Genevan version.1 in the reign of Elizabeth for printing and circulating the Scriptures; and especially, that the people were partial to the Genevan version. A partiality which maintained even to the time of Charles I., when the Genevan Bible sank gradually into disuse on account of the deservedly growing favor of the Authorized version. Mr. Anderson in referring to the wonderful survival of the Genevan Bible, says: that while the Bishops' Bible was not issued after 1611, the Genevan was printed at London in 1633, at Edinburgh in 1640, and at Amsterdam in 1644.2 So that the Genevan version was in use full thirty years and more after the publication of King James' Bible, having enjoyed the preeminence for about three-quarters of a century. This fact at this time, was something remarkable in the history of English versions, finding parallels only in the manuscript version of Wycliffe, and the printed New Testaments of Tyndale. The Wycliffite manuscripts were in use from 1380 to 1525; and the printed New Testaments of Tyndale's translation continued in circulation from 1525 to 1605, the date of the last edition as noted in Cotton's list.3 These facts show that there was freedom The language of the Genevan version is remarkable for its Saxon simplicity. In style and diction it is one with preceding translations. And in cases where the readings differ, the translators studied not only correctness of rendering, but plainness in word and terseness of expression. The dethronement of papal supremacy in England by Henry VIII. was the virtual dethronement of the Latin language from its ecclesiastical and literary supremacy. It was not so understood at the time by the papists. They fondly hoped and believed that the Latin would be the universal language, because it was the sacred language of the Church. The Church would become universal, and the language would go with the Church. 1 Annals of the English Bible, pp. 469, 470. 1581.] CONFLICT IN LANGUAGE AND RELIGION. 253 Hence the bitter opposition to the translation of the Bible into English, which they stigmatized as treason against the Church. True, towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII., on account of circumstances, that is of the extensive circulation of the English Scriptures, their purposes were somewhat shaken. Hence the compromise of Gardiner, in which he yields to the necessity of an English version, and yet insists that a certain class of Latin words must be retained. Against this hierarchical theory that affirmed the supremacy of the Latin tongue, the friends of the Bible in English have boldly. and though sometimes at great odds, successfully contended. And though the English language steadily grew in strength and favor from the time of the Conqueror, and that largely through the fact of English versions of the Scriptures, yet even in the age of Elizabeth its foundations were not considered abiding. Lord Bacon had no confidence in the vitality of the English tongue. “These modern languages," he said, "will at one time or other play the bankrupts with books."1 The Latin had been regarded in all the past as the universal and eternal language, and the wisest among men could not as yet see it otherwise. If Dante had broken from the Latin and trusted his fame to the vulgar Italian, it was not without a struggle with himself, as well as against the advice of his friends. Boccacio, though he followed the example of Dante, questioned "whether the Divine Comedy had not been more sublime, and therefore destined to a more secure eternity in Latin."2 Though the purpose of the Reformers in translating the Scriptures into English was not to promote the interest of the English language, nor to break down the supremacy of the Latin, yet incidentally these were important elements in the conflict, and also among the important results soon to be reached. For even now in the reign of Elizabeth the conflict both in language and religion is not so much with the old 1 Bacon's Works. Preface, I., xvi. Boston, 1861. New York, 1874. ecclesiastical spirit of Rome, as with the newly revived pagan spirit of Italy. Classic ideals now rule in the court and palace. Greek and Roman learning was a passion with women as well as men, and was pedantically assumed by all classes. In fashionable life every thing was tinctured by it. "When the queen paraded through a country town," says Warton, "almost every pageant was a Pantheon. When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility, at entering the hall she was saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privychamber by Mercury. Even the pastry-cooks were expert mythologists. At dinner, select transformation of Ovid's metamorphoses were exhibited in confectionary; and the splendid icing of an immense historic plumb-cake, was embossed with a delicious basso-relievo of the destruction of Troy. In the afternoon, when she condescended to walk in the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons and Nereids; the pages of the family were converted into Wood-nymphs who peeped from every bower; and the footmen gamboled over the lawns in the figure of Satyrs." 