On the 6th of May, 1541, the king issued a. decree, that the great volume of the Bible should be set up in every parish church in England; by which all the curates and parishioners throughout the kingdom, not already furnished with Bibles, were commanded to procure them before Allhallows next ensuing, and to cause them to be placed conveniently in their respective churches; and all the bishops and ordinaries were strictly required to take especial care to see the said commands put in execution.

Still the execution of these decrees was retarded by the clergy with a malicious perverseness. It appears from a small tract entitled "The Supplication of the Commons," that the Bibles in the parish churches, which should have been left free of access to every one, were industriously conveyed into the choir, or into some pew, where the vulgar presumed not to enter; that a considerable number of churches had no Bible at all; that the clergy, not satisfied with thus depriving the poor of spiritual food, did not rest till they had obtained an order from the king, that no person, of whatever rank, should be allowed to read the Scriptures in the time of divine service; and that afterwards,

when a proclamation was issued for the burning of certain translations ofthe New Testament, they were so audacious as to burn the whole Bible, because it was translated by heretics; lastly, that they intreated his majesty to call in the Bible again, on the insidious plea, "that it was not faithfully translated in all parts," promising, that themselves would superintend a new translation, which was to be published again within seven years,

From this representation, the king finally appointed two bishops, Tonstal, bishop of Durham, and Heath, bishop of Rochester, to su▾ perintend the translation of the Bible; who declared, "they had done his highness's commandment therein," and actually set their names to it, though they afterwards denied. they had any concern in it, and caused the printer to erase their names; reporting to the world, that Thomas Cromwell, late earl of Essex, "was the chief doer, or the principal actor in authorising the English Bible, and not the king, but as led by him;" and therefore, that the Bible" was of a traitor's setting forth, and not of the king's."

The king being resolved that the Scriptures should continue to be read in the vulgar

tongue, the clergy durst not oppose his will directly; but by a subtlety of proceeding truly catholic, they succeeded in undermining his resolution. The translation of Tyndale and Coverdale, was charged by them with numberless errors, both philological as well as heretical; they represented to his majesty, that the permission of the free and general use of the Scriptures, served only to excite controversy, and augment faction; that as a proof of this, the people, instead of being edified by what they read, did nothing but dispute in taverns and ́alehouses, branding one another reciprocally with the names of papist and heretic; that others read so loud in the churches, as to disturb the congregation; and that thus the peace of his kingdom was destroyed by the continuance of this new privilege.

A revision of the translation of the New Testament, was now projected by the archbishop, in convocation, and a particular portion assigned to a certain number of bishops respectively; but this revision was never accomplished, nor designed to be accomplished, The clergy wanted only to gain time, that they might be able to supersede all translations, and reduce the people to their former state of dark

ness and degradation. They amused themselves therefore with idle disputes about the propriety of translating certain Latin words-such as ecclesia, mysterium, &c. of which Gardiner produced a catalogue of 99, which he seemed to think too sacred for prophane understandings. Thus a translation, conducted according to this method of exclusion, would have been useless when made. This idea was suggested to the king by Cranmer, who was permitted to communicate to the convocation his majesty's pleasure, that the proposed revision should be declined, and the matter referred to the two universities.

But notwithstanding this prohibition, in the parliament which met 22d January, this year, 1543, the popish faction prevailed, and caused an act to be passed, condemning Tyndale's translation as crafty, false, and untrue, and enacting, that "All manner of books of the Old and New Testament in English, of this translation, should be, by authority of this act, clearly and utterly abolished, extinguished, and forbidden to be kept and used in this realm, or elsewhere, in any of the king's dominions."-The prohibition, however, did not extend to translations which were not Tyn

dale's, though it was expressly enjoined that all annotations or preambles should be obliterated in all Bibles, under penalty of forfeiting 40s. for each Bible thus glossed.

On the passing of this act, the following remark was found made in a spare leaf of an English abridgment of Polydore Virgil's book "Of the Invention of Arts," by a poor shepherd, and which he bought about this time, 1546: "When I kepe Mr. Letymer's shype, I bout thys boke, when the Testament was obberagatyd, that shepeherdys might not rede hit; I prey God amende that blyndnes. Wryt by Robert Wyllyams, keppyng shepe upon Seynbury Hill, 1546."

The king, being continually disquieted by complaints from the clergy, of the ill use the people made of their privilege to read the Scriptures, issued, in the last year of his reign, a proclamation, prohibiting Coverdale's, as well as Tyndale's version, as likewise the use of any other than what was allowed by parliament. This act was repealed at the commencement of the following reign.

It is a common opinion, that the Old and New Testament were translated by Tyndale and Coverdale; and the Apocrypha by John