May 27. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



487 



LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 27, 1854. 

 REPRINTS OF EARLY BIBLES. 



In 1833 the authorities of the Clarendon Press 

 put forth a quarto reprint, word for word, page 

 for page, and letter for letter, of the first large 

 black-letter folio edition of 1611, of the present 

 authorised or Royal version of the Bible. So 

 accurate was it, that even manifest errors of the 

 press were retained. It was published that the 

 reader might judge whether the original standard 

 could still be exactly followed. It was accom- 

 panied by a collation with a smaller black-letter 

 folio of 1613, in preference to the larger folio of 

 that year, as no two copies (entire) of the latter 

 could be found, all the sheets of which corre- 

 sponded precisely : 



" Many of these copies contain sheets belonging, as 

 may clearly be proved, to editions of more recent date ; 

 and even those which appear to be still as they were 

 originally published, are made up partly from the edi- 

 tion printed at the time, and partly from the remains 

 of earlier impressions." 



Now this is a most interesting subject to all 

 lovers of our dear old English Bible. It is sup- 

 posed the translators revised their work for the 

 1613 edition (after two years) ; yet the collation 

 with the small folio of that year, shows little or no 

 improvement, rather the contrary. I possess a 

 small quarto edition of 1613 (black-letter, by 

 Barker), not mentioned by our more eminent 

 bibliographers, which, while admitting the better 

 corrections, adheres to the old 1611 folio, where 

 the small folio of 1613 unnecessarily deviates. It 

 is certainly, I consider, a most valuable impres- 

 sion. I have lately purchased a magnificent copy 

 of the great folio of 1613. It is in the original 

 thick oak binding, with huge brass clasps, corners, 

 and bosses ; and appears to have been chained to 

 a reading-desk. In collating it, I find a sheet or 

 two in 1 Samuel and St. Matthew most carefully 

 supplied from an earlier impression. The titles 

 both to the Old and New Testaments are exactly 

 the same as those of the folio 1611, with the ex- 

 ception of the date 1613 for 1611. It has been 

 gloriously used, and the imagination revels in the 

 thought of the eyes and hearts that must have 

 been blessed by its perusal. I am not sufficiently 

 conversant with our earlier translations to iden- 

 tify, without reference, the sheets of the inserted 

 edition, and I have not time to refer. I may only 

 say that there is a most quaint woodcut of little 

 David slinging a stone at the giant Goliath. A 

 slight collation of Genesis shows me this large 

 edition agrees in corrections with the small one 

 the Clarendon Press authorities used, though my 

 quarto 1613 differs, adhering, as I said before, 



more closely to the original standard of 1611. I 

 would put a Query or two to your many readers. 

 1. Was the great folio 1613 ever published entire, 

 or are the sheets I have indicated supplied in 

 every known copy, some from earlier, some from 

 later, impressions ? 2. Is it an established fact, 

 that the translators revised their work in 1613 ? 

 3. What is the small quarto of 1613 I have men- 

 tioned,? 



Lastly, would it not be an interesting enter- 

 prise to reprint our various translations of the 

 holy volume in a cheap and uniform series, like 

 the Parker Society published the Liturgy ? A 

 society might be formed by subscription to sup- 

 port such an object. We might have Coverdale's, 

 Matthews', Cranmer's, Taverner's, the Geneva 

 (1560), the Bishops' (Parker's, 1568), and the 

 noble authorised (Royal 1611), with their varia- 

 tions noted. I cannot see any harm would arise ; 

 and surely it might give an impulse to that noblest 

 of all studies, the study of God's Word. What 

 grander volume for simplicity and elegance of 

 language, for true Anglo-Saxon idiom, than our 

 present venerated translation ? What book that 

 could interest more than Cranmer's Great Bible 

 of 1539, from whence our familiar Prayer-Book 

 version of the Psalms is taken ? It would give 

 me heartfelt pleasure to contribute my humble 

 efforts in such a cause. Richard Hooper, M.A. 



St. Stephen's, Westminster. 



MARRIAGE LICENCE OF JOHN GOWER THE POET. 



The following special licence of marriage, ex- 

 tracted from the Register of William of Wykeham, 

 preserved in the registry at Winchester, is a 

 curious document in itself; but if, as there is 

 much reason for supposing, the person on whose 

 behalf it was granted was no less a man than the 

 illustrious poet — the "moral Gower" — the in- 

 terest attached to it is very much enhanced : and 

 for this reason I am desirous of giving it publicity 

 through the columns of "N. & Q." — a fit place 

 for recording such pieces of information, relating 

 to the lives of men eminent in the annals of litera- 

 ture. I have not been able to find any notice of 

 the marriage of John Gower in the books to which 

 I have been able to refer ; and, though it may be 

 perhaps an event of little importance, it is one 

 which a faithful biographer would never omit to 

 mention. The document is as follows : 



" Willelmus permissione divina Wyntoniensis Epi- 

 scopus, dilecto in Christo Alio, domino Wilielmo, 

 capellano parochiali ecclesiae S. Maria? Magdalena? in 

 Suthwerk, nostra? diocesis, salutem, gratiam, et bene- 

 dictionem. Ut matrimonium inter Joannem Gower 

 et Agnetem Groundolf dicta? ecclesia? parochianos sine 

 ulteriore bannorum editione, dumtamen aliud canoni- 

 cum non obsistat, extra ecclesiam parochialem, in 



