The title of the Bible which was begun in Paris and finished in London is as follows:—
The Byble in Englyshe. 1539. Folio.
"The Byble in Englyshe, that is to saye the content of all the Holy
Scrypture, bothe of the Olde, and Newe Testament, truly translated
after the veryte of the Hebrue and Greke textes, by the dylygent
studye of dyuerse excellent learned men, expert in the forsayde
tongues. Printed by Rychard Grafton and Edward Whitchurche. Cum
priuilegio—solum. 1539."
This Grafton was also a voluminous author, and wrote part of Hall's Chronicles, an abridgment of the Chronicles of England, and a manual of the same.
Whether by accident or intention, a printer of the Bible in the reign of Charles I. omitted the important negative in the Seventh Commandment. He was summoned to appear before the High Commission Court, and fined three thousand pounds. The story is also told of the widow of a German printer who strongly objected to the supremacy of husbands, and desired to revise the text of the passage in the Sacred Scriptures which speaks of the subjection of wives (Genesis iii. 16). The original text is "He shall be thy lord." For Herr (lord) in the German version she substituted Narr, and made the reading, "He shall be thy fool." It is said that she paid the penalty of death for this strange assertion of "woman's rights."
We must not omit the name of another martyr amongst the honourable rank of printers of the Scriptures, Jacob van Liesvelt, who was beheaded on account of his edition of the Bible, entitled Bible en langue hollandaise (Antwerpen, 1542, in-fol.).
John Lufftius, a bookseller and printer of Würtemburg, incurred many perils when he printed Luther's German edition of the Sacred Scriptures. It is said that the Pope used to write Lufftius' name on paper once every year, and cast it into the fire, uttering terrible imprecations and dire threatenings. But the thunders of Roman pontiffs did not trouble the worthy bookseller, who laughed at their threats, and exclaimed, "I perspired so freely at Rome in the flame, that I must take a larger draught, as it is necessary to extinguish that flame."
The same fatality befell Robert Stephanus, the Parisian printer. His family name was Estienne, but, according to the fashion of the time, he used the Latin form of the word. He edited and published a version of the Sacred Scriptures, showing the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts, and adding certain notes which were founded upon the writings of François Vatable, Abbot of Bellozane, but also contained some of the scholarly reflections of the learned bookseller. On the title-page the name of the Abbot appears first, before that of Stephanus. But considerable hostility was raised against him by this and other works on the part of the doctors of the Sorbonne. He was compelled to seek safety in flight, and found a secure resting-place in Geneva. His enemies were obliged to content themselves with burning his effigy. This troubled Stephanus quite as little as the Papal censures distressed Lufftius. At the time when his effigy was being burnt, the Parisian printer was in the snowy mountains of the Auvergne, and declared that he never felt so cold in his life.
The printers seem ever to have been on the side of the Protestants. In Germany they produced all the works of the Reformation authors with great accuracy and skill, and often at their own expense; whereas the Roman Catholics could only get their books printed at great cost, and even then the printing was done carelessly and in a slovenly manner, so as to seem the production of illiterate men. And if any printer, more conscientious than the rest, did them more justice, he was jeered at in the market-places and at the fairs of Frankfort for a Papist and a slave of the priests.
This Robert Stephanus (Estienne or Stephens, as the name is usually called) was a member of one of the most illustrious families of learned printers the world has ever seen. The founder of the family was Henry Stephens, born at Paris in 1470, and the last of the race died there in 1674. Thus for nearly two centuries did they confer the greatest advantages on literature, which they enriched quite as much by their learning as by their skill. Their biographies have frequently been written; so there is no occasion to record them. This Robert Stephens, who was exiled on account of his books, was one of the most illustrious scholars of his age. He printed, edited, and published an immense number of works in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, amongst others the Biblia Latina (1528), Latinae linguae Thesaurus (1531), Dictionarium latino-gallicum (1543), Ecclesiastica Historia Eusebii, Socrates, Theodoreti (1544), Biblia Hebraica (1544 and 1546), and many others. In the Bible of 1555 he introduced the divisions of chapter and verse, which are still used. With regard to the accuracy of his proofs we are told that he was so careful as to hang them up in some place of public resort, and to invite the corrections of the learned scholars who collected there. At Geneva his printing-press continued to pour forth a large number of learned works, and after his death, one of his sons, named Charles, carried on the business.
Another son of Robert Stephens, named Henry, was one of those scholars who have ruined themselves by their love of literature, devoting their lives and their fortunes to the production of volumes on some special branch of study in which only a few learned readers are interested. Hence, while they earn the gratitude of scholars and enrich the world of literature by their knowledge, the sale of their books is limited, and they fail to enrich themselves. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae cost poor Henry Stephens ten years of labour and nearly all his fortune. This is a very valuable work, and has proved of immense service to subsequent generations of scholars. A second edition was published in London in 1815 in seven folio volumes, and recently another edition has appeared in Paris.