We have felt it to be due to the cause of truth that the exposition here given should be put clearly upon record. It is no private and obscure enterprise that we have been describing, but (as we pointed out at the beginning) one of the most famous of the century; if misapprehensions are widely prevalent as to its character, they ought to be removed. A generation of Indian scholars is arising that have no personal knowledge of its history; it is proper that this should be told by one who has watched its whole progress, and shared the sentiments of those for whose especial benefit it claimed to be undertaken. While it was dragging slowly along, Müller was doing a large amount of real work, quite enough to make the reputation of any man. His "History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," his "Sanskrit Grammar," his "Rig-Veda Prâtiçâkhya," his "Lectures on Language," his "Lectures on Religions," his "Chips," and the other numerous fugitive writings from which the Chips are selections-these are his genuine merits; and by their value, as tested by time and competent criticism, he has the right to demand to be judged. Many, perhaps most, will think that he was far more usefully occupied with them than with the Rig-Veda; that his time was, as he himself more than once intimates, too precious to be expended in the collation of manuscripts and the reading of proof-sheets. That is a question with which we have here nothing whatever to do. What concerns us is simply his relation to the Rig-Veda When he and his friends set him up before the world in the attitude of first editor and first translator of the Veda, his mostly anticipated text in one hand and his version of twelve hymns in the other, and call on all men to admire his selfdenying devotion and his patient and persistent industry, it is high time to raise an energetic protest. Of devotion and industry in this particular direction, since the publication of his first volume, his fellow-scholars are unable to discover a trace. At least half-a-dozen men have done far more for the Rig-Veda than he has personally done; indeed, whatever may Correct reference numbers as follows: agnir mûrdhâ, viii. 44. 16; abhí tvá vṛshabká, viii. 45. 22; asya piba yasya, vi. 40. 2; upa te gå iva, x. 127. 8; jushasva saprath

i. 75. 1; parî 'me gám, x. 155. 5; yuvam surâmam, x. 131. 4; sahasraçṛngo, vii. 55. 7. Correct phrases as follows: tam sadhrîcir and pro 'grâm pîtim.

be his deserts toward Sâyana and Sâyana's commentary, he has yet to link his name with the Rig-Veda itself by any special tie which will bear testing. This connection, of course, he may yet bring about in his German retirement: withdrawn, as he himself describes it, from the distractions of his public and private duties in England, and able henceforth to devote himself directly to the furtherance of Sanskrit studies. He has had his reward. No man was ever before so lavishly paid, in money and in fame, for even the most unexceptionable performance of such a task. For personal gratitude in addition, there is not the slightest call. If Müller had never put hand to the Veda, his fellow students would have had the material they needed perhaps ten years earlier, and Vedic study would be at the present moment proportionally further advanced. They will perhaps congratulate him personally on the good thing he has made of it, and wish themselves the tithe of his fortune. But their gratitude they will reserve for the liberal patrons whose bounty made the work possible, for the scholars who contributed to it with no adequate public recognition, and for the friends who sustained the sinking resolution of the responsible editor, and by their urgency prevented his breaking off in the middle, and leaving his text, what his translation is likely ever to remain, a fragment.

* The original honorarium, of about £500 a volume, is well-nigh or quite unprecedented in the history of purely scholarly enterprises; and the grounds on which the final additional gift of £2,000 was bestowed have never been made public. Mr. J. Fergusson, in his " History of Indian and Eastern Architecture" (1876; p. 732, note 2), calls attention to the fact that, at the very time when it was bestowed, the Government were refusing an application for £200 to aid the publication of a most important series of Indian inscriptions, declaring that it could not "consent to charge the public revenues of India with the cost of such an undertaking;" and he gives expression to the dissatisfaction with which the contrast was viewed by the friends of Indian study in England.

ARTICLE X.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

EADIE'S ENGLISH BIBLE.*-Appearances warrant the belief that the English-speaking people will not soon tire of the story of the English Bible. The agencies by which it has come to be what it is are numerous, and about some of the processes there is just enough of uncertainty to stimulate investigation. Each new explorer may confidently hope to detect and refute some blunders made by those who went over the path before him, and may count himself very fortunate if he succeeds in guarding his own statements from inaccuracy.

Dr. Eadie has essayed to tell the story in his way, sparing, as he says, no pains "to present the narrative in its truth and to disentangle it from conflicting statements and traditional errors." The course of his investigations carries him back to Anglo-Saxon times and the days of Cædmon and Bede, and he follows the history down through twelve centuries to the organization of a committee of revision in 1870 under the auspices of the Convocation of Canterbury.

