Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/403

Rh ENGLISH BIBLE 383 Schor- barn s Ksalter. Bolle of Ham- pole s Psalter. lie Hereford id Icklifie ible, 184. Of the two Psalters mentioned above, the earlier one was translated by William de Schorham, who was vicar of Chart Sutton in Kent in the year 1320. One copy is preserved in the British Museum (Add. MS. 17,376), and two others are in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. The other version was made by Richard Rolle, a chantry priest and hermit of Hampole, near Doncaster (died 1319). Among many works that he wrote was a Latin commentary on the Psalms, and on his being persuaded to re-write this in English, an English version of the Psalms was incorpor ated with it in the same way as the Latin had been in the original work. &quot;In this werke,&quot; wrote the author &quot;I seke no straiinge Ynglys, but lightest and commonest, & swilk is moste. lyk unto the Latyne, so that thai yt knawes noght ye Latyne be the Ynglys may com to many Latyne worclis. In ye translation I feloghe the letter als-mekillb as 1 may, and ther I fynd no propre Ynglys, I feloghe ye wit of ye wordis, so that thai that schulen rede it them thai 1 not drede erryng. &quot; The commentary of Hampole, as the author is frequently called, was vury extensively circulated, and many copies of it exist. It was also printed at Cologne in the year 1536. Treading worthily in the footsteps of these and many other worthy predecessors, come the translators of the two noble 14th century versions, which were long regarded as the exclusive work of John Wickliffe, and were thus always associated with his name (see WICKLIFFE). The first of these two versions was completed about 1384, the year of Wickliffe s death, and may be distinguished by the nam^s of the principal translators, as Hereford and Wickliffe s version. The second was completed about 1388, and for the same reason may be called Purvey s version. AVicklilfe s earliest work was of the same nature as that of Rolle, being a commentary on the book of Revelation, which he is supposed to have written in 1352. This was followed in 1360 by a commentary on the gospels, consist ing chiefly of passages from the fathers translated into English and placed beside an English version of the gospels. It is this translation of the gospels alone which can be cer tainly identified as the work of Wickliffe in the Bible which goes by his name ; but Sir Frederick Madden says, in his preface to the Wickliffite versions, that the Epistles, Acts, and Apocalypse &quot; might probably be the work of Wickliffe himself ; at least the similarity of style between the gospels and the other parts favours the supposition.&quot; The Old Testament and Apocryphal books were translated principally by Nicolas de Hereford, of Queen s College, Oxford, at one time vice-chancellor of the university, and afterwards a canon of Hereford. It is to be observed, however, that the translation of the Psalms in Hereford s Old Testament is undoubtedly based upon that of the Hampole Psalter. The original manuscript of Hereford s translation, with his alterations and corrections, is preserved in the Bodleian Library (Bodl. 959). It extends only as far as Baruch iii. 19, and it is supposed that his work was interrupted in the middle of the year 1382 by a summons to appear before convocation in London, and by a subsequent appeal which he made to Rome, and which ended in an imprisonment there. A contemporary copy of his manuscript also exists in the Bodleian (Douce 369), which shows the further growth of this version. At the place where Hereford left off, a note is inserted stating the fact in Latin, &quot; Explicit translationem Nicholay de Herford,&quot; and the remaining books of the Old Testament, Ezekiel, Daniel, the twelve minor prophets, and the two books of Maccabees, are added by another and unknown hand. The Bible was then com pleted by extracting the text of the gospels from Wickliffe s commentary, and adding to it a new translation of the rest of the New Testament. Copies of this Bible are rare, far the greater number of the copies of the &quot; Wickliffite Bible &quot; being of the later version, now to be described. Although there is enough verbal resemblance between this later version and that of Hereford and Wickliffe to Purvey s suggest that it is a revision of the latter rather than a new version, 1 QOQ translation, the account given of his work by Purvey him self says nothing about such a revision, and represents it as an independent version. &quot;For these reasons and other,&quot; he wrote in his prologue or preface, &quot; with common charity to save all men in onr realm which God will have saved, a simple creature hath translated the Bible out of Latin into English. First, this simple creature had much&quot; travail, with divers fellows and helpers, to gather many old Bibles, and other doctors, and common glosses, and to make one Latin Bible some deal true : and then to study it of the new, the text with the gloss and other doctors as he might get, and specially Lyra on the Old Testament that helped him full much in this work : the third time to counsel with old grammarians and old divines of hard words and hard senses how they might best be understood and translated : the fourth time, to translate as clearly as lie could to the sense, and to have many good fellows and cunning at the cor recting of the translation.&quot; These words imply a labour of some years, and as Purvey makes no allusion whatever to any other translation of his own time, it is reasonable to suppose that he went to his task without any knowledge that a similar work was being done by contemporaries. But although he says much in his prologue respecting the manner in which his work of translation had been done, Purvey gives no information respecting the date at which he was writing. He lived on as late as the year 1427, leading an unsettled life, and suffering imprisonment for his opinions, which he recanted at St Paul s Cross in 1400; but it is supposed that his translation was completed by about the year 1388. About 150 copies of Purvey s version are known to be still in existence, some of them beautifully illuminated and beauti fully bound, but they all appear to have been written before 1430. 1 The following specimen of the later version (John XL 1-13) will show that its language is not very far removed from that of the present day : &quot;And ther was a sijk man, Lazarus of Bethanye, of the castel of Marie and Martha hise sistris. And it was Marye, which anoyntide the Lord with oynement, and wipte hise feet with hir heeris, whos brother Lazarus was sijk. Therefor hise sistris senten to hym, and seide, Lord, lo ! he whom thou louest is sijk. And Jhesus herde, and seide to hem, This syknesse is not to the deth, but for the glorie of God, that mannus sone be glorified bi him. And Jhesus louyde Martha and hir sistir Marie, and Lazarus. Therfor whanne Jhesus herde that he was sijk, thanne he dwellide in the same place twei daies. And after these thingis he seide to hise disciplis, Go we eft in to Judee. The disciplis seien to hym, Maistor, now the Jewis soughten for to stoone thee, and eft goist thou thidir ? Jhesus answerde, whether ther ben not twelue ouris of the dai ? If ony man wandre in the dai he hirtith not, for he seeth the light of this world. But if he wandre in the night, he stornblith, for light is not in him. He seith these thingis, and aftir these thingis he seith to hem Lazarus oure freend, slepith, but Y go to reise hym fro sleep. Therfor hise disciplis seiden : Lord, if he slepith, he schal be saaf. But Jhesus hadde seid of his deth ; but thci gessiden that he seide of slepyng of sleep. Tliaune therfor Jhesus seide to hem opynli, Lazarus is dead ; and Y haue io^ye for you, that ye bileue, for Y was not there ; but go we to hym.&quot; This was the latest English dress in which the Holy Bible appeared during those seven centuries or more in which it was a reproduction of the Latin Vulgate, and before the invention of printing was brought to bear on the circulation of the Scriptures. 1 The earlier and the later of these two &quot; Wickliffite &quot; versions of the Bible were printed in parallel columes in four quarto volumes in 1850, under the editorship of the Rev. Josiah Forshall and Sir Frederic Madden. Previously to that time the New Testament of Purvey had been printed by the Rev. John Lewis, in folio, in 1731, and again by the Rev. H. H. Baber, in quarto, in 1810 ; it was also printed in Bagster s English Hexapla, in 1841. Of the earlier version the Song of Solomon was printed, and many detached portions of other books, in I)r Adam Clarke s Commentary in 1810, and the New Testament by Mr Lea Wilson in 1848.