Chap. ii. leyn's copy. One of the few copies of this edition which have been preserved is of touching interest. Among the men who had suffered for aiding in the circulation of the Anne Boearlier editions of the Testament was a merchant-adventurer of Antwerp, Mr Harman, who seems to have applied to Queen Anne Boleyn for redress. The Queen listened to the plea which was urged in his favour, and by her intervention he was restored to the freedom and privileges of which he had been deprived. Tyndale could not fail to hear of her good offices, and he acknowledged them by a royal gift. He was at the time engaged in superintending the printing of his revised New Testament, and of this he caused one copy to be struck off on vellum and beautifully illuminated. No preface or dedication or name mars the simple integrity of this copy. Only on the gilded edges in faded red. letters runs the simple title Anna Règina Angliæ1. The interest of the Queen in the work of Tyndale appears to have extended yet further2: an edition of his revised New Testament, the first volume of Holy Scripture printed in England, appeared in the year in which she was put to death (1536), and from the press of a 'manuscript' (1. p. 570), wholly neglecting to notice that these lessons were a definite collection from the service book. It is not generally worth while to note mistakes, but this error deserves to be signalized, because it does not spring from inaccuracy, but apparently in some degree from want of candour, for Mr Anderson labours to shew that Tyndale would not have translated the Apocrypha. The copy was bequeathed to the British Museum by the Rev. C. M. Cracherode in 1799, but I have been unable to learn its previous history. It may have been 'bound in blue 'morocco' when it was presented to Anne Boleyn, as Mr Anderson says The shield on the title-page is filled 2 The lady Anne' had at an earlier time had a perilous adventure from lending to one of her ladies a copy of Tyndale's Obedience of a Christian Man. The narrative is quoted in Tyndale's Works, I. p. 130. E Chap. ii. Tyndale's work crowned at London and at Vilvorde. His martyrdom. He printer with whom her party was connected'. Tyndale, It is impossible to follow in detail the circumstances 1 This was not T. Berthelet, as is commonly supposed, but T. Godfray. This fact has been ascertained beyond all doubt by Mr Bradshaw. The engraved border, on the evidence of which the work has been assigned to Berthelet, was used by Godfray be fore it passed into Berthelet's possession; and there is no evidence that Berthelet used it as early as 1536. The edition ends with the significant words, 'God save the King, and all his well willers.' 1536) witnessed equally to his loyalty and his faith: 'Lord! open the King of England's eyes.' Chap. ii. History. New Testa Before his imprisonment Tyndale revised his New His last Testament once again for the press. This last edi- ment. tion contains one innovation in the addition of headings to the chapters in the Gospels and Acts, but not in the Epistles; and is without the marginal notes, which were added to the edition of 1534. But it is chiefly distinguished by the peculiarity of the orthography, which has received a romantic interpretation. Tyndale, as we have seen, had affirmed that 'he who followeth 'the plough' should in a few years have a full knowledge of the Scripture, and from the occurrence of such words as maester, faether, moether, stoone, in this edition it was concluded by a biographer that in his last years he adapted his translation to 'the pronunciation of the 'peasantry.' The conjecture seemed plausible and it is scarcely surprising that it has been transformed by repetition into an acknowledged fact. It is however not borne out by an examination of the book itself. Whatever may be the explanation of the orthography it is evident from its inconsistency that it was not the result of any fixed design. Nay more, there is not the least reason to suppose that some of the forms are provincial, or that the forms as a whole would make the language plainer to rustics. The headings too, which have been also supposed to have been designed 'to help to the understand'ing of the subjects treated of,' just fail when on that theory they would be most needed1. 1 Two copies of this edition are known. That which I have used is in the University Library at Cambridge. The orthography in the Table of the four Evangelists and the Prologue to the Romans which fol lows (not displaced by the binder) of- Chap. ii. The fulfil ment of his work. But though this pleasant fancy of the literal fulfilment of an early promise must be discarded, Tyndale achieved in every way a nobler fulfilment of it. Instead of lowering his translation to a vulgar dialect, he lifted up the common language to the grand simplicity of his own idiom. 'It pleased God,' as he wrote in his first Prologue, 'to put [the translation] in his mind,' and if we look at his life and his work, we cannot believe that he was left without the Spirit of God in the execution of it. His single honesty is beyond all suspicion. 'I call God 'to record,' so he writes to Fryth in the Tower, 1532, 'against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, 'to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered 'one syllable of God's word against my conscience, nor 'would this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be 'pleasure, honour or riches, might be given me. Not one selfish thought mixed with his magnificent devotion. No treacherous intrigues ever shook his loyalty to his king: no intensity of distress ever obscured his faith in Christ. 'I assure you,' he said to a royal envoy, 'if it her, sayd (consistently), fayth, stoede, &c. In c, sayde, angels, moether, harde, maester, master, father, &c. In D, faether, moether, mother, sayde, hearde, &c. In F on one side, faether, moether, brother, and on the other, angels, sayde, daye, brother, told, hearde, &c. In y and z we have almost consistently faeyth, saeyde, hoepe, ilmoest, praeyer, &c. Yet again in b prayer, &c. In the headings of the Epistles we have saynct and saeynet. Some spellings certainly belong to a foreign compositor, thongs (tongues, I Cor. xiii.); thaugh (taught). Some I cannot explain, caled (called), holly holy), which forms are consistently used. Of possible explanations none seems more likely than that the copy was read to a Flemish compositor (at Brussels? or Malines?) and that the 'would stand with the king's most gracious pleasure to Chap. ii. last words trans The worth of Tyndale as a scholar must be estimated Tyndale's by his translation, which will be examined afterwards. on his Of the spirit in which he undertook the great work of his lation. life something has been said already.. To the end he retained unchanged, or only deepened and chastened, his noble forgetfulness of self in the prospect of its accomplishment, with a jealous regard for the sincere rendering of the Scriptures. Before he published the revised edition of 1534 he had been sorely tried by the interference of Joye, which might, as he thought, bring discredit to the Gospel itself. ⚫ have it in their tongues, and my bro- The passage with which 'while we have breath, and shew in |