EARLY ENGLISH PRINTED BIBLES. 197 



bears the name of Thomas Matthew, a pseudonym which was 

 assumed by John Rogers, the martyr, who was the great-great- 

 grandson of Sir Henry Fitz Roger, who held Bryanston about 

 the middle of the i5th century. 



Of this Bible I am pleased to be able to exhibit a copy of the 

 original volume, now exceedingly rare. It was published in the 

 year 1537, and i s not > as tne title page might imply, an entirely 

 fresh translation, being composed of the translation of Tyndale 

 as regards the New Testament, the Pentateuch, and some few 

 other books, the rest being Coverdale's. The whole was then 

 revised and edited, with some alteration, by Rogers, who added 

 numerous notes and explanations. Great exception was taken 

 to these notes, and they were all omitted in the next edition 

 (1539). It will be observed that they have mostly in my copy 

 been erased in ink. This is probably owing to an Act of Parlia- 

 ment in 1543, by which all Bibles containing preambles or 

 annotations were to have them cut or blotted out under a penalty 

 of 403. each Bible. Summaries of chapters were allowed to 

 remain, as has been the case in this copy, in which also the 

 references are untouched. 



Although this Bible was not the first, it was in many ways the 

 most important, as it was the first English Bible published with 

 the Royal Authority, as may be seen on the title page in the 

 words 



" S*t fovth with the 2>iime0 m0t jmupMtf luwc." * 



It is also the one which, when revised, became the Great 

 Bible of 1539, which in its turn was published in 1568, after 

 further revision, as the Bishop's Bible, the latter being the 

 chief foundation for the present Authorized Version, first 

 published in 1611. 



* Two reprints of Coverdale's Bible were published in this year, one of which 

 also bears these words, but Fulke, writing in 1583, states that Matthew's was 

 " the first printed with authority." 



