year 1477 in England? It was, as has been duly described, one of those tranquil periods which immediately succeeds and immediately precedes events of extraordinary moment. The knell of the Middle Ages had already been sounded. It was hardly more than twenty years since the last relic of the old Græco-Roman world-Byzantium-had passed away before the conquering Ottomans. It was only five years before that the last echo of the Crusades had passed away. It was but six years since the last of the barons had fallen on the field of Barnet. Old estates, old dominions, and old superstitions were then fast departing.

"And not only so, for with the exiles from Constantinople came into Europe a flood of Greek learning, and, at the same time that the Catholic warriors of Spain were driving the Ottomans from their country, Columbus discovered a new world. Just ten years before came into existence the greatest of scholars, Erasmus, and just four years after was to be born Luther, the greatest of reformers. The day of the Reformation and the reorganization of Western Christendom had come. The sun that came out of the mists on the morning of the battle of Barnet was but the type of the new dawn that burst upon England when the feudal system passed away. The night was far spent, and the day was at hand.' And yet they that lived in that age knew not what was in store for them; they knew not that under the shelter of Westminster Abbey had struck root in England an instrument without which, humanly speaking, even the learning of Erasmus and the genius of Luther would have failed to produce their world-wide effect. Mechanical and moral powers, by a marvellous Providence, leagued together to preserve all that was good in the past and to promote all that was good in the future, at the greatest crisis

that had arisen in the world since the fall of the Roman

Empire."

The earliest printed volume containing an express English Biblical translation is one by Wynkyn de Worde, at London, "in the Fletestrete, at the sygne of ye sonne." "This treatise," says the title-page, " concernynge the fruytfull sayinges of Dauyd the kynge and prophete in the seven penytencyall psalmes, deuyded in seuen sermons, was made and compyled by the ryght reuerente fader in god, Johan fyssher, doctour of dyuynite and bysshop of Rochester. 1508." The book contains one hundred and forty-six leaves; the Latin text of the penitential psalms is printed in fragments and an English rendering accompanies it of a most imperfect, confused, and unsatisfactory description.

The following are specimens taken from the discourse on the sixth psalm, the first of the seven penitential ones:

66

Domine, ne "Correcte me

66

Blessyd

"Good Lorde, correcte me not in the euerlastinge payne of hell, neyther punysshe me in the paynes of purgatory. Have mercy on me, good lord, for I am feble and weyke." "Go ye cursed people into the eternall fyre." "That fyre is prepared for the deuyll and his aungelles." in furore tuo arguas me" (left untranslated). not good lorde in the paynes of purgatory.' Lord, haue mercy on me, for of myselfe I haue no strengthe." "Good lorde, make me hole." "The herte of a synfull persone is lyke unto the troublouse see whiche neuer hathe reste." "All ye partes of my body be without reste, and my soule is sore troubled." "Whan thou, good lorde, tournest away thy face all thynges shall be troubled." "Be ye turned to me, and I shall be tourned to you."

*Extract from Dean Stanley's sermon, 1877.

"Good lorde, why taryest thou soo longe?" "Therefore, good lorde, be thou tourned unto me, and delyuer my soule from this trybulacyon." "Our lorde is bothe mercyfull inwarde, and also the doer of mercy outwarde, pacyent, and alwaye mercyfull." "They that be hole nedeth no physycyen, but a physycyen is nedefull unto them that be seke."

These extracts, exhibiting now and then piecemeal versions of texts, and so far resembling those in Caxton's Golden Legend, follow, often inaccurately, corresponding passages in the Vulgate. They run into a form of paraphrase, according to the prevalent opinions of the day, and are embedded in the midst of tedious meditations. It will be observed that other texts are introduced besides those taken from the psalter.

Before closing this chapter I would direct attention to one who deserves a passing notice; not as a Bible translator, for this honour, though ascribed to him, was not his; but as one who walked so far in the footsteps of Wycliffe and his followers, as to maintain the sufficiency and to promote the reading of Holy Writ. I refer to Pecock, Bishop of Chichester, in the middle of the fifteenth century. He seems to have been no one-sided man; but whilst supporting the church of his day, exalting the Pope's supremacy, and defending his episcopal brethren, he ventured on the new path of appeal to Scripture as conclusive in controversy, and as intelligible to the apprehension of devout readers. work written by him, entitled A Treatise on Faith, he says, "Holy Writ is such a ground and foundation of our Christian general faith, that there is no greater or better, or more surer ground and foundation to us of our Christian general faith, than is written in Holy Writ. Very often Scripture expoundeth itself, inasmuch as by the reading of

In a

Scripture in one part, a man shall learn which is the true understanding of Scripture in all other parts, wherein he doubted or was ignorant before. Certain it may be, that one simple person, in fame or in state, is wiser for to know, judge, and declare what is the true sense of a certain portion of Scripture, and what is the truth of some article, and that for his long studying, labouring, and advising thereupon, than is a great general council. The writing made and found by God, and by the apostles, may ground sufficiently the same faith in every clerk or layman, notably reasoned for to understand what he readeth in the New Testament, though he learn not the same faith by any general council or any multitude of clerks to be gathered together." * The life and proceedings of the author of this passage have given rise to historical controversies not belonging to our subject, and into which therefore I shall not enter; but whatever might be his ecclesiastical opinions, whatever the ground of the accusations brought against him, and whatever the meaning of his recantation in the presence of Archbishop Bouchier, he did, by writing such a passage as that just quoted, place himself, as it relates to the study of the Bible, in a line with the rector of Lutterworth; and it is remarkable that the two names are connected in one of the statutes of King's College, Cambridge, showing that not only in vulgar estimation, but in the judgment of university authorities, Wycliffe and Pecock had sentiments in common, dividing them from the chief church rulers of their day.†

British Reformers, ii. 204.

+"Item statuimus-quod qualibet scholaris in admissione sua-juret quod non favebit opinionibus damnatis, erroribus aut heresibus Johannis Wiclif, Reginaldi Pecock," etc.-Le Bas, Life of Wiclif, 429.

1

the

commencement of the

sixteenth

century there lived in the manor-house of Little Sodbury, in Gloucestershire, a worthy knight of the name of Sir John Walsh. His dwelling belonged to that class of which a few relics may still be seen in quiet country nooks, displaying fantastic gables and twisted chimneys embosomed among shrubs and trees.

On visiting a few years ago the pleasant village where this modest mansion stands on the slope of the Cotswold Hills, I was delighted with the prospect it commands of the Severn valley, dotted over with rich green woods, and found a portion of the residence of the Walshes in existence, consisting of a good large dining-hall of the Tudor style, somewhat neglected, but not much out of repair. The old parish church is swept away, but two noble yews guard the entrance of the new edifice, showing signs of an age reaching back beyond the sixteenth century. There was abiding in