Falfe firen all her vaunted charms, that fhone Vait happiness enjoy thy gay allies! As for me, I am the friend of the gods and of good men, an agreeable companion to the artisan, an houfhold guardian to the fathers of families, a patron and protector of fervants, an affociate in all true and generous friendships. The banquets of my votaries are never cofly, but always delicious; for none eat or drink at them who are not invited by hunger and thirst. Their flumbers are found, and their wakings cheerful. My young men have the pleafure of hearing themselves praised by thofe who are in years; and thofe who are in years, of being honoured by thofe who are young. In a word, my followers are favoured by the gods, beloved by their acquaintance, esteemed by their country, and, after the clofe of their labours, honoured by pofterity. pale, and gone! No more the rofy bloom, in fweet dif Masks her diffembled looks. Each borguile, row'd grace Leaves her wan cheek, pale fickness clouds her eyes Livid and funk; and paffions dim her face. As when fair Iris has awhile display'd Her watry arch, with gaudy painture, gay; While yet we gaze, the glorious colours fade, And from our wonder gently fleal away z Where fhone the beauteous phantom erit fo bright, Now low'rs the low-hung cloud, all gloomy to the fight. But Virtue more engaging all the while Disclos'd new charms; more lovely, more ferene; Beaming fweet influence. A milder smile Lead, goddefs, I am thine! (transported Soften'd the terrors of her lofty mien. cry'd Alcides) a propitions pow'r, thy way Teach me; poflets my foul; be thou my guide: From thee, O never, never let me stray! While ardent thus the youth his vows addrett, With all the goddess fill'd, already glow'd his breast. combin'd: Firm conftancy, undaunted fortitude, Enduring patience, arm'd his mighty mind. Unmov'd in toils, in dangers undismay'd, By many a hardy deed and bold emprize, From fierceft monsters, through her pow'rful aid, He freed the earth: through her he gain'd the skies. 'Twas Virtue placed him in the bleft abodes, Crown'd with eternal youth; a god, among the gods, LOWTH The HISTORY of KNOWLEDGE, LEARNING, and TASTE, in Great Britain, during the Reign of King JAMES the First. Part the First *. IN [From the New Annual Register for the Year 1793.] N the prefent department of our work, we originally propofed to give only a concife view of the progreffive fate of Knowledge, Learning, and Tafte, in Great Britain; and to this plan we have generally adhered. However, in the account of queen Elifabeth's reign, we thought it eligible to be much more copious than we had been in the illuftration of former periods. To this we were led both by the rifing importance of our materials, and by our having arrived to that interval which distinguishingly eparated the dark from the enlightened parts of our literary history. So much was then done; and it had fuch an afpect on future times, that it demanded a minuter difcuffion than had heretofore been adopted. As we proceed forward in our undertaking, the literature of our country becomes gradually fill more various and extenfive; indeed fo various and extenfive, that were we greatly to enlarge on each branch of icience, and efpecially to characterize every particular icholar that made fome figure in his day, we should be carried to an undue length. We mult, therefore, fo far confine our views to general objects, as to leave many individual names to be fought for in the more particular details of biography, In defcribing the knowledge of king James the firit's reign, we shall begin, as ufual, with theology. As to the doctrinal part of theology, it flood, among Proteftant divines, for a number of years, pretty much as it had been in the time of queen Elifabeth. In 1595, archbishop Whitgift, in co junction with Richard Bancroft, bishop of London, Richard Vaughan, bishop clect of Bangor, Humphrey Tyndall, dean of Ely, doctor Whita ker, queen's profeffor in Cambridge, and others, framed a fet of articles, which went by the name of the Lambeth Articles. Thefe were in a high ftrain of Calvinism; and, though not enforced by legal authority, expreffed the prevailing fentiments of the age. The bare reading of them, at prefent, would afford a fufficient conviction of their narrowness and abfurdity; but. they were then received by the great body, both of the clergy and laity, without any degree of hefitation. Epifcopalians and puritans alike concurred in admitting the rigid tenets of John Calvin, or, perhaps to speak more properly, of St. Auguftine. It was with regard to the difcipline and ceremonies of the church that they differed; and thefe points were contefted with vehemence. There was no finall agitation of mind among the contending parties at the commencement of a new reign. The puritans flattered themfelves with fome indulgence from the prefbyterian education of king James. But, in fact, there could be little reasonable ground for hope on this account. The rough and ill-mannered divines of Scotland were fo far from having left any impreffions in their favour, that the monarch only recollected them with difguft. Their ferocious behaviour had excited in him a rooted averfion to the fcheme of worship they had embraced. The Roman catholics, alfo, were not without an expectation that they would be treated with lefs rigour than in the preceding reign. This, they prefumed, might be hoped for, from the affection which the king entertained for the memory of his mother. But, however willing he might be in himfelf to remit any of the feverities against the papilts, the time was not • See our Magazine for November 1793, page 336. four puritan minifters expect to make? yet arrived in which he could with fafety give way