As a literary curiosity, I notice a subject which might rather enter
into the history of religion. It relates to the extraordinary state of
our English Bibles, which were for some time suffered to be so corrupted
that no books ever yet swarmed with such innumerable errata!
These errata unquestionably were in great part voluntary commissions,
passages interpolated, and meanings forged for certain purposes;
sometimes to sanction the new creed of a half-hatched sect, and
sometimes with an intention to destroy all scriptural authority by a
confusion, or an omission of texts--the whole was left open to the
option or the malignity of the editors, who, probably, like certain
ingenious wine-merchants, contrived to accommodate "the waters of life"
to their customers' peculiar taste. They had also a project of printing
Bibles as cheaply and in a form as contracted as they possibly could for
the common people; and they proceeded till it nearly ended with having
no Bible at all: and, as Fuller, in his "Mixt Contemplations on Better
Times," alluding to this circumstance, with not one of his lucky
quibbles, observes, "The _small price_ of the Bible has caused the
_small prizing_ of the Bible."
This extraordinary attempt on the English Bible began even before
Charles the First's dethronement, and probably arose from an unusual
demand for Bibles, as the sectarian fanaticism was increasing. Printing
of English Bibles was an article of open trade; every one printed at the
lowest price, and as fast as their presses would allow. Even those who
were dignified as "his Majesty's Printers" were among these
manufacturers; for we have an account of a scandalous omission by them
of the important negative in the seventh commandment! The printers were
summoned before the Court of High Commission, and this _not_ served to
bind them in a fine of three thousand pounds! A prior circumstance,
indeed, had occurred, which induced the government to be more vigilant
on the Biblical Press. The learned Usher, one day hastening to preach at
Paul's Cross, entered the shop of one of the stationers, as booksellers
were then called, and inquiring for a Bible of the London edition, when
he came to look for his text, to his astonishment and horror he
discovered that the verse was omitted in the Bible! This gave the first
occasion of complaint to the king of the insufferable negligence and
incapacity of the London press: and, says the manuscript writer of this
anecdote, first bred that great contest which followed, between the
University of Cambridge and the London stationers, about the right of
printing Bibles.[270]
The secret bibliographical history of these times would show the
extraordinary state of the press in this new trade of Bibles. The writer
of a curious pamphlet exposes the combination of those called the king's
printers, with their contrivances to keep up the prices of Bibles;
their correspondence with the booksellers of Scotland and Dublin, by
which means they retained the privilege in their own hands: the king's
_London_ printers got Bibles printed cheaper at Edinburgh. In 1629, when
folio Bibles were wanted, the Cambridge printers sold them at ten
shillings in quires; on this the Londoners set six printing-houses at
work, and, to annihilate the Cambridgians, printed a similar _folio_
Bible, but sold with it five hundred _quarto_ Roman Bibles, and five
hundred _quarto_ English, at five shillings a book; which proved the
ruin of the folio Bibles, by keeping them down under the cost price.
Another competition arose among those who printed English Bibles in
Holland, in _duodecimo_, with an English colophon, for half the price
even of the lowest in London. Twelve thousand of these _duodecimo_
Bibles, with notes, fabricated in Holland, usually by our fugitive
sectarians, were seized by the king's printers, as contrary to the
statute.[271] Such was this shameful war of Bibles--folios, quartos, and
duodecimos, even in the days of Charles the First. The public spirit of
the rising sects was the real occasion of these increased demands for
Bibles.
During the civil wars they carried on the same open trade and
competition, besides the private ventures of the smuggled Bibles. A
large impression of these Dutch English Bibles were burnt by order of
the Assembly of Divines, for these _three errors_:--
Gen. xxxvi. 24.--This is that _ass_ that found rulers in the
wilderness--for _mule_.
Ruth iv. 13.--The Lord gave her _corruption_--for _conception_.
Luke xxi. 28.--Look up, and lift up your hands, for your _condemnation_
draweth nigh--for _redemption_.
These errata were none of the printer's; but, as a writer of the times
expresses it, "egregious blasphemies, and damnable errata" of some
sectarian, or some Bellamy editor of that day!
The printing of Bibles at length was a privilege conceded to one
William Bentley; but he was opposed by Hills and Field; and a paper war
arose, in which they mutually recriminated on each other, with equal
truth.
Field printed, in 1653, what was called the Pearl Bible; alluding, I
suppose, to that diminutive type in printing, for it could not derive
its name from its worth. It is in twenty-fours;[272] but to contract the
mighty book into this dwarfishness, all the original Hebrew text
prefixed to the Psalms, explaining the occasion and the subject of their
composition, is wholly expunged. This Pearl Bible, which may be
inspected among the great collection of our English Bibles at the
British Museum, is set off by many notable _errata_, of which these are
noticed:--
Romans vi. 13.--Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
_righteousness_ unto sin--for _unrighteousness_.
First Corinthians vi. 9.--Know ye not that the unrighteous _shall
inherit_ the kingdom of God?--for _shall not inherit_.
This _erratum_ served as the foundation of a dangerous doctrine; for
many libertines urged the text from this corrupt Bible against the
reproofs of a divine.
