of Gutenberg" and Fust, he is manifestly beyond his historical and biographical depth. Fust took his son-in-law, Peter Schoeffer, as a partner after the famous lawsuit which terminated in the business being transferred from Gutenberg the inventor to Fust, who had lent him money. Schoeffer was not therefore, I take it, ever a partner of Gutenberg.

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The next four lines embody as many errors in one sentence perhaps as any man living, not an old stager in Saturday reviewing, could reasonably be expected to write out. It is moreover beautifully funny, irrelevant, pedantic, officious, and startling. It is to the effect that there exists in the Lambeth Library a part of the Old Testament of Wycliffe's version, printed by Redman" about 1532, which might perhaps have been lent for the present exhibition if asked for, but the managers do not seem to have been aware of its existence.' "5 I am not able to speak for the managers, or the Executive Committee, but I may say that this little book alluded to is perfectly well known and was well described by the Rev Dr S. R. Maitland more than a quarter of a century ago in his 'List of some of the Early Printed Books in the Archiepiscopal Library of Lambeth,' London, 1843, 8°, No 529, p. 237, a work with which most English 'ardent bibliographers' are familiar. The little book, however, is not of Wycliffe's version, is not of much bibliographical importance, and would not probably have been accepted by the managers if offered, unless perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury, as one of the prominent Patrons of the Caxton Exhibition, had particularly requested it. So much having been said, however, it is perhaps as well to give the title of the book, and some account of it here— "Prayers of the Byble take out of the olde testament and the newe, as olde holy fathers bothe men and women were wont to pray in tyme of tribulation, deuyded in vi. partes. Imprynted at London in Fletestrete by me Robert Redman. Cum gratia et priuilegio Regali." In this Lambeth copy, otherwise fine, part iii is wanting, 'An exposcayõ vpõ the psalme of Miserere. . . . made by Hierom Sauonarole. The book first appeared in Italy under the name of Savonarola, and was afterwards printed in English by François Regnault at Paris without date, probably in 1538, while Coverdale and Grafton were with him superintending the printing of the 'Great Bible.' It was reprinted by Redman in London about 1538 or 1539. Being all Scripture in English it would not, of course, have been licensed in 1532, but in 1538 or 1539, as the language is modern and good, there would then have been no difficulty about the translation. The word not is uniformly spelled nat, as in [Redman's?] Testament of 1536, folio. The separate parts, being without title-pages, but with new signatures, are sometimes found attached to service books. Regnault had a house in London from about 1498 to 1540, and supplied many of the English Roman Catholic Service Books used in various Cathedrals. This little fetch about Wycliffe is one of

the Saturday's stock pieces of recondite lore, having appeared before and will probably appear again. What put this little irrelevant reprint into the head of Scholastikos no fellow can probably ever find out. It is one of those learned surprises, I suppose, that so abound in the columns of this review, put there to astonish us with by-path knowledge, to make fools ask questions and the uninitiated to stare.

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But the grammarian will stare sufficiently when he reads in the two following clauses that 'Tyndale's Pentateuch 16 is here however,' 947 and 'several other Tyndale Testaments.'

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This little slip is not so bad as one of my own which he brings home to me with the genuine tact and skill of a Saturday critic. In N° 779 of the revised Catalogue, the most splendid copy known of Tyndale's New Testament of 1536 in octavo, lent by Earl Spencer, the date in the 'rough proof' and 'preliminary issue' was erroneously printed 1535.50 In my first-proof reading it was corrected to 1536, and has so stood in the last six or seven editions of the Catalogue. The precious little volume had a prominent place assigned to it among the rarest books, and as the date appeared on the title, which was exhibited, there should have been no difficulty in an ardent bibliographer's' "easly and lyghtely" finding the volume. However, this typographical error in the early editions of the Catalogue marked 'preliminary issue' made him feign that the book itself was not 51 to be found by a visitor, and he suspected that it was among the closed 52 volumes in a bookcase near by. In his disappointment he declares that the 'preliminary issue' has become permanent -'a not unaccustomed fate of South Kensington' Catalogues.' Now all these erroneous statements are based on an unworthy quibble, a known typographical error, known to have been corrected. The revised and corrected Catalogue had been issued some days before this article iv appeared, and hence it was necessary for the critic to go back to the 'preliminary issue.' Had his common sense been rubbed up a little he might have perceived, or been informed, that the 'closed volumes 252 in the unused bookcase were duplicates, or spare volumes of sets not required, and were locked up for safe keeping till they could be returned with others to the exhibitors. It was very natural and boy-like to overlook what was before him and to wish to look over what was not intended to be seen. But the fling at 'a not unaccustomed fate (whatever that may be) of South Kensington Catalogues' is constitutional and a chronic matter of course with a Saturdalian. It is well known that South Kensington with its Museum is the bête noire of the Saturday Review. No knight of the quill is qualified for its staff until he has had a successful tilt at S. K. The proprietors are presumed to keep an office Rosinante in their Southampton Street editorial stables with which each staff writer must from time to time try his hand, or do his best to donquixote the South Kensington Windmill. If our

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unpractised witling has not here exactly hit the mark, it is to be hoped that he may live to fight another day. Meanwhile the South Kensington Mill stands !

