"introduction of slight changes has "cast a new light upon much that was "difficult and obscure, we cannot for"get how often we have failed in expressing some finer shades of mean"ing which we recognised in the "original, how often idiom has stood "in the way of a perfect rendering, "and how often the attempt to pre"serve a familiar form of words, or "even a familiar cadence, has only "added another perplexity to those "which already beset us."

A work conceived in such a spirit, and carried through with so much industry by a set of men so abundantly qualified for it both individually and collectively, is not to be disposed of in a few sentences of hasty criticism. And yet, under the shelter of St. Paul's "I must needs, though it is not expedient," it may be permitted even at this early period to offer a few remarks which, if necessarily superficial and "sporadic," are at least made in no captious vein.

A translator has two distinct duties: he has to make out the meaning of his author so as to be able, if necessary, to explain it in paraphrase or periphrasis; and he has to clothe that meaning in suitable language. The one is the province of the scholar, who must, in a case like this, be also a theologian; the other, considering the conditions under which this translation had to be made, demanded the skill of a consummate literary artist. Of the first part of the task it may be said emphatically that in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. Twenty-four men, including at least four-the Bishops of Gloucester and Bristol and of Durham, and the Deans of Westminster and Llandaff- whose previous publications show a life-long study of the subject, having at their command all the vast resources of modern learning, working in cordial co-operation, and repeatedly revising each other's suggestions, were not likely to go far astray in their corporate and collective judgment. will probably be allowed on all

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hands that in this point of view, as correcting the acknowledged errors in the Old Version, removing ambiguities, giving a meaning where there was none, and setting forth, either in text or margin, the most probable interpretation of obscure and difficult passages, the New Version deserves our cordial gratitude, and leaves in fact little, if anything, to be desired. We no longer read, in Philippians ii. 6, that Jesus "thought "it not robbery" to be equal with God, which is manifestly wrong, but that He "counted it not a prize," or, as explained in the margin, "a "thing to be grasped at." In Acts vii. 45, and Hebrews iv. 8, it is made clear that Joshua is meant, and not our Lord. In 1 Timothy vi. 5, instead of "supposing that gain is godliness," which has no meaning, we have " "posing that godliness is a way of "gain," which has a meaning exactly suited to the context. Such chapters as Romans vii., 2 Corinthians iii., may now be read with as full comprehension as we can ever hope to attain of the scope of their argument; for in St. Paul's writings there will probably always remain to us, in any translation, as to St. Peter in the original, some things not easy to be under"stood."

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But when it comes to clothing in suitable language the ascertained meaning, numbers are no longer an advantage; indeed, it may be doubted whether any composition of a high order in point of literary form was ever produced by co-operation. The Authorised Version may be cited as an example; but it does not appear that the Authorised Version was the result of any real "discussion in common"; and Mr. Froude is probably right in attributing, as he does in the passage already referred to, its peculiar grace to "the impress of the mind of one man, William Tyndale." It has always been a marvel that this charm has been so little impaired by the revisions which his work has already undergone; and it seemed more

than could be hoped that it should survive the "corporate and collective" correction of twenty-four zealous hands. And yet it will probably be admitted by every candid reader that in the New Version it has been preserved in a manner truly admirable; that in spite of all the multitudinous changes, the general character and tone and hue of the book is practically unaltered.

The real question which will be asked by all, most pressingly by those who have the greatest verbal familiarity with our present Bible, is whether all these many changes were really necessary; whether, to use the words of the first of the rules laid down for the guidance of the revisers, they have "introduced as few altera"tions as possible, consistently with "faithfulness."

There are probably few persons who will not be disposed, at least on a first perusal, to answer this question unfavourably. Take a few instances out of many thousands. If some of them are in themselves trifling, this makes them only the more to the point. The passage to which every one will turn, on first opening the book, is the Lord's Prayer. The alterations there made in consequence of change of text have been already noticed; for them the translators, as such, are hardly responsible. Two others may fairly be said to have been demanded by "faithfulness." "Have forgiven" is undoubtedly a more correct rendering than "forgive," and the substitution of "the evil one " for "evil," is at least important, and rests on substantial grounds of criticism. There is indeed nothing in the Greek to show whether the word is masculine or neuter; but in preferring that alternative which is least consonant to modern ideas, the Revisers may well have been influenced by the fact that the word here used in the Syriac Peshito, the earliest of all the versions, and therefore the most likely to represent the ideas of Apostolic times, is one which is invariably applied to a person, never to an