to fuch a difpofition. Indeed, feveral of the points they It was James' apparent intereft to fupport the established church; and his determination in this refpect was speedily displayed. Before he quitted Scotland, when doctor Thomas Nevill, dean of Canterbury, had been fent by archbishop Whitgift, in the name of the bithops and clergy of England, to tender their bounden duties to his majefty, and to understand his royal pleasure for the ordering and guiding of ecclefiaftical causes, the dean brought back to his employers a welcome anfwer, which was, to uphold and maintain the government of the late queen, as fhe left it fettled. The perfons, however, who were diffatisfied with the conftitution and forms of the established religion, were too numerous, and of too much confequence, not to be entitled to a folemn hearing. A conference, therefore, was appointed at Hamptoncourt, in which eight bishops and five deans appeared in defence of conformity, in oppofition to four puritan divines. From the unequal numbers and rank of the combatants, the iffue of the contest might eafily have been predicted. The most confpicuous objet in the debate was the king himfelf, who had now a glorious opportunity of displaying to his admiring fubjects the extent of his theological knowledge. Of this he was not a little proud; and his vanity was fully gratified in the applaufes which he received. Bishop Bancroft fell upon his knees, and faid, I proteft my heart melteth for joy, that Almighty God, of his fingular mercy, has given us fuch a king, as fince Chrift's time has not been.' Chancellor Egerton observed, that he had never seen the king and priest fo fully united in one perfon;' and archbishop Whitgift was fo tranfported with James' teftimony to the wisdom of the oath ex officio, that he cried out, Undoubtedly your majesty speaks by the fpecial affiftance of God's fpirit. Against fuch a combination what figure could the infifted upon were comparatively trifling, and will be deemed of little confequence by the more enlightened diffenters of the prefent day. In fact, the controverfialists on both fides had no title to the praise of poffeffing a liberality of mind. They had a confiderable portion of fcholaftic learning; but their literature was not of that species which enlarges the underftanding, and rifes fuperior to preju dice and bigotry. The conference ended with alterations fo infignificant, and with fuch a pertinacious refufal of indulgences which might eafily have been granted, that the puritans were greatly diffatisfied, and rendered, of course, most hostile to the church than ever. In one refpect the Hampton-court conference was of peculiar importance; for it paved the way for a new tranflation of the bible. Such a tranflation was pleaded for by the puritan divines, and efpecially by doctor Raynolds, the most celebrated of the four commiffioners; and the king acceded to the demand. This is a matter of fuch confequence in the theological literature of our country, that, in treating upon it, we shall beg leave to depart from our accustomed brevity: and that we may do fuller juftice to the fubject, we fhall look back to the verfions of the 'fcriptures which were made in preceding periods, having no more than flightly and incidentally touched upon them in the former volumes of our work. Some attempts at rendering the facred writings into our native tongue took place in very early times. About the year 709, Adelme, bishop of Sherborne, is faid to have translated the Pfalms into Saxon; and nearly about the fame time, a verfion of the four Gofpels, into the fame language, is understood to have been executed by Egbert, bishop of Landesfern. According to fome writers, a tranflation of the whole Bible was made, within a few years of this period, by B the venerable Bede. But of this fact there is much reafon to doubt. No fatisfactory evidence of such a tranflation appears in the beft accounts of his life, and the moft accurate catalogues of his works. Equally doubtful is the truth of Fuller's affertion, that Bede tranflated the Pfalms and New Teftament into English, He wrote, indeed, many commentaries upon the fcriptures, which were chiefly collections, from the ancient Fathers; but there is no direct evidence of his having done more than the making of a verfion of the Gospel of St. John into the Saxon language, for the benefit of the church. This was one of the laft employments of his life. A Saxon translation of the Pentateuch, Joshua, parts of the Books of Kings, Either, Judith, and the Maccabees, is alfo attributed to Elfric, or Elfred, or Aluricius, who was archbishop of Canterbury from the year 993 to 1006. Whether the narrative be ftrictly exact, is not of material confequence in this place to enquire. There were feveral other attempts of the fame kind before the time of Wickliff; but they extended only to fome parts of the Sacred Writings. Nor do any of thefe verfions appear to have been published; having been made only for the ufe of the refpective tranflators, or of the particular churches to which they belonged. The first perfon who appears upon undoubted evidence to have tranflated the whole Bible was the famous John Wickliff. This work was finished and published by him fometime before the year 131. The tranflation was made from the Latin bibles then in common ufe, or which were usually read in the church; for though he was fenfible of the preference that was due to the authority of the Greek and Hebrew text, he was not fufficiently acquainted with thefe languages to make them the foundation of his yerfion. Notwithstanding this difadvantage, Wickliff's tranflation was a production of great importance and utility, having been a confiderable ftep in that