearly revenue of thirty-five pounds."