It is not unlikely that had not the bones of Wycliffe, buried in the little churchyard of Lutterworth, been dug up and burnt, and his ashes cast into the Swift, by order of the Council of Constance, under the pious protective benevolence of the Church and priesthood, in the first quarter of the fifteenth century, Caxton in the last quarter of the same century might have begun in England his great work of printing, like most of the great printers of the Continent, with the Bible in his native tongue, and thus have modernized Wycliffe's Bible, and cast it into another and a rapider Swift.

But Caxton was prudent and wise, as well as a man of business. He had witnessed the storm, and recognized the obstructive and selfish power which gloried in mental darkness, and taught ignorance as the peculiar knowledge and birthright of the people. It was a part of the same piece of priestly wisdom that a few years later gave itself utterance in a sermon at Paul's Cross, in these ever-memorable words: "We must root out printing, or printing will root out us." So Caxton and his successors, taking the prudent and business-like course, printed what was most likely to sell in peace; and so the Scriptures in our vernacular tongue saw not the dawn in England, but awaited the broad daylight of the Reformation, in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, long after they were familiar to the Germans, the Italians, the Dutch, and the Bohemians. The educated of England, however, were not ignorant of the Scriptures, for Coburger of Nuremberg, and probably other continental printers, had established warehouses in London, for the sale of Latin Bibles, as early as 1480, and perhaps earlier. There is an instructive letter in the Public Record Office from Coverdale and Grafton to Cromwell, written from Paris the 12th of September, 1538, in behalf of their host, Francis Regnault, who was then printing the "GREAT BIBLE" for them: "Where as of long tyme he [Regnault] hath bene an occupier into England more than xl. yere, he hath allwayes provyded soche bookes for England, as they moost occupied, so yt he hath a great nombre at this present in his handes as Prymers in Englishe, Missoles wt other soche like wherof now (by ye company of ye Booksellers in London) he is utterly forbydden to make sale, to the utter undoying of the man. Wherfore most humbly we beseke yo' lordshippe to be gracious and favourable unto him, yt he may have lycence to sell those which he hath

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done allready, so yt hereafter he prynte no moo in the english tong, onlesse he have an english man yt is lerned, to be his correcto'. Yf yo' 1. shewe him this benefyte we shall not fare the worse in the readynesse and due expedicion of this yo' 1. worke of the Byble, which goeth well forwarde, and within few moneths will drawe to an ende," etc. From the time of Luther the Continent was filled with new and cheaper issues of the Bible and every part of it, not only in Latin and Greek, but in the modern languages. The history of Bible printing in Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries, though in many instances opposed and even prohibited, remains no secret or mystery. The French and Italians printed extensively in the ancient languages, but the Church managed to have small call for the Scriptures in the vulgar tongues which the people could read and comprehend. The history of Luther's own translations and publications of the Scriptures, 1522-34, first by instalments as fast as he could get the parts ready, then by revisions and complete works in 1534, is well known. But the bibliography of Luther's early pieces, counterfeits, reprints, &c., requires careful revision. Again, much is to be still settled in the Biblical bibliography of the many editions of the Bible and parts thereof, in various languages, printed by Froschover of Zurich, from his little 16mo Swiss-German Bible, in five vols, 1527-29, and his folio revision of Luther in five parts, 1525-29, the Prophets and Apocrypha done by Leo Jude, Zwingle, and others.

The story of the learned Robert Stephens and the printing of his Bibles and New Testaments in Paris, as told by the late M. Firmin Didot, is one of the most interesting in the literary history of printing and printers. Yet though encouraged, protected, and favoured by Francis as far as any king could protect a subject against the wiles of the Church, at last poor Stephens was driven in exile to Geneva for his Bibles and Testaments; so that to this day the Bibles and Testaments of Robert Stephens remain the glory and the shame of France.

Germany was not only boiling over for liberty and free Scriptures, but scholars of advanced thoughts flocked thither from all parts of the world. But Flanders was the paradise of printers, and Antwerp, at this time, the very centre of it, because it enjoyed some special privileges for its citizens within their own dwellings, by which the Burgomaster could resist imperial authority, and disregard imperial emissaries. Any

Belgian could print what he liked, and sell it if he could at home and abroad. Hence, disregarding the counsel of St. Paul, according to an old translator, against "making marchandize of the Word of God," it became an extensive and lucrative business of the Low Countries to supply England and France with printed Bibles and Testaments in their own languages. Besides this, the Flemings themselves fanned the Reformation by producing a very large number of Bibles in their own language, for their own consumption, between 1520 and 1550, though the Emperor's Ordinance of 1529 was very stringent against heretical or Lutheran books and anonymous printing of all kinds, especially the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongues.

