discovered what he was doing. At Worms, he changed his plan, and commenced an octavo edition of the book, without prologue or notes. This he speedily finished, and at once issued it from the press. It was the first New Testament printed in English that ever saw the light. "That the rudeness of the work now at the first time offered, offend them not," are words of the translator in the postscript to his book. But, though the quarto edition was for a little while left incomplete, Tyndale resumed his labours, and completed them. First in design and partial execution, it was the last in publication; and this I take to be the true explanation of a bibliographical puzzle, upon which a good deal of antiquarian speculation has at different times been expended. The whole matter may be seen in Anderson's Annals, examined at length, and placed in as clear a light as scanty and conflicting information renders possible.

In the month of December, 1525, whilst Tyndale was occupied, perhaps in Schoeffer's office, Lee, almoner of Henry VIII., and afterwards Archbishop of York, was staying in the city of Bordeaux; and it is remarkable that thus early rumours reached him of what Tyndale had been doing. "Please your highness to understand," he writes to his royal master, "that I am certainly informed, as I passed in this country, that an Englishman, your subject, at the solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, hath translated the New Testament into English, and within a few days intendeth to return with the same imprinted into England. I need not to advertise your grace what infection and danger may ensue hereby, if it be not withstanded. This is the next way to fulfil your realm with Lutherans." "All our forefathers, governors of the Church of England, have with all diligence forbid and eschewed publication of English

Bibles, as appeareth in constitutions provincial of the Church of England."* The letter illustrates the belief at the time that Tyndale visited Luther, and it shows the wide-spread interest felt in the discovery then recently made by the busy Cochlæus. The news is further reported by Spalatin, while attending the Imperial Diet in the city of Spires. In his diary for Saturday, the morrow of St. Lawrence, being the 11th of August, 1526, he says, "Our prince, the Elector of Saxony [then at the Diet], having heard a sermon at the residence of the Landgrave of Hesse [who favoured the Reformation], returned to his house." Further, "At Worms, 6,000 copies of the New Testament were printed in English. This work was translated by an Englishman, who was staying there with two of his countrymen, and who was so learned in seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, that whichever he spoke you would think his native tongue. The English, indeed, have such a desire for the gospel, although the king opposes and dislikes it, that they say they would buy a New Testament even if each copy cost 100,000 of money." In addition to this the New Testament was printed in French at Worms.† The learning of Tyndale must have been magnified by repeated conversations on the subject; and it is a little curious that, while the most intimate acquaintance with Italian and Spanish are attributed to him, nothing is said of German, a language which we well know he had acquired.

A precious relic of the old quarto Testament was some years since discovered by Mr. Rodd, containing the prologue, and the Gospel of Matthew, as far as the twenty-second

*Ellis's Third Series, vol. ii. p. 71.

+Amanitates Literariæ, by Schelhorn, vol. iv. p. 431. Test. p. 26.

Arber's Tyndale's

chapter. The only complete copy of the octavo edition known to exist is preserved in the Baptist College Library, Bristol, but this copy lacks the original title-page. The only other copy known-a very imperfect one-is in the Library of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's. In the preface to the Wicked Mammon, published in May, 1528, Tyndale says that his New Testament was finished two years previously; and this statement is in harmony with the report of Cochlæus, whose story relates to the year 1525. I have no doubt that it was in the next year that Tyndale published his Testament-not in 1525, as Mr. Anderson has endeavoured to prove. After attentively considering all he has written, I do not see how the thing was possible as represents it; and, in the absence of direct and positive evidence to the contrary, I adhere to my opinion, that the Testament was issued in the former part of the year 1526.

he

Stealthily brought over to England, the books were soon circulated. Richard Horman, a merchant of the English factory at Antwerp, and Simon Fyshe, the author of a notable production of that day entitled, The Supplicacyon for the Beggers, appear to have been industrious agents in conducting this rather difficult enterprise. The results appear in the confession of a man named Robert Necton, who had engaged himself in selling the obnoxious volumes. He bought ten, twenty, and thirty copies at a time, of Fyshe, described as "dwelling by the White Friars in London." He sold five to "Sir William Furboshe, singing man in Stowmarket," in Suffolk, for seven or eight groats apiece, equal to £1 15s. or £2 now. He carried several to Lynn, and would have sold them to a young merchant man, which young man would not meddle with them because they were prohibited. About Christmas he acknowledges that he went

about to buy a great number of New Testaments, when there came a Dutchman, who offered to sell two or three hundred copies. As to himself, he frankly stated that he had read the book through many times, to others as well as himself.* This confession seems to have been made about the year 1528; but it refers to incidents which occurred soon after the importation of Tyndale's version. As the stock of copies diminished, either in consequence of sales, or through forfeiture, fresh importations supplied the demand. This perplexed the ecclesiastical authorities, who unwisely determined to buy up the edition as fast as possible; and Archbishop Warham wrote on the subject to Nix, Bishop of Norwich, who pronounced the undertaking "a gracious and blessed deed." Tonstall entered into the scheme, and endeavoured to promote it by purchasing the books abroad, before they could be brought over. He happened to be at Antwerp in 1529, and there he employed a person named Augustine Packington, an Antwerp mercer, to carry out his scheme.

Tyndale had now reached that city. Leaving Worms, he had visited the pleasant town of Marburg, in the Valley of Lahn, where the castle of the Landgrave of Hesse, still retaining much feudal magnificence, overlooked the habitations of the industrious burghers. There, from the press of Hans Luft, he had published the Wicked Mammon, and other well-known works; and he had also prepared for publication a version of the Pentateuch, which bears this colophon, "Emprented at Marlborow, in the land of Hesse, by me Hans Luft, the yere of oure Lorde M.CCCCC.XXX., the XVII. dayes of Januarie." The five books of Moses thus published seem to have been intended for separate sale, as well as for sale in one volume. Before the work appeared, * Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. i. part ii. p. 63. Oxford edition.