ed. Dr.Stokesley, bishop of London, who in the month of May, 1531, caused all the New Testaments of Tyndall, and many other books which he had bought up, to be brought to St. Paul's church-yard, and there burnt, was one of the most cruel persecutors among the prelates of his time. Fox has entered into a long detail of those who suffered in his diocese: from him we extract the following particulars of the charges laid against several who were imprisoned, and compelled to abjure.

"John Raimund, a Dutchman, 1528."

"For causing 1500 of Tindal's New Testaments to be printed at Antwerpe, and for bringing 500 into England." "Thomas Curson, monke of Bastacre, in Northfolke, 1530."

"His articles were these: For going out of the monastery, and changing his weede, and letting his crowne to grow, working abroad for his living, making copes and vestiments. Also, for having the New Testament of Tindal's translation, and another booke containing certaine bookes of the Old Testament, translated into English, by certain whom the papists call Lutherans."

"John Row, book-binder, a Frenchman, 1531." "This man, for binding, buying, and dispersing of bookes inhibited, was enjoined beside other penance, to goe to Smithfield with his books tied about him, and to cast them in the fire, and there to abide till they were all burnt to ashes."

"Christopher, a Dutchman of Antwerp, 1531."

"This man for selling certaine New Testaments, in English, to John Row aforesaid, was put in prison, at Westminster, and there died."

"W. Nelson, priest, 1531."

"His crime was, for having, and buying, of Periman, (7) Newcome's Historical View of the English Biblical Translations, pp. 20-22. Dublin, 1792, 8vo.

Henry's Hist, of Great Britain, B. vi. ch. ii. sec. 2, p. 59.

Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, I. B. i. ch. xxi. p. 116.

certaine bookes of Luther, Tindal, Thorpe, &c. and for reading and perusing the same contrary to the king's proclamation, for the which he was abjured. He was priest at Lith."

"Edward Hewet, servingman, 1531."

"His crime: That after the king's proclamation, he had read the New Testament in English: also the booke of John Frith against Purgatory, &c."

"Walter Kiry, servant, 1531."

"His article: That he, after the king's proclamation, had and used these bookes: the Testament in English, the Summe of Scripture, a Primer and Psalter in English, hidden in his bedstraw at Worcester."

"John Mel, of Bockstead, 1532."

"His heresy was this: for having and reading the New Testament, in English, the Psalter, in English, and the book called A, B, C."

In the mean time Tyndall was busy in translating the PENTATEUCH, or Five Books of Moses, from the Hebrew. But having finished his translation, and going to Hamburgh to print it, the vessel in which he sailed was shipwrecked, and his papers lost, so that he was obliged to recommence his labour; in which he was assisted by MYLES COVERDALE, and at length, in 1530, published it in a small octavo. It seems to have been printed at several presses, owing to the danger accompanying it. Genesis, and Numbers, are printed in the Dutch letter, the other three books, Exodus, Levitici, and Deuteronomie, are printed in the Roman letter, with now and then a capital of the black letter intermixed. To each of the books, a prologue is prefixed, and at the end of Exodus and Deuteronomie are "Tables expounding certaine wordes." In the margin are some notes; and the whole (8) Fox, II. pp. 315-322,

Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, I, p. 116:

is ornamented with 10 wood-cuts. In some copies there is added at the end, "Emprinted at Malborow in the land of Hesse by me Hans Luft the yere of our Lord M.C.C.C.C.C.X.X.X. the xvii daye of January."

About 1531, Tyndall translated and published the Prophecy of "JONAS," to which he prefixed a prologue, full of invective against the church of Rome. Strype says, that Tyndall, before his death, finished all the Bible except the Apocrypha; but Bishop Newcome thinks he translated the historical parts only. Hall says in his Chronicle, which was printed during the reign of Henry VIII. by Richard Grafton, Tyndall's friend and benefactor; "William Tindall translated the New Testament, and first put it into print; and he likewise translated the five books of Moses, Joshua, Judicum, Ruth, the books of Kings, and books of Paralipomenon, Nehemiah, and the first of Esdras, and the prophet Jonas: and no more of the holy Scriptures." 67 But whatever he left behind him in manuscript, he appears only to have printed or published the prophecy of Jonah.

