ENGLISH BIBLES. 



189 



Chalmers mourns over, opining had was from Tonstall, Bishop of 



that semicolons would often have 

 saved the poet from his commen- 

 tators. 



PRINTING AND BURNING OF TINDAL's 

 NEW TESTAMENT. 



Tonstall, Bishop of London, in 

 the reign of Henry VIII., and whose 

 extreme moderation, of which he 

 was accused at the time, preferred 

 burning books to burning authors, 

 which was then getting into prac- 

 tice, to testify his abhorrence of 

 Tindal's principles, who had printed 

 a translation of the New Testament, 

 a sealed book for the multitude, 

 thought of purchasing all the copies 

 of Tindal's translation, and annihi- 

 lating them in one common flame. 

 This occurred to him when passing 

 through Antwerp, in 1529, then a 

 place of residence for the Tindalists. 

 He employed an English merchant 

 there for this business, who hap- 

 pened to be a secret follower of 

 Tindal, and acquainted him with 

 the bishop's intention. Tindal was 

 extremely glad to hear of the pro- 

 ject, for he was desirous of printing 

 a more correct edition of his version, 

 but the first impression still hung 

 on his hands, and he was too poor 

 to make a new one. He furnished 

 the English merchant with all his 

 unsold copies, which the bishop 

 as eagerly bought, and had them 

 all publicly burned in Cheapside ; 

 which the people not only declared 

 was"abuniiugoftheWordof God," 

 but it so inflamed the desire of 

 reading that volume, that the second 

 edition was sought after at any price ; 

 and when one of the Tindalists, who 

 was sent here to sell them, was 

 promised by the Lord-Chancellor, 

 in a private examination, that he 

 should not suffer if he would reveal 

 who encouraged and supported his 

 party at Antwerp, the Tiudalist 

 immediately accepted the offer, and 

 assured the Lord-Chancellor that 

 the greatest encouragement they 



London, who had bought up half 

 the impression, and enabled them 

 to produce a second ! 



ENGLISH BIBLES. 



The number of typographical 

 inaccuracies which abound in the 

 Bibles printed by the king's printers 

 is remarkable* Dr. Lee states, " I 

 do not know any book in which it 

 is so difficult to find a very correct 

 edition as the English Bible." What 

 is in England called the Standard 

 Bible, is that printed at Oxford, in 

 1769, which was superintended by 

 Dr. Blayney ; yet it has been ascer- 

 tained that there are at least one 

 hundred and sixteen errors in it. 



These errors were discovered in 

 printing an edition in London, in 

 1806, which has been considered as 

 very correct; yet Dr. Lee says 

 that that edition contains a greater 

 number of mistakes. The Rev. T. 

 Curtis corroborates Dr. Lee's tes- 

 timony. He states his general 

 impression to be, that the text of 

 the common English Bible is in- 

 correct, and he gives a great variety 

 of instances. 



Dr. A. Clarke, in his preface to 

 the Bible, states that he has cor- 

 rected many thousand errors in the 

 Italics, which, in general, are said 

 to be in a very incorrect state. 

 Between the Oxford edition of 1830 

 and the Cambridge edition, there 

 are eight hundred variations in the 

 Psalms alone. 



The Eev. T. H. Home, in his 

 Introduction to the Study of the 

 Scriptures, makes the following ob- 

 servation : " Booksellers' edition, 

 1806. In the course of printing, 

 by Woodfall, this edition from the 

 Cambridge copy, a great number of 

 very gross errors were discovered 

 in the latter, and the errors of the 

 common Oxford edition were not so 

 few as twelve hundred." 



Mr. Offor, a retired bookseller, 

 and who made a collection of up- 



