University of Oxford, being destined to the legal profession. In 1517, he set up a press, the exercise of which was at that time esteemed a profession fit for a scholar or ingenious man. Being distinguished for his piety and learning, he became intimate with Sir Thomas More, whose sister, Elizabeth, he married; and evinced his zeal for the Roman Catholic religion by his strenuous. opposition to the measures of Henry VIII. Fox, the martyrologist, however, affirms that he was converted to the Protestant faith by John Frith, the martyr. Rastall was an author, as well as a printer, and wrote several works, geographical, historical, and controversial, which are enumerated by Wood. (Athena, Ox. vol. i. No. 54, p. 44, 45.) His son, William Rastall, was one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, in the reign of Queen Mary, to whom we are indebted for a very interesting life of Sir Thomas More, an Explanation of Law Terms, a Collection of the Statutes, &c. &c.

5. The mark of Robert Wyer, an early printer, who executed many books without dates. He resided "at the sygne of Saynt Johan Evangeliste, in Saynt Martyn's Parysshe, in the Byshop of Norwytche Rents, besyde Charyng Crosse," or "beside the Duke of Suffolk's Place," as he expressed it at the end of some of his books.

6. The elegant device of Richard Grafton. It is a tun, with a grafted tree growing through it, the motto of which, suscipite insertum verbum, IAco. I. Receive the inGRAFTed word (from the Epistle of St. James, ch. i. v. 21), has a happy allusion to his name. He was born in London: and as he exercised the art in the early part of his life, it is probable that he was brought up to the profession. His writings bespeak him to have been conversant in the languages: and his correspondence with Archbishop Cranmer and Cromwell, Earl of Essex, shews that he was encouraged by the principal nobility and learned men of his time, and was admitted to their conversation. As we owe to Grafton the first edition of the English bible, and other works which contributed to spread the doctrines of the glorious reformation, the following additional particulars relative to this printer may not be unacceptable. They are abridged from Herbert's edition of Ames's Typogra phical Antiquities.

In 1537, during the reign of Henry VIII., he practised printing in London: before this time he lived at Antwerp, where he printed Tindal's New Testaments, and afterwards his Bible, corrected and revised by Miles Coverdale, a Franciscan friar, well informed in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages. Some impressions of the former having been dispersed in England, they were bought up by Cuthbert Tonstal, then bishop of London, and burnt at St. Paul's Cross.

The publication of this New Testament occasioned the bishop of London to issue a prohibition; a copy of which is in Fox's Martyrology. It appears from the number of copies of this book yet extant, that the Bishop of London's prohibition was very little regarded, and not very readily obeyed; the bishops and clergy, therefore, made great complaints to the king of this translation, on which his Majesty resolved to take this matter into consideration himself. In 1533, the convocation met, and, among other things, decreed, that the scripture should be translated into the vulgar tongue; but at that time it was not carried into execution.

Grafton and Whitchurch's names are sometimes printed separately

C

in the same books; particularly those which they printed with the royal privilege, "ad imprimendum solum." as the Bible, New Testaments, and Primers. In printing the stated number, when so many as were to bear Grafton's name were completed, his name was taken out of the form, and Whitchurch's inserted in its place.

Grafton lived in a part of the dissolved house of the Grey-friars, which was afterwards granted by King Edward VI. for an hospital for the maintenance and education of orphans, called Christ's Hospital. It does not appear that Grafton dwelt in any other house.

His first work was the English Bible, printed abroad in 1535, six of which he presented to Archbishop Cranmer and Lord Cromwell: perhaps it was at Paris, or Marsburgh in Hesse, for Francis I. King of France, granted a licence to him and Edward Whitchurch to print an English bible there. It is in folio, and dedicated to the King.-See an account of this precious volume in Lewis's History of English Translations of the Bible, pp. 91-104; and a more succinct description in the Bibl. Spenc. vol. i. pp. 78-81.

Mr. Thoresby mentions the New Testament printed at Paris, by Bishop Bonner's means, in 8vo, in two columns, English and Latin; the latter of which was smaller than the former: and observes "that in it, 1 Peter ii. 13. was rendered unto the kynge as unto the chefe heade."

In November, 1539, the King, by his letters patent, directed to all and singular printers and booksellers within this his realm, &c. ap. pointed the Lord Cromwell, keeper of his privy seal, to take special care and charge "that no manner of person or persons within his realm, shall enterprize, attempt, or set in print any bible in the English tongue, of any manner of volume, during the space of five years next ensuing the date thereof, but only all such as shall be deputed, assigned, and admitted by the said Lord Cromwell." Accordingly it appears, by the bibles printed this very year, his lordship assigned others, besides Grafton and Whitchurch, as John Biddel, Thomas Berthelet, &c. to print bibles in the English tongue.

The first of these, printed this year, is a bible in large folio, with the following title: "The Byble in Englyshe, that is to say, the Content of all the Holy Scripture bothe of the Olde and Newe Testament, truely translated after the Veryte of the Hebrue and Greke Textes, by the dylygent Studye of dyuerse excellent learned men, expert in the forsayde tonges."

"Prynted by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch,

"Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. 1539.”

Grafton was in so much favour, that we find, in Rymer's Fadera, a patent dated January 28, 1543, as follows:

“Pro divino servicio, de libris imprimendis.”

In 1545, he printed King Henry VIIIth's Primer, both in Latin and English, with red and black ink; for this he had a patent, which is inserted at the end, expressed in much the same words as the preceding one of 1543.

In the first year of Edward VI. Grafton was favoured with a special patent, granted to him for the sole printing of all the statute books. This is the first patent which is taken notice of by that diligent and ac. enrate antiquary, Sir William Dugdale.

There is a patent dated December 18, 1548, to R. Grafton and E Whitchurch, printers, by which they are authorized to take up and