To the subject of a revision of the New Testament, one hundred and fifty pages are devoted, presenting a formidable array of errors which in his judgment need to be removed from the version in common use; errors growing out of imperfections in the text, inexact renderings, want of uniformity, neglect of important distinctions, inconsistencies in dealing with the Greek article, misrendering of tenses and prepositions, variations in the form of proper names, and infelicities in terms for the productions of Palestine. These defects are pointed out with great detail. How far the author's suggestions will be heeded in the revision committee of which he was a distinguished member, it is not the province of the historian to tell, but the detailed enumeration of these possible improvements of the commonly received version is a noteworthy sign of the minute and careful attention which the

*The English Bible. An external and critical history of the various English translations of Scripture, with remarks on the need of revising the English New Testament. By JOHN EADIE, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, United Presbyterian Church. In two volumes, 8vo. London: Macmillan & Co. 1876. Vol. I. xx + 440. Vol. II. xii + 504 pp.

whole subject is undoubtedly receiving from the scholars in Great Britain and America who are now enlisted in this work.

Just here, without meaning to disparage that work in any degree, we are glad to produce some striking testimony to the general accuracy and fidelity of our version in its present familiar form. In various countries of Europe, as is well known, similar revisions of standard versions are recently completed or are still in progress. At Halle a revised edition of Luther's New Testament has been published, with the formal sanction of the Eisenach Conference. The changes in orthography and grammatical forms from the standard edition of 1545, are very numerous, but the total number of passages in which the translation is amended is only 259, and it is stated on good authority* that in 221 of these cases, the effect of the emendation is to bring Luther's version into harmony with the reading of our English Bible,-a most remarkable and unlooked-for tribute to the accuracy of our translators.

Dr. Eadie goes over the historical ground very thoroughly, endeavoring "to weigh the merits of each translator or company of translators, with open impartiality." He gives four chapters to Wyckliffe, twelve to Tyndale, four to Coverdale, five to Matthew's Bible, and six to the Great Bible. In the second volume, six chapters are devoted to the Genevan version, three to the Bishops' Bible, two to the Douai version, and seven to the Authorized.

The chief merit of his work seems to us to be found in its attempt to show what influences were combined to produce each successive translation; what helps were furnished by editions of the original, or by new Continental versions, and what was the true bond of connection between these several versions for Englishspeaking people, the appearance of which, one after another, so peculiarly characterizes the century following the first publication of the Greek New Testament by Erasmus in 1516. Canon Westcott has done good service in the same direction, but Dr. Eadie's more ample pages give room for much more extended illustration.

It is somewhat refreshing to note the vigor with which he refutes the hasty and erroneous accounts of Froude, and Hallam, and other writers whose statements concerning the English Bible lack the foundation of fact.

We notice frequent carelessness in the typography of the volume, though the citations seem, as a rule, to be made with great care.

* Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1871, page 406. VOL. XXXV.

52

In the few cases, however, where the author has occasion to allude to America, he is not well informed. He speaks of an edition prepared for the American Bible Society in 1856, though evidently referring to that of 1851. He relies on Thomas' statement, now discredited, to the effect that Scriptures bearing the imprint of Mark Baskett, London, were printed in Boston in 1742 and 1752. He twice gives the name of Arthur, instead of Aitken, as the publisher of the Bible first printed without disguise in America in 1782 (which by the way was not a quarto but a 12mo), and says "this took place 162 years after the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers; and strange to say, a Genevan Bible had been already published in 1743." Very strange, if true; but it happened to be a German Bible and that was not so strange. We have no doubt that with regard to Scotland and England, Dr. Eadie was better informed.

We regret to mention that the decease of the author, whose valuable commentaries have made many familiar with his name, ended his earthly studies and labors shortly after these volumes were issued from the press.

Old Bibles.*——This little volume is attractive in its aspect, and is intended to give in a compact form some general information about the versions of Scripture which have been used by Englishmen from the earliest days. It shows some marks of care in the preparation and some marks of carelessness. Mr. Dore professes to have examined carefully every version referred to, and to have preserved the original spelling in all quotations, but his work is so full of inaccuracies and blunders as to be absolutely worthless as an authority. A single example must suffice. He says (p. 64), "The first edition of the Genevan or Breeches Bible was published by Rowland Hill at Geneva in 1560, and from that date until 1612 no year passed without one, two, or more editions, being issued from the press." The publisher's name was Rouland Hall. After the second edition, in 1561, no new one appeared till 1568. The edition of 1570 was the last on a foreign press. It was not printed in England before 1575. There seem to have been no editions published in 1584, 1604, and 1612, but the demand did not cease with the publication of the authorized version, for two editions appeared in 1613, one in 1614, two in 1615, and one in folio the following year. It will be hardly worth while for any one to look to such a writer for trustworthy information.

*Old Bibles; or, An Account of the Various Versions of the English Bible. By J. R. DORE. London: Pickering. 1876. pp. xviii, 104, 16mo.