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Section IV. On the system of punctuation adopted in 1611, and modified in more recent Bibles.

Section V. On the orthography, grammatical peculiarities, and capital letters of the original, as compared with modern editions.

Section VI. On the references to parallel texts of Scripture which are set in the margin.

Section VII. Miscellaneous observations relating to the present edition, and general Conclusion.

To the Introduction is annexed, besides several other Appendices, a full Catalogue of the places in which the text of modern Bibles differs from that of the standard of 1611, with the dates at which the variations were severally adopted, so far as by diligent care they have been ascertained.

Section I.

On the history of the text of the Authorized Version of the English Bible, from a.d. 1611 down to the present time.

Most readers will be aware that numberless and not inconsiderable departures from the original or standard edition of the Authorized Translation as published in 1611, are to be found in the modern Bibles which issue from the press by thousands every year. Some of these differences must be imputed to oversight and negligence, from which no work of man can be entirely free; but much the greater part of them are deliberate changes, introduced silently and without authority by men whose very names are often unknown. Now, if such alterations had been made invariably for the worse, it would have been easy in future editions to recall the primitive readings, and utterly to reject the later corruptions. This, however, is far from being the case. Not a few of these variations, especially those first met with in Cambridge folio Bibles dated 1629 and 1638, which must have been superintended with much critical care, amend manifest faults of the original Translators or editors, so that it would be most injudicious to remove them from the place they have deservedly held in all our copies for the last 240 years1. A full and, it may be hoped, a fairly complete list of these changes is given in Appendix A at the end of this Introduction, to which the student is referred once for all: the attempt therein made to assign the period at which they were severally admitted into the text, although great pains have been bestowed upon the investigation, must be regarded as sometimes only approximately successful. Other copies, of an earlier date than that cited, may occasionally have anticipated it in making the given correction; but these inaccuracies will hardly affect the general results, or impair the conclusions to which they lead. One class of variations has been advisedly excluded from the Catalogue, as seeming rather curious than instructive or important; namely, that arising from errors which, having crept into editions later than that of 1611, after holding a place in a few or in many subsequent issues, have long since disappeared from the Bibles now in use. Of this kind is that notorious misprint in the Cambridge folio of 1638, once falsely imputed to ecclesiastical bias, “whom ye may appoint over this business” (“ye” for “we”) Acts vi. 3; a blemish which obstinately maintained its ground in some copies, at least as late as 16822. The several editions of the Authorized Version which have been used in the formation of our Catalogues and in our revision