KING JAMES'S BIBLE.--At length, in 1603, just after the accession of James I., a conference was held at Hampton Court, which, among other tasks, undertook to consider what objections could be made to the Bishops' Bible. The result was that the king ordered a new version which should supersede all others. The number of eminent and learned divines appointed to make the translation was fifty-four; seven of these were prevented by disability of one kind or another. The remaining forty-seven were divided into six classes, and the labor was thus apportioned: ten, who sat at Westminster, translated from Genesis through Kings; eight, at Cambridge, undertook the other historical books and the Hagiographa, including the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, Esther, and a few other books; seven at Oxford, the four greater Prophets, the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the twelve minor Prophets; eight, also at Oxford, the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Revelation of St. John; seven more at Westminster, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the remaining canonical books; and five more at Cambridge, the Apocryphal books. The following was the mode of translation: Each individual in one of the classes translated himself every book confided to that class; each class then met and compared these translations, and thus completed their task. The work thus done was sent by each class to all the other classes; after this, all the classes met together, and while one read the others criticized. The translation was commenced in the year 1607, and was finished in three years. The first public issue was in 1611, when the book was dedicated to King James, and has since been known as King James's Bible. It was adopted not only in the English Church, but by all the English people, so that the other versions have fallen into entire disuse, with the exception of the Psalms, which, according to the translation of Cranmer's Bible, were placed in the Book of Common Prayer, where they have since remained, constituting the Psalter. It should be observed that the Psalter, which is taken principally from the Vulgate, is not so near the original as the Psalms in King James's version: the language is, however, more musical and better suited to chanting in the church service.