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.'"
Abhba.
IMPOSSIBILITIES OF HISTORY.
"That unworthy hand."
I am not aware that the fact of Cranmer's holding his right hand in the flames till it was consumed has been questioned. Fox says:
"He stretched forth his right hand into the flames, and there held it so stedfast that all the people might see it burnt to a coal before his body was touched."—P. 927. ed. Milner, London, 1837, 8vo.
Or, as the passage is given in the last edition,—
"And when the wood was kindled, and the fire began to burn near him, he put his right hand into the flame, which he held so stedfast and immovable (saving that once with the same hand he wiped his face), that all men might see his hand burned before his body was touched."—Acts and Monuments, ed. 1839, vol. viii. p. 90.