Finally the high tide of the Reformation reached England in 1526 in the shape of a beautiful New Testament in English by William Tyndale. The people soon got a taste of the Word of God in their own language, and a Christian Association was formed in London to read and circulate the Scriptures even in the Universities. Here read the stories of Garret and Dalaber. Within the first ten years probably as many as fifteen distinct editions of Tyndale's New Testament in English, of not less than three thousand copies each, were printed and sold. Tyndale himself living abroad ran the gauntlet of persecution as few men had done, being driven from place to place for six or seven years, till he was found out and hunted down in 1534, imprisoned in May, 1535, and burnt in 1536. The public demand for his Testaments was very great, and no power could check their importation, sale, and consumption. Edition after edition appeared silently in England, but from whence nobody cared to inquire. They were certainly not printed in England. Tyndale himself was scented and ferreted out by English emissaries sent abroad for the purpose, and run down like a wolf. Even his friends and followers in England who could be proved to have read or to possess even a New Testament were also hunted through London and the Universities as the greatest of criminals; and this, too, even after the King had replaced the Pope and become the chief head of the Church of England. But all this raid and tirade of the learned doctors of divinity against Scripture readers only lowered the Church whilst it raised the people. Bibles, Psalms, Testaments, and other parts of the Bible thenceforth increased in England to an extent wholly unknown in any other country

or nation. Though late in getting possession of themselves and their liberties, the people of England succeeded to a surprising degree; basing their rights and liberties more on their Bibles than anything else. No wonder, then, that the editions of the Bible in English, since 1535, have not only outnumbered those of any other nation, but in the aggregate, including America, exceed those of all other languages.

With all these vast accumulations of Bibles and Biblical history, what is at present the extent of our positive knowledge concerning the history and production of our early English Bibles and Testaments prior to 1550, or even later? More than a hundred industrious writers from the time of Lewis to to-day, have ransacked every corner of Christendom in search of facts respecting Tyndale, Coverdale, and Rogers. In a wonderfully small degree they have gleaned a few items respecting the persecuted Tyndale and his New Testaments, but many of these facts require confirmation. As to Coverdale and our first Complete English Bible, finished the 4th of October, 1535, THE MOST PRECIOUS VOLUME IN OUR LANGUAGE, what do we know? Absolutely next to nothing. The volume itself tells us the day it was finished, but where it was printed, or by whom, or for whom, or under what circumstances, no historian or bibliographer has as yet given us any trustworthy information. No literary mystery for the past three centuries has elicited so much inquiry, or so many investigators, especially of late and latest years; yet up to the opening day of this Caxton Celebration, the 30th of June, 1877, all is but mere conjecture. Some have assigned the production of the volume to Lubeck, others to Frankfort, still others to Zurich, Hamburg, Cologne, Worms, Strasburg, and even Marlboro in the land of Hesse; while some say that it came from the press of Egenolph, others detect in it the master hand of Froschover, and still others attribute it to Quentel or some one else; but all to no purpose. The very variety of these conjectures proves their falsity, and shows that they are really and truly mere conjectures, without the slightest base or foundation.

The woodcuts used in the "Coverdale Bible" have indeed been traced into the possession of James Nicolson, printer in St Thomas's Hospital, Southwark, in 1535, but not a scrap of the type used in that first English Bible has ever yet, so far as we can learn, been seen or identified in any other book printed at home or abroad. We have ourself, for more than

a quarter of a century, spent much time in comparing translations, type, cuts, initial letters, and the general and particular style and make-up of various Continental printers, mousing and groping among old books of all sorts, in search of traces of Coverdale in 1534 and 1535. The results are numerous, but entirely negative. We have had the satisfaction, from time to time, of narrowing down the field of research, and positively convincing ourself, first, that the book could not have come from the press of Egenolph, then of Froschover, and so on, but never a bit of positive testimony has greeted our eyes in favour of the true story. But at last, when all our researches for new bibliographical fields to explore had been exhausted, and just as we were forced to the conclusion that no analytical exploration was ever likely to reward us, the long-kept secret dropped into our open mouth of its own mere motion and ripeness, as if it desired to be in time for the Caxton Celebration. We comprehended the whole story in a minute, and realized it instantly with a thrill of delight we can never attempt to describe, though it showed us how utterly vain and unprofitable all our researches and comparisons of type, cuts, paper, watermarks, inks, and other printer's etcetera had been. The naked facts were before us in all their simplicity and truthfulness before we had time to understand how far away our historical and antiquarian investigations, primed by our so-called human reason, had drifted us.

In his Preface to

Let us now return to Coverdale and his Bible. the Reader, Coverdale says, "For the which cause (accordynge as I was desyred anno 1534) I toke the more vpon me to set forth this specyall translacyon." This important date, "anno 1534," was interpolated in Froschover's [Hester's] edition of 1550, no doubt on good authority. Coverdale also informs us, in the first paragraph of his Preface to the Reader, after alluding manifestly to Tyndale, or perhaps to George Joye, "which were not onely of rype knowledge, but wold also with al theyr hartes haue perfourmed that they beganne eyf they had not had impediment," etc. These and other reasonable causes considered, I was the more bold to take it in hande." He then tells us that various translations were put into his hands which he was glad to "followe for the most parte, accordynge as I was requyred. But to saye the trueth before God, it was nether my laboure ner desyre to haue this worke put in my hande; neuertheles it greued me yt other nacyõs shulde be more

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