THE ENGLISH BIBLE.
The first translation of any part of the Holy Scriptures into English that was committed to the press, was The New Testament, translated from the Greek, by William Tyndale, with the assistance of John Foye and William Roye, and printed first in 1526, in octavo.
Tyndale published afterwards, in 1530, a translation of the Five Books of Moses, and of Jonah, in 1531, in octavo. An English translation of the Psalter, done from the Latin of Martin Bucer, was also published at Strasburgh in 1530, by Francis Foye, octavo. And the same book together with Jeremiah, and the Song of Moses, were likewise published in 1534, in duodecimo, by George Joye, sometime fellow of Peter-House in Cambridge.
The first time the whole Bible appeared in English, was in the year 1535 in folio. The translator and publisher was Miles Coverdale, afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who revised Tyndale’s version, compared it with the original, and supplied what had been left untranslated by Tyndale. It was printed at Zurich, and dedicated to King Henry the Eighth. This was the Bible, which by Cromwell’s injunction of September, 1536, was ordered to be laid in Churches.
LUXURY OF ANCIENT ROME.
The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought overland from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube; and the Barbarians were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for so useless a commodity. Pliny has observed with some humour that even fashion had not found out the use of amber. Nero sent a Roman knight to purchase great quantities on the spot where it was produced. There was a considerable demand for Babylonian carpets and other manufactures of the East; but the most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried on with Arabia and India. Every year about the time of the summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed from Myoshormos, a port of Egypt on the Red Sea. By the periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon, was the usual limit of their navigation, and it was in those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or January; and as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels, from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far as Alexandria, it was poured without delay, into the capital of the empire. The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling; silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in value to a pound of gold; precious stones, among which the pearl claimed the first rank after the diamond: and a variety of aromatics, that were consumed in religious worship and the pomp of funerals. The labour and risk of the voyage was rewarded with almost incredible profit; but the profit was made upon Roman subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the expense of the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented with the productions and manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side of the Romans, was the principal, if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that in the pursuit of female ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed by a writer of an inquisitive, but censorious temper, at upwards of eight hundred thousand pounds sterling.[[7]]
RHYME.
Every language has powers, and graces, and music peculiar to itself; and what is becoming in one, would be ridiculous in another. Rhyme was barbarous in Latin and Greek verse, because these languages by the sonorousness of their words, by their liberty of transposition and inversion, by their fixed quantities and musical pronunciation, could carry on the melody of verse without its aid; and an attempt to construct English verses after the form of hexameters, and pentameters, and sapphics, is as barbarous among us. It is not true that rhyme is merely a monkish invention. On the contrary, it has obtained under different forms in the versification of most known nations. It is found in the ancient poetry of the northern nations of Europe; it is said to be found among the Arabs, the Persians, the Indians, and the Americans. This shews that there is something in the return of similar sounds, which is grateful to the ears of most part of mankind.
The present form of our English heroic rhyme in couplets, is a modern species of versification. The measure generally used in the days of queen Elizabeth, king James, and king Charles I. was the stanza of eight lines, such as Spenser employs, borrowed from the Italian, a measure very constrained and artificial. Waller was the first who brought couplets into vogue;[[8]] and Dryden afterwards established the usage. Waller first smoothed our verse; Dryden perfected it. Pope’s versification has a peculiar character. It is flowing and smooth in the highest degree; far more laboured and correct than that of any who went before him. He introduced one considerable change into heroic verse, by almost throwing aside the triplets, or three lines rhyming together, in which Dryden abounded. Dryden’s versification, however, has very great merit; and like all his productions, has much spirit, mixed with carelessness. If not so smooth and correct as Pope’s, it is however more varied and easy. He subjects himself less to the rule of closing the sense with the couplet; and frequently takes the liberty of making his couplets run into one another, with somewhat of the freedom of blank verse.