THE SIX COMPANIES 89 as the spring of 1605. Of the fifty-four who were nominated in 1604, only forty-seven are known as sharing in the work. Mr. Lively, who was reputed one of 'the best linguists in the world,' died in 1605; while Dr. Reynolds, who first suggested the enterprise at Hampton Court, died in 1607; and there may have been other changes. Documentary evidence of other helpers has also come to light in recent years. Dr. John Aglionby, Principal of St. Edmund's Hall; Dr. Leonard Hutton, Canon of Christ Church; Arthur Lake, or Lakes, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells; John Harmar; and Dr. George Ryves, Warden of New College, all seem to have shared in the great work. The work was entrusted to six companies, of which two met at each of the three centres, Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge, under the superintendence of the Dean of Westminster and the two University Hebrew professors. It was intended that the work of each of these companies should be gone over by the other five, but there is nothing to show that this was done; and in the absence of this the final revision by a small committee who met for nine months in London to prepare the book for the press was not sufficient to prevent a certain inequality in the execution of the several portions of the translations. Job and the Psalms, for example, are not so helpfully rendered as the Pentateuch. The Epistles are not so well done as the Gospels and the Acts; while the Apocrypha is the least successful part of all. It is ungrateful work, however, to try to find spots on the sun; and every page of their work calls forth the admiration of the reader. Perhaps the very perfection of their style consists in the fashion in which they make the reader forget all about style, and realize that he is hearing the Word of the Lord Himself. The first company, which consisted of ten members, met at Westminster, and was presided over by the Dean, Dr. Lancelot Andrewes, afterwards Bishop of Westminster; of whom it was said that he might have been 'interpreter-general at Babel.' Many considered him the most learned man in England. This company also included Overall, then Dean of St. Paul's, and Adrian de Savaria, by birth a Fleming and at that time Prebendary of Westminster; but best known as the bosom friend and spiritual counsellor of Richard Hooker. As Scrivener remarks, this company's share of the work-from Genesis to Second Kings-may seem an easy one; but the eminent success of the whole enterprise is largely due to the simple dignity of their style, and to the mingled prudence and boldness wherewith they so blended together the idioms of two very diverse languages, that the reader is almost tempted to believe that the genius of his native tongue must have some subtle affinity with the Hebrew. The second company, which was composed of eight members, met at Cambridge, and had from 1 Chronicles to Ecclesiastes as their share. They suffered an irreparable loss in the death of Edward Lively, who was to have presided over them, before their work was well begun. It would appear, too, that his successor as Regius Professor of Hebrew also died a year later; and their translation is usually considered to be less satisfactory than that of the other Canonical books of the Old Testament. The third company, seven in number, met at Oxford, and translated from Isaiah to the end of the Old Testament. They were presided over by the University Hebrew professor, and had also amongst them Dr. Richard Kilbye, Rector of Lincoln College, whose testimony to the anxious pains with which they did their work has been preserved by Isaac Walton. In spite of the difficulty of their task, what they did is of surpassing merit. The fourth company, which also consisted of seven members, met in Cambridge under the presidency of Dr. Duport, who was four times elected Vice-Chancellor of his University. The translation of the Apocrypha was assigned to them, and they were the first to complete their share of the work, as well as the least happy in their execution of it. The fifth company, eight in number, which met at Oxford under the presidency of Dr. Ravis, Dean of Christchurch and Vice-Chancellor of the University, had the Gospels, the Acts, and the Apocalypse as their portion; while, finally, the Epistles TIME WELL SPENT 91 were entrusted to the sixth company, which met at Westminster and was presided over by Dr. Barlow, Dean of Chester, and chronicler of the Hampton Court Conference. It had seven members. Others of the translators of whom something is known were Sir Henry Savile, Warden of Merton, then the most famous Greek scholar in England, who served on the second Oxford company; Mr. Bois, Fellow of St. John's, who with Savile is said to have represented scholarship free from any party, whether High Church or Puritan, and who was transferred to the first Cambridge company after he had finished his work on the second Cambridge company; Dr. Chaderton, Master of Emmanuel, one of the four Puritan leaders at Hampton Court, and who was grave, godly, learned, familiar ' with the Greek and Hebrew tongues, and the numerous 'writings of the Rabbis'; Andrew Downs, described as one composed of Greek and industry '; Dr. Bedwell, the greatest Arabic scholar in Europe; and Dr. Miles Smith, who is understood to have written the Preface ; and who, along with Dr. Thomas Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, whose name does not appear in any list of the six companies, made the final revision of the work, and saw it through the press. No place was found on any of the companies for Hugh Broughton, the great Hebraist, who had sketched a plan for a new version ; but his printed translations of parts of the Old Testament were not without influence on the translators. is supposed that he was excluded partly because of his violent overbearing temper, and partly because of the dislike with which both Whitgift and Bancroft regarded him; and when the Authorized Version finally appeared, he attacked it with great ferocity. It The translators were occupied for two years and nine months on their work, and never perhaps was time better spent. They left nothing undone, and spared themselves no toil in their determination to make their work as perfect as it could possibly be. They studied the original Hebrew and Greek. They had all the other modern translations before them for their guidance. They went over the commentaries of the great scholars. And then when they had discovered the exact meaning of each passage, they did everything in their power to express it in clear, vigorous, idiomatic English. Even translations which were defective in many respects were ransacked for illuminating words and expressive phrases, that nothing might be lost. Besides all this, they exercised their own independent judgment all through with singular wisdom and insight. The pervading spirit in their completed work is undoubtedly that of Tyndale, but the final outcome is their own. They wove their own original renderings so skilfully with all that was worthiest and truest in other versions, and so wonderfully conformed their English to the sense of the Hebrew and Greek, that the very idioms of the original enter into the thought and emotion of the ordinary reader. The dialect of the Authorized Version is as near men's minds as their own speech. To all intents and purposes, the result of their consecrated labours was a book which has none of the drawbacks of a translation and all the power of an original work. As they sent it forth, the Authorized Version has been a book which has interpreted every emotion and every experience; a book for the joyous and for the sad; a book for the perplexed and for those on the primrose pathway; a book which inspires to deeds of self-sacrifice and self-surrender, and gives new strength to the tempted and the tried. It has been the light and life of countless thousands. |