1 Queen Elizabeth's reign was characterized by an artificial stateliness in dress, manners, language and religion. In pageants and festivals social life ran high, while in forms and ceremonials religious life ran low. In literature there was also a corresponding sensuousness. The Italian language was fashionable at court, and was studied and affected by all who made any pretensions to refinement. So fashionable did this rage for modern Italian become, "that it almost rivalled the classical mania of the day." Fresh novels from Italy were sold in every shop. "So popular were the writers of this fascinating country that the English language was absolutely inundated with versions of the Italian poets and novelists." Concerning this Ascham complains when he says: "These be the enchantments of Circe brought out of Italie, to marre mens maners in Englande; much by example of ill life, but 'History of English Poetry, III., 492. London, 1781. 2 Drake's Shakespeare and his Times, I., 451. London, 1817. 1581.] NEW-FANGLED ENGLISH. 255 more by precepts of fond books, of late translated out of Italian into Englishe, sold in every shop in London; commended by honest titles, the soner to corrupt honest 66 With all this efflorescence of display and affectation of manners there was a corresponding fashion of speech. John Lyly, the author of the Anatomy of Wit,2 set the fashionable world in a blaze with his new-fangled English. "All our ladies," says Blount, were then his scollers; and that beautie in court who could not parley Euphuesme, was as little regarded as shee which now there speakes not French." And as it not unfrequently happens, these scollers outwitted the wit of their teacher, changing what in him was fanciful into the fantastical. They played with words for the sake of wit and brilliancy. A fair estimate of Lyly and his new English is that he was a man of much reading, good memory, and ready wit; but ran into an excess of alliteration, antithesis, tropes, and rhetorical flourishes, playing upon words, and indulging in the use of high-sounding words for the sake of the sound, which altogether constituted a style not only artificial, but sentimental, affected, and stilted. But while this pagan spirit of classic refinement and this affectation of manners and speech appeared to permeate the body politic, yet they were but a part of it, only as an efflorescence. For underlying this gilt and glitter, there was a substratum of earnestness, soberness, and honest common sense, which formed a grand subsoil for Gospel seed sown by the hands of Reformed husbandmen. The age of Elizabeth may be justly chargeable with folly, yet it was not destitute of wisdom. It was an age of hope and enterprise; an age that gave to the world great men, especially in literature. True, it was an age of contradictions, as was also the character of its queen; so that, while it gave a hearty welcome to the classic spirit of paganism, it likewise gave a hearty welcome to the humble 1 Roger Ascham's Works, p. 253. London, N. D. (1761). 2 Or Romance of Euphues, which appeared in 1578-9. 3 Drake's Shakespeare and his Times, I., 443. spirit of the Gospel. The Genevan Bible, together with previous English versions, was the teacher of this age both in language and religion. Yea, the commandments and precepts of the Bible were not more in opposition to the affected manners and free morals which prevailed, than was its plain English to the corrupted and fantastic speech then so prevalent. The Genevan Bible was the book of the household when such men as Bacon, Raleigh, Herbert, Hooker, Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare were growing into manhood. Through its general use this Bible became not only the standard of the language, but a powerful influence in withstanding the public taste, furnishing, as it did, a noble example in word and phrase of pure English. While, therefore, there was no little conflict of opinion as to the best usage, there was a growing taste for language unaffected by Euphuisms and unadorned by foreign words. This prevailing pedantry was thoroughly ridiculed by Sir Philip Sydney in his character of Master Rombus,1 and by Shakespeare in his Holofernes, who drew out "the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument."2 Besides there was a growing confidence in the permanence of the English language. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, together with a few other works, says Hallam, "would have been thought to require a learned dress in any other country." In praise of the English language at this period, Dr. Samuel Johnson says: "If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the Translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Ralegh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spencer and Sidney; and the diction of common life from Shakspeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind for want of English words in which they might be expressed." Sir Philip Sidney showed his appreciation of the 4 1 Miscellaneous Works. Lady of May. Boston, 1860. A Masque, pp. 268-276. Also, V., I. New York, 1874. 2 Love's Labour Lost, Act IV., Scene II. |