This Field was a great forger; and it is said that he received a present
of 1500_l._ from the _Independents_ to corrupt a text in Acts vi. 3, to
sanction the right of the people to appoint their own pastors.[273] The
corruption was the easiest possible; it was only to put a _ye_ instead
of a _we_; so that the right in Field's Bible emanated from the people,
not from the apostles. The only account I recollect of this
extraordinary state of our Bibles is a happy allusion in a line of
Butler:--
Religion spawn'd a various rout,
Of petulant, capricious sects,
THE MAGGOTS OF CORRUPTED TEXTS.
In other Bibles by Hills and Field we may find such abundant errata,
reducing the text to nonsense or to blasphemy, making the Scriptures
contemptible to the multitude, who came to pray, and not to scoff.
It is affirmed, in the manuscript account already referred to, that one
Bible swarmed with _six thousand faults_! Indeed, from another source we
discover that "Sterne, a solid scholar, was the first who summed up the
_three thousand and six hundred_ faults that were in our printed Bibles
of London."[274] If one book can be made to contain near four thousand
errors, little ingenuity was required to reach to six thousand; but
perhaps this is the first time so remarkable an incident in the history
of literature has ever been chronicled. And that famous edition of the
Vulgate, by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, a memorable book of blunders, which
commands such high prices, ought now to fall in value, before the pearl
Bible, in twenty-fours, of Messrs. Hills and Field!
Mr. Field and his worthy coadjutor seem to have carried the favour of
the reigning powers over their opponents; for I find a piece of their
secret history. They engaged to pay 500_l._ per annum to some, "whose
names I forbear to mention," warily observes the manuscript writer; and
above 100_l._ per annum to Mr. _Marchmont Needham and his wife_, out of
the profits of the sales of their Bibles; deriding, insulting, and
triumphing over others, out of their confidence in their great friends
and purse, as if they were lawless and free, both from offence and
punishment.[275] This Marchmont Needham is sufficiently notorious, and
his secret history is probably true; for in a Mercurius Politicus of
this unprincipled Cobbett of his day, I found an elaborate puff of an
edition published by the annuity-granter to this worthy and his wife!
Not only had the Bible to suffer these indignities of size and price,
but the Prayer-book was once printed in an illegible and worn-out type;
on which the printer being complained of, he stoutly replied, that "it
was as good as the price afforded; and being a book which all persons
ought to have by heart, it was no matter whether it was read or not, so
that it was worn out in their hands." The puritans seem not to have been
so nice about the source of purity itself.
These hand-bibles of the sectarists, with their six thousand errata,
like the false Duessa, covered their crafty deformity with a fair
raiment; for when the great Selden, in the assembly of divines,
delighted to confute them in their own learning, he would say, as
Whitelock reports, when they had cited a text to prove their assertion,
"Perhaps in your little pocket-bible with gilt leaves," which they would
often pull out and read, "the translation may be so, but the Greek or
the Hebrew signifies this."
While these transactions were occurring, it appears that the authentic
translation of the Bible, such as we now have it, by the learned
translators in James the First's time, was suffered to lie neglected.
The copies of the original manuscript were in the possession of two of
the king's printers, who, from cowardice, consent, and connivance,
suppressed the publication; considering that the Bible full of errata,
and often, probably, accommodated to the notions of certain sectarists,
was more valuable than one authenticated by the hierarchy! Such was the
state of the English Bible till 1660![276]
The proverbial expression of _chapter and verse_ seems peculiar to
ourselves, and, I suspect, originated in the puritanic period, probably
just before the civil wars under Charles the First, from the frequent
use of appealing to the Bible on the most frivolous occasions, practised
by those whom South calls "those mighty men at _chapter and verse_."
With a sort of religious coquetry, they were vain of perpetually opening
their gilt pocket Bibles; they perked them up with such self-sufficiency
and perfect ignorance of the original, that the learned Selden found
considerable amusement in going to their "assembly of divines," and
puzzling or confuting them, as we have noticed. A ludicrous anecdote on
one of these occasions is given by a contemporary, which shows how
admirably that learned man amused himself with this "assembly of
divines!" They were discussing the distance between Jerusalem and
Jericho, with a perfect ignorance of sacred or of ancient geography; one
said it was twenty miles, another ten, and at last it was concluded to
be only seven, for this strange reason, that fish was brought from
Jericho to Jerusalem market! Selden observed, that "possibly the fish in
question was salted," and silenced these acute disputants.
It would probably have greatly discomposed these "chapter and verse" men
to have informed them that the Scriptures had neither chapter nor verse!
It is by no means clear how the holy writings were anciently divided,
and still less how quoted or referred to. The honour of the invention of
the present arrangement of the Scriptures is ascribed to Robert
Stephens, by his son, in the preface to his Concordance, a task which he
performed during a journey on horseback from Paris to London, in 1551;
and whether it was done as Yorick would in his Shandean manner lounging
on his mule, or at his intermediate baits, he has received all possible
thanks for this employment of his time. Two years afterwards he
concluded with the Bible. But that the honour of every invention may be
disputed, Sanctus Pagninus's Bible, printed at Lyons in 1527, seems to
have led the way to these convenient divisions; Stephens, however,
improved on Pagninus's mode of paragraphical marks and marginal verses;
and our present "chapter and verse," more numerous and more commodiously
numbered, were the project of this learned printer, to _recommend his
edition of the Bible_; trade and learning were once combined! Whether in
this arrangement any disturbance of the continuity of the text has
followed, is a subject not fitted for my inquiry.