Fuller, in his Church History, has intimated the incompetency of Tyndall to translate the Old Testament, by saying "His skill in Hebrew was not considerable." It, however, is but just to let our translator speak in his own defence, and it is probable that the scholar who reads his preface or prologue prefixed to his 2nd edition of the Gospel of St. Matthew, will pronounce him "considerably" versed in the peculiarities of that tongue. The passage referred to begins thus: "If ought seme chaunged, or not altogether agreeing with the Greeke, let the finder of the faute consider the Hebrue phrase, or manner of speache left in the Greeke wordes, whose preterperfectense and presentence is of both one, and the futuretence is the optative mode also, and the futuretence (9) Lewis, pp. 70, 71.

(10) Newcome, pp. 23, 24.

oft the imperative mode in the active voyce, and in the passive ever. Likewise person for person, number for number, and interrogation for a conditionall, and such lyke is with the Hebrues a common vsage"

וויי.

Tyndall also revised and prepared a second edition of his New Testament for the press, which was afterwards printed at Antwerp, by "Marten Emperour," in 1534,8vo.; but before the printing was quite finished Tyndall was betrayed, and in the end suffered martyrdom. A singularly beautiful copy upon Vellum, of the revised edition of Tyndall's New Testament, is in the Cracherode Collection, now in the British Museum. It belonged to the unfortunate "ANNE BOLEYN, when she was queen of England, as we learn from her name in large red letters, equally divided on the fore-edges of the top, side, and bottom margins; thus at the top ANNA; on the right margin fore-edge REGINA; at the bottom ANGLIE. The illumination of the frontispiece is also in very fair condi tion." It is bound in one thick volume iu blue morocco. In his history every lover of the Bible must feel interested, and to such the following brief sketch may afford some gratification.

13

WILLIAM TYNDALL, TYNDALE, or TINDALE, who also bore the name of HITCHENS, was born in 1500, about the borders of Wales, and from a child brought up at the university of Oxford. Here he acquired the knowledge of the languages, and liberal arts, and read lectures, privately, on divinity, especially on the Scriptures, to the junior fellows and other scholars of Magdalen College. At the same time, his behaviour was such, as gained him a high reputation for learning and morals, so that he was admitted a canon of Cardinal Wolsey's new college, now

(11) Newcome, p. 25.

Tyndall's Works, p, 32. Lond. 1573, fol. (12) Lewis, p. 85.

Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron, II. p. 370.

Christ Church. His religious opinions rendering it unsafe for him to continue in Oxford, he retired to Cambridge, where he took a degree. After some time, he left the university, and lived at Little Sudbury, in Gloucestershire, with Sir John Welch, knt. who greatly esteemed him, and appointed him tutor to his children. Beside preaching frequently in and about Bristol, he engaged in disputation with many abbots and dignified clergymen who were accustomed to visit Sir John, on the most important subjects of religion, proving and defending his positions by references to the Holy Scriptures. Unable to confute him, they complained to the chancellor of the diocese, who after using the most reproachful language, dismissed him with the most severe threatenings. In the preface to his translation of the Pentateuch, he gives a a curious account of the combinations of the priests against him, and of their assembling together in "ale houses" to discuss the doctrines which he taught, though, as he observes, they "had seen no more Latin, than that only which they read in their portasses and missals, which yet many of them could scarcely read." Whilst he remained at the house of Sir John Welch, he had a dispute with a certain learned divine, respecting the doctrines which he had embraced. During the debate Tyndall pressed his antagonist with such cogency of argument, drawn from the Holy Scriptures, that the doctor passionately exclaimed, "We were better to be without God's laws than the Pope's;" to which Tyndall, with indignant zeal, replied, "I defy the pope and all his laws;" and further added, "that if God spared him life, ere many years, he would cause the plough boy to know more of Scripture than he did."

Finding his situation unsafe, he removed to London, and for some time preached in the church of St. Dunstan's in the West. While here, he applied to Dr. Cuth

bert Tonstall, bishop of London, to become one of his