abstraction. But why should the familiar "lead us not into temptation" have been changed into "bring," which conveys, for all practical purposes, precisely the same idea? On the other hand it may be asked, by way of parenthesis, in connexion with the same passage, why no notice is taken either in text or margin of an alternative of some importance in the punctuation. There are those to whom both the turn of the thought and the form of the expression, especially when exhibited to the eye as in Westcott and Hort's edition, appear to demand that the words "as in heaven so on earth" should be connected with the two first petitions as well as with the third; so that the common burden and, so to speak, the point of all this first part of the prayer should be an aspiration after a heavenly life on earth; that on earth as in heaven God's name should be hallowed, His Kingdom established, His will done. With full stops after name and come this is impossible; but commas would have left the question open. Perhaps the Revisers would have objected to this, on the principle, with which no one can quarrel, of "never leaving [in the 'text] any translation or any ar"rangement of words which could 'adapt itself to one or other of two "interpretations." But the alternative might at least have been mentioned in the margin, as other variations of punctuation are.

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To return to sins of commission. Why should "Ye shall know them by their fruits," in Matthew vii. 16, have been exchanged for "By their fruits ye shall know them"? No doubt the latter is in accordance with the order of the original words; but in translation keeping the order of the original words is always a question of discretion and taste, often of ear. this case the ear of the old translators would seem to have required the one arrangement of words in the 16th verse to balance the other in the 20th. Whether they were right or

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wrong in the matter of taste, may be a question; but can it be said that "faithfulness" required that they should be corrected? In the 24th verse of the same chapter the Old Version had, "Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine: was it really necessary to alter this into "Every one therefore which heareth these words of mine"?

Instances of these trifling and apparently gratuitous alterations might be multiplied to any extent; but there is one of more interest and importance which must be separately noticed. After the Sermon on the Mount, there is probably no passage in the New Testament which SO many people know by heart as the description of charity in the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians. In the New Version they will find the familiar word gone, and "love" substituted for it. The proper translation of the word ȧyan is an old subject of dispute. Bacon, as is well known, objected to the use of the word "love" for it, as being already appropriated to ἒρως. Professor Eadie tells us that "the rendering love was adduced, in the Scottish Parliament of 1543, as an objection to the free circulation of Scripture."1 It was one of the handles for Sir T. More's coarse and bitter vituperation of Tyndale. His defence of it was that "Charity was no known English "for that sense which Agape re"quireth." Times have changed since then, and with them the sense of many a word; for words are not dead matter, but, like men, they insensibly change their character, and develop new powers according to the positions which they fill. "Charity" is not the same word as it was in 1611. During the 270 years for which it has occupied its present place in the Authorised Version, associations have grown up around it which make it, to the feeling of many, the only "known "English for that sense which Agape "requireth" in the passages in which

1 The English Bible, i. 190: a mine of information on the whole subject.

it occurs; and its suppression now in these passages cannot be accounted for except as the result of some unhappy theory of inconsistency and uniformity.

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But these and like instances are not required to show how warm is the attachment of the Revisers to uniformity. It is sufficiently declared in that part of their Preface which refers "alterations necessary by consequence," which should be studied by any one who wishes to see how they have persuaded themselves that such alterations, "though not in themselves "required by the general rule of faith"fulness," are nevertheless "not at "variance with the rule of introducing "as few changes as faithfulness would "allow." It may be doubted how far their reasoning on this point will satisfy the majority of their readers. To Englishmen in general-and it is for Englishmen that the book may be supposed to be primarily intendeduniformity for its own sake has no charm. On the contrary, they have a positive weakness for anomaly, one phase of which is that love of inequality which Mr. Gladstone recognises in them. In literary compositions certainly they like, or used to like, variety of expression, as conducing to strength and richness of style, and indirectly to fulness and freedom of thought. The idea of guarding against "unequal dealing towards a great num"ber of good English words," though it may have a comical sound when solemnly propounded by a body of grave translators, is quite in keeping with the national humour. Add to this that the ordinary Englishman, whatever may be his political creed, is, in matters of sentiment, highly conservative, and we have a twofold reason for fearing that in proportion to the degree in which uniformity has in this Revision been insisted upon at the cost of changes otherwise unnecessary, will be the length of time that must elapse before it will be taken home, if ever it is taken home, to the hearts of the people.

