"Many of these copies contain sheets belonging, as may clearly be proved, to editions of more recent date; and even those which appear to be still as they were originally published, are made up partly from the edition printed at the time, and partly from the remains of earlier impressions."
Now this is a most interesting subject to all lovers of our dear old English Bible. It is supposed the translators revised their work for the 1613 edition (after two years); yet the collation with the small folio of that year, shows little or no improvement, rather the contrary. I possess a small quarto edition of 1613 (black-letter, by Barker), not mentioned by our more eminent bibliographers, which, while admitting the better corrections, adheres to the old 1611 folio, where the small folio of 1613 unnecessarily deviates. It is certainly, I consider, a most valuable impression. I have lately purchased a magnificent copy of the great folio of 1613. It is in the original thick oak binding, with huge brass clasps, corners, and bosses; and appears to have been chained to a reading-desk. In collating it, I find a sheet or two in 1 Samuel and St. Matthew most carefully supplied from an earlier impression. The titles both to the Old and New Testaments are exactly the same as those of the folio 1611, with the exception of the date 1613 for 1611. It has been gloriously used, and the imagination revels in the thought of the eyes and hearts that must have been blessed by its perusal. I am not sufficiently conversant with our earlier translations to identify, without reference, the sheets of the inserted edition, and I have not time to refer. I may only say that there is a most quaint woodcut of little David slinging a stone at the giant Goliath. A slight collation of Genesis shows me this large edition agrees in corrections with the small one the Clarendon Press authorities used, though my quarto 1613 differs, adhering, as I said before, more closely to the original standard of 1611. I would put a Query or two to your many readers.
1. Was the great folio 1613 ever published entire, or are the sheets I have indicated supplied in every known copy, some from earlier, some from later, impressions? 2. Is it an established fact, that the translators revised their work in 1613? 3. What is the small quarto of 1613 I have mentioned?
Lastly, would it not be an interesting enterprise to reprint our various translations of the holy volume in a cheap and uniform series, like the Parker Society published the Liturgy? A society might be formed by subscription to support such an object. We might have Coverdale's, Matthews', Cranmer's, Taverner's, the Geneva (1560), the Bishops' (Parker's, 1568), and the noble authorised (Royal 1611), with their variations noted. I cannot see any harm would arise; and surely it might give an impulse to that noblest of all studies, the study of God's Word. What grander volume for simplicity and elegance of language, for true Anglo-Saxon idiom, than our present venerated translation? What book that could interest more than Cranmer's Great Bible of 1539, from whence our familiar Prayer-Book version of the Psalms is taken? It would give me heartfelt pleasure to contribute my humble efforts in such a cause.
Richard Hooper, M.A.
St. Stephen's, Westminster.
MARRIAGE LICENCE OF JOHN GOWER THE POET.
The following special licence of marriage extracted from the Register of William of Wykeham, preserved in the registry at Winchester, is a curious document in itself; but if, as there is much reason for supposing, the person on whose behalf it was granted was no less a man than the illustrious poet—the "moral Gower"—the interest attached to it is very much enhanced: and for this reason I am desirous of giving it publicity through the columns of "N. & Q."—a fit place for recording such pieces of information, relating to the lives of men eminent in the annals of literature. I have not been able to find any notice of the marriage of John Gower in the books to which I have been able to refer; and, though it may be perhaps an event of little importance, it is one which a faithful biographer would never omit to mention. The document is as follows:
"Willelmus permissione divina Wyntoniensis Episcopus, dilecto in Christo filio, domino Willelmo, capellano parochiali ecclesiæ S. Mariæ Magdalenæ in Suthwerk, nostræ diocesis, salutem, gratiam, et benedictionem. Ut matrimonium inter Joannem Gower et Agnetem Groundolf dictæ ecclesiæ parochianos sine ulteriore bannorum editione, dumtamen aliud canonicum non obsistat, extra ecclesiam parochialem, in Oratorio ipsius Joannis Gower infra hospicium cum in prioratu B. Mariæ de Overee in Suthwerk prædicta situatum, solempnizare valeas licenciam tibi tenore præsentium, quatenus ad nos attinet, concedimus specialem. In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nostrum fecimus his apponi. Dat. in manerio nostro de alta clera vicesimo quinto die mensis Januarii, A.D. 1397, et nostræ consecrationis 31mo."