reformation in religion which was begun by him, and which paved the way for the more eminent alterations that afterward took place. An English version of the Bible has been attributed to John Trevisa, a native of Cornwall, and vicar of Berkley in Gloucestershire, and is faid to have been executed in 1397. The fact, however, is, that he translated only a few texts, which were either painted on the walls of his patron's chapel inBerkley-cafile, or are fcattered infundry parts of his works. The fuccefs which Wickliff met with, gave encouragement to fome of his followers to review his tranflation, or rather to make another, lefs ftrict and verbal, and more agreeable to the fenfe. In Wickliff's original undertaking he did not act without proper affiftants, and the pains they took were very laudable, and indeed judicious. The next tranflation, which is of fufficient confequence to be here particularly mentioned, was that by Tindall. It included the whole New Teftament, and was finished at Antwerp, where, or at Hamburgh, it was published in the year 1526. Such was the offence taken at it by archbishop Warham and bishop Tonitall, that they hurled furious cenfures against the tranflator and his adherents; and the latter of these prelates purchafed far the greater part of the impreffion, to prevent its difperfion among the mafs of the people. This circumftance was of fingular' advantage to the work; for Tindall was enabled, by the fale of his book, to give more correct editions of it to the public. Not content with opening the treafures of the New Teftament to the Christan world, he formed the defign of adding to it a version of the Old Teftament. This defign he did not live to complete. The Pentateuch was tranflated by him, and printed at Hamburgh in 1530; and in the next year he published an Englifh verfion of the prophet Jonah. It has been fuppofed that, previously to his decease, he finifred all the Bible, excepting the Apocrypha, which was tranflated by Rogers. But it appears molt probable that he tranflated only the hiftorical parts. That Tindall's verfion has many faults, will be acknowledged by every one who is converfant with the fubject: never theless, it was a great effort for a fingle man, especially confidering the period in which he lived. An author who cannot be expected to be partial to him, but whofe liberality of mind rifes above all prejudices and diftinctions (we mean doctor Geddes) thinks that though Tindall's is far from being a perfect tranflation, yet few first tranflations will be found preferable to it. It is aftonishing, adds the doctor, how little obfolete the language of it is, even at this day: and in point of perfpicuity and noble fimplicity, propriety of idiom and parity of ftyle, no English verfion has yet furpaffed it.' Doctor Geddes has farther declared, that, if he had been inclined to make any prior English verfion the ground-work of his own, it would certainly have been Tindall's. and that perhaps he fhould have done this, if their Hebrew text had been the fame. Such a teftimony to the merit of Tindall places him high in the rank of biblical literature. formerly characterised in his proper place, and from whom this verfion was called Coverdale's Bible.' It is alfo often called Cranmer's Bible; and it is the first English Bible that was allowed by royal authority, and the firft tranflation of the whole facred writings that was printed in our language. Archbishop Cranmer did not rest in what he had already done. His mind was fo intent on introducing a free ufe of the fcriptures by able and faithful tranflators, that he divided an old English translation of the New Testament into nine or ten parts, and caufed thefe parts to be tranfcribed into paper books, which he diftributed among the most learned bithops, and others; requiring that they would perfectly correct their refpective portions, and return them to him at a limited time. When the day came, the only person who did not fend in his proper part to Lambeth, was Stokesley bishop of London. What was the refult of this undertaking is not afcertained. In confequence of the gradual prevalence of Protefiant principles, a rifing folicitude appeared for the diffufion of the Bible in the mother tongue. Archbishop Cranmer was particularly zealous in this refpect; and accordingly, notwithstanding the oppofition of Gardiner and his party, he obtained, through the influence of queen Anne Bullen, an order from the king, for a new tranflation of the fcriptures. This was in 1534; and in the next year the whole Bible was finished at the prefs. From the rapidity with which the work was executed, it is evident that Cranmer and his affociates must have had it in previous preparation. The chief burden of the undertaking lay upoa Miles Coverdale, a divine whom we have Thomas, lord Cromwell, concurred with Cranmer in promoting the reading and ftudy of the fcriptures. In fome injunctions which were published by him, as the king's vicar general and vicegerent in ecclefiaftical matters, it was ordered, that every parfon, or proprietary of any parith-church within the realm, thould provide a book of the whole Bible, both in Latin and alfo in English, and lay it in the choir, for every man that wished to look and read therein and should difccurage no man from reading any part of the Bible, either in Latin or English.' Such a permiffion could not fail of tending to produce a great revolution in the minds of our countrymen. In the year 1537, another edition of the English Bible made its appearance, which had been printed at Hamburgh, or Marpurg, by Grafton and Whitchurch. It bore the name of Thomas Matthewe, and was fet forth with the king's licence. In this edi tion great ufe was made of Tindall Ba |