Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/371

 England, where James Nicolson of Southwark may have been the producer. No entirely perfect copy is in existence, and only five or six have title-pages. These represent three issues, two in 1535 and one in 1536. The Bible was reprinted by Nicolson in folio and quarto form in 1537, and by Froschouer at Zurich in 1550. The bibliographical peculiarities are detailed in the ‘Bible by Coverdale, 1535’ (1867, 8vo), by Francis Fry, who points out (pp. 8–11) that the dedication to Queen Jane belongs to Nicolson's edition of 1537. The publisher and place of printing of the 1535 Bible have always been a mystery. Humphrey Wanley was the first who attributed it to Christopher Froschouer of Zurich. Mr. Fry drew up a list of fourteen persons who fixed the place either at Zurich, Frankfort (by Christian Egenolph), Cologne, or Paris. Mr. Fry was unable to obtain sufficient evidence to prove the claim of Froschouer, but Dr. Ginsburg possesses two leaves of a German-Swiss Bible which are printed in a type precisely similar to Coverdale's English version of 1535. The comma is not used. The general ‘get up’ and appearance are identical. The woodcuts are the same design, with minute differences in the engraving. The present writer has had the opportunity of comparing these leaves, which Dr. Ginsburg affirms to have belonged to a unique copy of a Bible printed by Froschouer at Zurich, 1529–30, 2 vols. folio, formerly in his possession. The larger types in the 1535 Bible had already been traced to Froschouer, but here for the first time we find the smaller type. The 1531 Bible used by Coverdale for his translation was in a single and larger volume, in larger type and with headings to the chapters. The discovery of this 1529–30 Bible goes far to settle the question of the printer of Coverdale's Bible. The large type is to be found in the German Bible of Mainz, 1534, and the Wittenberg of 1556. The woodcuts encircling the title and other engravings passed into Nicolson's possession, and were afterwards used by other printers.

In 1877 the late Mr. Henry Stevens, in the catalogue of the Caxton Exhibition, first drew attention to a remarkable statement by Simeon Ruytinck in a life of Emanuel van Meteren, appended to the latter's ‘Nederlandtsche Historie,’ 1614. In the French translation, published at the Hague in 1618, the words especially relating to the Bible and its publisher are as follow: ‘Emanuel de Meteren, qui a esté fort diligent à amasser et mettre par escrit les choses contenues en ce livre, nasquit à Anvers le 9 de Juillet 1535. … Son père [Jacob van Meteren] luy avoit faict apprendre en sa jeunesse l'art d'Imprimerie et estoit doüé de la cognoissance de plusieurs langues, et autres bonnes sciences, tellement que dès lors il sceust si bien distinguer la lumière des ténèbres, qu'il employa sa peine et monstra son zèle en Anvers à la traduction de la Bible Angloise, et employa à cela un certain docte escolier nommé Miles Conerdal [sic]’ (f. 721). Mr. Stevens believed that Jacob van Meteren was not only the printer (at Antwerp) but also the translator of the Bible of 1535 (The Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition, 1878, pp. 38–42, 68–70). Although great weight is due to any statement of Henry Stevens, more recent evidence does not support the view that Jacob van Meteren was the translator and Coverdale merely ‘the best proof-reader and corrector of his age.’ In 1884 Mr. W. J. C. Moens reprinted a document from an original copy made in 1610, and which had been found by him in an old box in the Dutch Reformed Church in Austin Friars. This was an affidavit signed by Emanuel van Meteren, dated 28 May 1609, to the effect that ‘he was brought to England anno 1550 … by his father, a furtherer of reformed religion, and he that caused the first Bible at his costes to be Englisshed by Mr. Myles Coverdal in Andwarp, the w'h his father, with Mr. Edward Whytchurch, printed both in Paris and London’ (The Registers of the Dutch Reformed Church, Austin Friars, 1884, p. xiv). With the exception of the place of printing and the addition of the name of Whitchurch (which may be a mistaken reference to the folio Bible of 1537 (Matthew's), this statement agrees with that of Ruytinck. It appears probable that the Bible was produced at the instance of Van Meteren, who paid Coverdale for his labours as translator, that this part of the work was done at Antwerp, and that Van Meteren got the volume printed by some other printer, who may have been Froschouer of Zurich. Nicolson seems to have bought the copies for sale in England.

The work must have occupied Coverdale a considerable period. The imprint states: ‘Prynted in the yeare of our Lord 1535, and fynished the fourth daye of October.’ The book is in a German black letter, in double columns, with woodcuts and initials. It contains the Apocrypha. In the prologue to his own second edition of 1550 Coverdale says: ‘It was neither my labour nor desyre to have this worke put into my hande, nevertheless … for the which cause (accordinge as I was desired), anno 1534, I took the more upon me to set forth this specyall translation;’ and in the dedication to Edward VI: I ‘was boldened in God sixteen yeares agoo to labour faithfully in the same.’ He says