compiled a Hebrew Lexicon. At Oxford a great number of their books fell into the hands of Roger Bacon, or were bought by his brethren the Franciscan friars of that university. THE ENGLISH BIBLE. The first translation of any part of the Holy Scriptures into English that was committed to the press, was _The New Testament_, translated from the Greek, by William Tyndale, with the assistance of John Foye and William Roye, and printed first in 1526, in octavo. Tyndale published afterwards, in 1530, a translation of the _Five Books of Moses_, and of _Jonah_, in 1531, in octavo. An English translation of the _Psalter_, done from the Latin of Martin Bucer, was also published at Strasburgh in 1530, by Francis Foye, octavo. And the same book together with _Jeremiah_, and the _Song of Moses_, were likewise published in 1534, in duodecimo, by George Joye, sometime fellow of Peter-House in Cambridge. The first time _the whole Bible_ appeared in English, was in the year 1535 in folio. The translator and publisher was Miles Coverdale, afterwards Bishop of Exeter, who revised Tyndale’s version, compared it with the original, and supplied what had been left untranslated by Tyndale. It was printed at Zurich, and dedicated to King Henry the Eighth. This was the Bible, which by Cromwell’s injunction of September, 1536, _was ordered to be laid in Churches_. LUXURY OF ANCIENT ROME. The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought overland from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube; and the Barbarians were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for so useless a commodity. Pliny has observed with some humour that even fashion had not found out the use of amber. Nero sent a Roman knight to purchase great quantities on the spot where it was produced. There was a considerable demand for Babylonian carpets and other manufactures of the East; but the most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried on with Arabia and India. Every year about the time of the summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed from Myoshormos, a port of Egypt on the Red Sea. By the periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon, was the usual limit of their navigation, and it was in those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or January; and as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels, from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far as Alexandria, it was poured without delay, into the capital of the empire. The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and