Mr. D'Israeli, in his _Curiosities of Literature_, has an article entitled
"The Pearl Bibles and Six Thousand Errata," in which he gives some notable
specimens of the blunders perpetrated in the printing of Bibles in earlier
times. The great demand for them prompted unscrupulous persons to supply it
without much regard to carefulness or accuracy; and, besides, printers were
not so expert as at the present day.
"The learned Ussher," Mr. D'Israeli tells us, "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 his
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 first bred that
great contest which followed between the University of Cambridge and
the London stationers, about the right of printing Bibles."
Even during the reign of Charles I., and in the time of the Commonwealth,
the manufacture of spurious Bibles was carried on to an alarming extent.
English Bibles were fabricated in Holland for cheapness, without any regard
to accuracy. Twelve thousand of these (12mo.) Bibles, with notes, were
seized by the King's printers as being contrary to the statute; and a large
impression of these Dutch-English Bibles were burned, by order of the
Assembly of Divines, for certain errors. The Pearl (24mo.) Bible, printed
by Field, in 1653, contains some scandalous blunders;--for instance,
Romans, vi. 13.: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
_righteousness_ unto sin"--for _unrighteousness_. 1 Cor. vi. 9.: "Know ye
not that {392} the unrighteous _shall inherit_ the kingdom of God?"--for
_shall not inherit_.
The printer of Miles Coverdale's Bible, which was finished in 1535, and of
which only two perfect copies, I believe, are known to exist--one in the
British Museum, the other in the library of the Earl of Jersey--deserves
some commendation for his accuracy. At the end of the New Testament is the
following solitary erratum:
"A faute escaped in pryntyng the New Testament. Upon the fourth leafe,
the first syde in the sixth chapter of S. Mathew, 'Seke ye first the
kingdome of heaven,' read, 'Seke ye first the kingdome of God.'"