In the discharge of their responsible task the translators made use of all
the aids accessible to them for the perfecting of their work. Not only did
they bring to it a large amount of Hebrew and Greek scholarship, and the
results of their personal study of the original Scriptures, they were
careful to avail themselves also of the investigations of others who had
laboured in the same field. Translations and commentaries in the Chaldee,
Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, and Dutch
languages were laid under contribution. “Neither,” they add, “did we
disdaine to revise that which wee had done, and to bring back to the
anvill that which wee had hammered; but having and using as great helpes
as were needfull, and fearing no reproch for slownesse, nor coveting
praise for expedition, wee have at length, through the good hand of the
Lord upon us, brought the worke to that passe that you see.”
When the several companies had completed their labours there was needed
some general supervision of the work before it finally issued from the
press. There is no evidence that the six companies ever met in one body
(though possibly the two companies in each of the three centres may have
had some communication with each other); but having spent almost three
years upon the revision, “at the end whereof,” says the writer of the
life of John Bois,[55] “the whole work being finished, and three copies of
the whole Bible sent from Cambridge, Oxford, and Westminster to London, a
new choice was to be made of six in all, two out of every company,[56] to
review the whole work, and extract one copy out of all these to be
committed to the press, for the dispatch of which business Mr. Downes and
Mr. Bois were sent for up to London, where,[57] meeting their four
fellow-labourers, they went daily to Stationers’ Hall, and in
three-quarters of a year fulfilled their task, all which time they had
from the Company of Stationers thirty shillings[58] each per week duly
paid them, though they had nothing before but the self-rewarding,
ingenious industry.”[59] “Last of all Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, and
Dr. Miles Smith, again reviewed the whole work, and prefixed arguments to
the several books.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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