The Authorised Version (A.V.) of the Bible is a translation made at the beginning of James I.'s reign, after the Hampton Court Conference (Jan. 1604). It was published in 1611 with a title-page stating that it was "appointed to be read in churches." There is, however, no evidence of any formal adoption of it until the statement made in the Preface of the {41} Prayer Book (1662) that "such portions of Holy Scripture as are inserted into the Liturgy," "in the Epistles and Gospels especially, and in sundry other places . . . are now ordered to be read according to the last Translation." It is evident that this "last Translation" is the Version of 1611: for the Epistles and Gospels are quoted from it in the Prayer Book of 1662. The Translation of 1611, then, is that from which are to be taken "such portions of Holy Scripture as are inserted into the Liturgy." This appears to be the _general_ rule of the Prayer Book of 1662. But that Prayer Book gives authority to various exceptions. The most notable of these is the provision, in a footnote to _The order how the Psalter is appointed to be read_, "that the Psalter followeth the division of the Hebrews and the translation of the great English Bible, set forth and used in the time of King Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth." If it be asked why the words of the Psalms should be sung as in the Great Bible when other translations have superseded it for Lessons, there is an easy answer. Books were not cheap or common in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many people had sung them so often as to know them by heart. A comparison of the Bible and Prayer Book translations will show that there was no large gain to be set against the loss of congregational worship which must have resulted from changes. The Bishops' Bible supplanted the Great Bible in 1568, and the Authorised Version was made in 1611. Both in 1604 and in 1662 the Revisers decided to retain the Version of 1539-40 (the Great Bible) so far as the Psalms and Canticles {42} were sung in the Churches. This is plainly not an oversight in 1662, for the Revisers altered the words of the note in the Preface, without changing the sense. Psalms in Daily Services.