86 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



erence to such a work in the following words : "In our King 

 Richard the Second's days John Trevisa translated the Bible 

 into English." His translation of the apocryphal gospel of 

 Nicodemus is known ; but, that apart, other biblical trans- 

 lations by him are now unknown, although some think a 

 copy may yet be found lurking in one of the great manu- 

 script collections, or that unrecorded his work was incorpor- 

 ated in one of the Wycliffe Bibles. 



A little more than a century from the death of Wycliffe 

 brings us to the days of William Tyndale, whose name is 

 known and honored by all who are conversant with the his- 

 tory of the English Bible. His translation of the New Testa- 

 ment is memorable from its merit, because it was the first 

 portion of the Scriptures to be printed in English with mov- 

 able types, and from the translator's tragic death. From the 

 records we learn that Tyndale when about forty years of age 

 was a priest without benefice, being tutor in a country family 

 in Gloucestershire and sometimes preaching in that neighbor- 

 hood. He espoused the cause of the new learning, translated 

 the Enchiridion of Erasmus, disputed with the clergy, and 

 was so outspoken in his censure of idle monks, ignorant 

 churchmen, and overbearing prelates, that he was called to 

 book and censured before William of Malvern, abbot of St. 

 Peter's, Gloucester. Tyndale had studied both at Oxford 

 and at Cambridge, and the influence of Erasmus at the latter 

 place had not then died out, for the great Hollander did tarry 

 awhile at both these universities, though Gibbon's epigram, 

 that Erasmus learned Greek at Oxford and taught it at Cam- 

 bridge, is too sharp an antithesis to be exactly true. I^ike 

 Erasmus, he too had faith that a vernacular Bible must give 

 strength to a nation and contentment to its people. Erasmus 

 in the preface to his Greek New Testament wrote : "I long 

 for the time when, in his own tongue, the husbandman shall 

 say over to himself verses from the Bible while he follows 

 the plough, when the weaver shall hum them to the tune of 

 his shuttle, and when the traveller shall beguile with them 

 the weariness of his journey," And words could not better 



