Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/24

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. iv. JULY i, 1911.

paigns of the 28th Regiment, since their Return from Egypt in 1802. By Lieut.-Col. Charles Cadell, Unattached, late Major of that Corps " :

"A signal was immediately made for all hair- nutters to repair to head-quarters. As soon as they had finished on board the head-quarter ship, the ndjutant, Lieut. Russell, proceeded with them and a pattern man to the other troopships. The tails were kept till all were docked, when, by a signal^ the whole were hove overboard, with three cheers.'?

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

[W. S. also thanked for reply.]

SWAMMERDAM'S ' HISTORY OF INSECTS ' (US. iii. 448). The story referred to will be found in D'Israeli's ' Curiosities of Litera- ture,' under the section headed ' Literary Impostures.' Sir John Hill is said to have agreed to translate Swammerdam's ' History of Insects ' for 501. , but, knowing no Dutch, he contracted with another writer to do the work for 25?. This person, not knowing Dutch any more than Sir John, made a bargain with a third party, who, being quali- fied, executed the translation for twelve guineas. The book referred to, with a life of Swammerdam by Boerhaave appeared in English, "from the Dutch and Latin by Thomas Floyd : Revised and improved with Notes by Dr. Hill," London, 1758.

SCOTUS.

ROYAL SOCIETY: ITS RARITIES (11 S. iii. 467). ' ; Dr. N. G." is Nehemiah Grew, M.D., who published in 1681 'A Catalogue and Description of the Natural and Artificial Rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham Colledge.'

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

COMMONWEALTH CHURCHES (11 S. iii. 449). The Wiltshire church mentioned by COL. FYNMORE is not the only church erected during the Commonwealth. St. Saviour's, Poplar, formerly the chapel of the Hon. East India Company, is another.

S. D. C.

BLUE ROD (11 S. iii. 425). On p. 223 of The Gentleman's Magazine for 1731 Sir William Sanderson, Bt,, is described as

Deputy-Usher of the Black Rod."

R. VAUGHAN GOWER.

BULLYVANT: BUTTYVANT (US. iii. 444). -In the last paragraph of my note the explanation of the name Buttyvant should have been Butez en avant, not Batez.

LEO C.

Records of the English Bible : the Documents- relating to the Translation and Publication of the Bible in English, 1525-1611. Edited, with an Introduction, by A. W. Pollard. (Oxford! University Press.)

AMONG the books produced on the occasion of the Tercentenary of the Authorized Version that before us takes a prominent place, and, as a brief and lucid exposition of the fortunes of the English Bible, is likely to hold its own when the special cause for its genesis is forgotten. Mr. Pollard is one of the most trustworthy and accomplished bibliographers of the day, and the collection of original documents here brought together, many of which are not readily accessible, forms with the Introduction an excellent guide to the subject, which in its details is not without complexities and puzzles.

The Introduction in its seventy-six pages puts before us clearly and concisely the facts concerning the versions which preceded and influenced the composition of the A. V., and the history of that great book, concerning the editions of which a scholar like Scrivener was in error as late as 1884 r owing, says Mr. Pollard, to " entire ignorance of the customs of the book-trade in the seventeenth century."

The'Wyclifite Bibles are first treated. When their language was fast becoming obsolete,. Tyndale improved matters by translating the New Testament, not from the Latin Vulgate, but from the original Greek, but could find no hearing for his work in England. Mr. Pollard sees no reason to cast doubt OK his statement that he did not copy anything from the Wyclifite version, " though some resemblances have been quoted." Anyway, " Tyndale's own work fixed, once for all, the style and tone of the English Bible, and supplied not merely the basis of all subsequent Protestant renderings of the books (with un- important exceptions) on which he laboured, but their very substance and body, so that these sub- sequent versions must be looked upon as revisions of his, not as independent translations."

Persecution did not allow Tyndale to finish his work, which was completed by Coverdale, " a man of far less scholarship, but an equally happy style." To these two men the rhythm and melody of the Authorized Version are to be attributed, reasserting themselves after every change made by the revisers (p. 61). This, says Mr. Pollard, is more likely than that the wonderful felicity of phrasing should be due to the dexterity of the board of twelve or the two final revisers, and his verdict will, we think, be generally endorsed.

The uncertain and not always creditable part played by high dignitaries of the Church, and the great influence of versions outside England on the chief of English books, constitute a curious story which loses nothing in Mr. Pollard's hands. We are pleased to see printed the most trustworthy list of the translators of the A. V., with notes on their identity, for this is a list for which we have often been asked, and which is not available in many accounts of the Bible, though it is surely one which should be widely known. One of the two scholars who put the final touches to the book was not a member of any of the boards of