It is suspected that our Scholastikos in this last tilt against S. K. lost a leaf out of his note-book, for a distressing and damaging hiatus appears here in the most important part of his biblical disquisition. Notwithstanding his words 'next 55 in interest after these,' before coming to the 'Great Bible,' he wholly omits to mention the first folio and the first quarto English Bibles printed in England by James Nicolson of Southwark, dated 1537. See Nos 790 and 791. Nor has he thought to mention the first edition of Matthew's Bible, also of 1537, N° 779, or the Taverner of 1539, N° 811. Then there lies neglected N° 779, the first edition of Tyndale's New Testament printed in England in 1536 in small folio, to say nothing of the other editions of Tyndale's and Coverdale's Testaments printed in England and abroad in the years 1536 to 1539, mostly described in this Catalogue. All these are too interesting and important to have been omitted probably for any cause short of accident, a slip of fortune, to which we are all liable. He is therefore here credited with good intentions while he is charged with careless practice in his tilting. We are told that where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be otherwise, but in this case our critic cannot be congratulated on his bliss. The dropping of these important stitches in the meshes he was weaving for another is doubtless a pure mistake. It is always well, however, in this naughty world that something of our doings should be scored as pure.

We come now to the veritable pons asinorum 56 of the English Reformation before which so many of our historians have shied or broken down ; I mean the 'Great Bible' of 1539-1541, sometimes also called Cranmer's Bible, which, to use Mr Gladstone's language on another occasion, was the climax and consummation of the art of printing' in England up to that time. Indeed, considering the times and state of the market, that it was wholly a private, individual, and mercantile enterprise, carried on at great personal peril and commercial risk by Marler, Grafton, Whitchurche, and other City merchants, in spite of ecclesiastical bigots not yet all dead, it may be considered the greatest effort of the press even to the present day. It was the culminating point of a great struggle for reform and civil liberty. When we contemplate the several steps of progress during the seven preceding years, we see now just how much this Great Bible was required to carry on, concentrate, and consummate the Reformation.

These Great Bibles are the milestones that mark the advance of the English nation in civil liberty, civil law, refinement of language, personal freedom, statute law, popular election and legislation, the science of Government, public education, national self respect, domestic prosperity, and foreign influence. With the seven distinct editions, 1539

1541, of these great and magnificent volumes scattered throughout the land, fifteen or twenty thousand copies, in the families of the nobility and gentry as well as in most of the eleven thousand parish churches, to say nothing of the precious seed planted on good ground by Tyndale, Coverdale, Rogers, Cranmer, and Cromwell, it was impossible for the English nation not to advance, though it might from time to time require a Philip and a Mary to steady its progress. We therefore hug these Great Bibles to our bosoms, and count them as the choicest gems of our libraries. It is for these reasons that gave so much space to them in the Catalogue, Nos 813-825, and made such prominent display of them in the Caxton Exhibition.

There were certain preliminary steps, never to be forgotten, which contributed to this inestimable boon of free Scriptures, such as the fall of Wolsey, the divorce of Catharine of Aragon, the separation from Rome, the Royal Supremacy backed by Act of Parliament, the paving the road with the hardest and best heads, of More, Fisher and others; the destruction of the monasteries, the force of royal proclamations, the Act of the Six Articles, the drawing of the fangs of Convocation; and finally the Act of 1538 directing that all books of Scripture should have the sanction or licence of the King, the Privy Council or a bishop, which threw the whole matter, in spite of Convocation, into the hands of Cranmer and Cromwell. Some of these motions may at first sight appear retrograde, but if so, it was only the drawing back for a harder blow. The seven 68, 69 distinct editions of the 'Great Bible' are identified and known by the several dates in their colophons. These are the editions, 1, of April 1539; 2, April 1540; 3, July 1540; 4, November 1540; 5, May 1541; 6, November 1541; and 7, December 1541. Besides these, the two November editions of 1540 and 1541 were both reissued with large portions of the volumes reprinted, thus making two more editions which I number 8 and 9. Five of these editions are very nearly alike and make up each other, viz. N° 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7. They are in large black letter, 62 lines on a full page, and on strong thick paper. The other editions of November are on thinner paper, 65 lines. The whole nine editions have a fine showy woodcut border to the first title, all alike from the same cut, except that in the 4th edition 69 of November 1540 and all subsequent editions the arms of Cromwell, who was beheaded on the 28 July 1540, are obliterated. It is the aim of true bibliographers to find copies pure and distinct, with no leaves of other editions mixed. Mr Francis Fry's elaborate book on these nine editions is the best and surest guide. The wood-cut first title-page has generally hitherto been ascribed to Holbein, but Wornum in his life of Holbein,60 and others have recently so strongly pronounced against this opinion, that it is now generally abandoned. I give on p. 21 a reduced facsimile of it, 4 by 3 inches, the original measuring 14 by 9 inches.

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