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In the meantime many will be watching its course with keen interest, and perhaps endeavouring to cast its horoscope. The circumstances under which it is launched on the world are in some respects very different from those of its great predecessor. the one hand the Bible of 1611 had, though in no strictly formal shape, Royal authority, whereas the New Version, as we have been warned by the Metropolitan Bishop, cannot legally be used in any church, so that it will not really be a case of what has been termed "competitive circulation." Again, the former was brought out with the declared object of putting a stop to disputes and rivalries among contending Versions; the latter comes as a Claimant, to disturb a peaceful possession of three centuries duration.

On the other hand, the very length of the reign of the present version is an argument in favour of some change; while both the lapse of time, and the great revolutions of thought and criticism in recent years, made it certain beforehand that this revision would be a greater advance on its predecessors than any one of them was on those which preceded it. At the same time the enormous number of copies of it which have gone forth to all the ends of the earth, secure for it, better than any royal proclamation, a large audience, and a fair if not a favourable hearing. By many who are not prepared to receive it as a Bible, it will be welcomed as a handyvolume commentary, giving, in convenient form, the net results of the latest criticism. It has been suggested that it should, as was the case with the Bishops' Bible, remain, so to speak, on the stocks for a few years, to receive such corrections as may appear

necessary after the searching examination to which it is sure to be submitted. And though, from the proceedings in Convocation, it would appear that the Revisers consider themselves and are considered as functi officio, the world no doubt would welcome the announcement that they were willing to remain in office until the Committee of the Whole House, to which their Bill has been referred, shall have made its report.

What will be the upshot of that Report it would be rash to predict. "Man's first word," says one of the Brothers in Guesses at Truth, “is Yes, his second No, his third and last Yes." It may be that many whose first feeling about this New Version was one of unmingled admiration of its great excellences, and delight at finding the general character of the old Bible so loyally preserved, may on closer inspection be provoked and repelled by the great amount of liberty taken with the old text in matters of detail, the multitude of alterations which will appear to them uncalled for and pedantic. And yet, in the third stage they may come to reflect that this is, after all, an offence rather against rules prescribed by the Convocation of Canterbury than against any permanent and essential canons of literary taste; that the inconvenience of these changes would not outlive a generation, while the benefit of them, if they are improvements at all, would be permanent; and their third and last judgment may be that in aiming at ultimate permanence rather than at immediate acceptance, the Revisers have shown themselves not only true to a higher ideal, but wiser, even in their generation, than either their employers or their critics.

THEODORE WALROND.

IN commencing the last of these lectures on Bonaparte I naturally look back, survey what I have done, and compare it with what at the outset I hoped and intended to do. You will remember that I began by recognising the impossibility of treating so large and full a career with any completeness, and by inquiring how it might most conveniently be divided. I determined first to lighten the ship by throwing overboard all those military details which belong less to the historian than to the professional specialist; next I pointed out that the career falls naturally into two parts which are widely different and easily separable from each other. The line of demarcation I drew at the establishment of the Hereditary Empire in 1804. On one side of this line, I remarked, you have Bonaparte, on the other side Napoleon.

The two names may be taken to represent two distinct historical developments. To study Bonaparte is in the main to study a problem of internal French history. It is to inquire how the Monarchy, which fell so disastrously in 1792, burying for a time the greatness of the Bourbon name, was revived by a young military adventurer from Corsica; and how this restored Monarchy gave domestic tranquillity and, at first, a strong sense of happiness, to the French people, and at

1 The last of a long course of lectures, printed here as containing a condensed statement of results.

No. 261.-VOL. XLIV.

the same time European ascendency to the French State. On the other hand, to study Napoleon is to study not French but European history; it is to inquire how the balance of power was overturned, how the federal system of Europe crumbled as the throne of the Bourbons had done before, how a universal Monarchy was set up, and then how it fell again by a sudden reaction. Availing myself of this distinction, I proposed to investigate the first problem only; I dismissed. Napoleon altogether, and fixed my attention on Bonaparte.

And now I find without much surprise that this problem taken alone is too much for me. I have given you not so much a history as the introduction to a history. I break off on this side even of the Revolution of Brumaire. As to the Consulate,-with its peculiar institutions, its rich legislation, and its rapid development into the Empire,-I can scarcely claim even to have introduced you to it. I say I am not surprised at this, and I shall be well content if the sixteen lectures I have delivered have thrown real light upon the large outlines of the subject, and have in any way explained a phenomenon so vast, and in the ordinary accounts so utterly romantic and inconceivable, as the Napoleonic Monarchy. For everything here has to be done almost from the beginning. In other departments the lecturer follows in the track of countless investigators who have raised and dis

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