EARLY ENGLISH PRINTED BIBLES. I<)9 



or more of these smaller volumes appeared, chiefly New Tes- 

 taments, so that the number in circulation must by this time 

 have been very considerable. 



In Mary's reign no part of the English Bible seems to have 

 been printed in this country, though a few small portions, in- 

 cluding on$ New Testament, were printed abroad, and doubtless 

 found their way here secretly. This New Testament was printed 

 in 1557 at Geneva, where a large number of English Protestants 

 had collected together, having left England on account of the 

 persecution. The translation was made by William Whittingham, 

 and is remarkable as being the first English Edition of any part 

 of the Bible in which the chapters are divided into verses. 



In 1560 was printed at Geneva what is known as the Genevan 

 or " Breeches " Bible, which is not the same translation as 

 Whittingham's New Testament, though he was one of the trans- 

 lators employed in the work, in which he was helped more or 

 less by Myles Coverdale, John Knox, and six others. John 

 Bodley, the father of the founder of the Bodleian Library at 

 Oxford, had much to do with the printing of this and the 1561 

 edition. 



The Breeches Bible was, probably on account of its notes, an 

 extremely popular version, as may be seen by the fact that it 

 passed through no less than 40 editions between 1560 and 1600 ; 

 sometimes three in a year, and there are said to have been 200 

 editions of Genevan Bibles and New Testaments issued between 

 1560 and 1 630. It was in fact with some difficulty supplanted by the 

 present Authorized Version, and continued to be issued for many 

 years after the introduction of the latter in 1611 so much so 

 that in 1649 and some subsequent years the Authorized Version 

 was issued with the Genevan notes, to make the people take to it 

 better. I exhibit a quarto edition of 1607 of the Genevan or 

 Breeches Bible, belonging to the Museum. The great number 

 of editions accounts for the abundance of this version compared 

 with, say Matthew's Bible, of which only 1400 copies were 

 printed many years earlier, and probably a great portion of 

 them officially destroyed. The first Bible printed in Scotland 



