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Appendix D.

Blayney’s Report to the Rev. the Vice-Chancellor, and the other Delegates of the Clarendon Press.

The Editor of the two editions of the Bible lately printed at the Clarendon Press thinks it his duty, now that he has completed the whole in a course of between three and four years close application, to make his report to the Delegates of the manner in which that work has been executed; and hopes for their approbation.

In the first place, according to the instructions he received, the folio edition of 1611, that of 1701, published under the direction of Bishop Lloyd, and two Cambridge editions of a late date, one in Quarto, the other in octavo, have been carefully collated, whereby many errors that were found in former editions have been corrected, and the text reformed to such a standard of purity, as, it is presumed, is not to be met with in any other edition hitherto extant.

The punctuation has been carefully attended to, not only with a view to preserve the true sense, but also to uniformity, as far as was possible.

Frequent recourse has been had to the Hebrew and Greek Originals; and as on other occasions, so with a special regard to the words not expressed in the Original Language, but which our Translators have thought fit to insert in Italics, in order to make out the sense after the English idiom, or to preserve the connexion. And though Dr Paris made large corrections in this particular in an edition published at Cambridge, there still remained many necessary alterations, which escaped the Doctor’s notice; in making which the Editor chose not to rely on his own judgment singly, but submitted them all to the previous examination of the Select Committee, and particularly of the Principal of Hertford College1, and Mr Professor Wheeler. A list of the above alterations was intended to have been given in to the Vice Chancellor at this time, but the Editor has not yet found time to make it completely out.

Considerable alterations have been made in the Heads or Contents prefixed to the Chapters, as will appear on inspection; and though the Editor is unwilling to enlarge upon the labour bestowed by himself in this particular, he cannot avoid taking notice of the peculiar obligations, which both him selfand the public lie under to the Principal of Hertford College, Mr Griffith of Pembroke College, Mr Wheeler, Poetry Professor2, and the late Warden of New College3, so long as he lived to bear a part in it; who with a prodigious expence of time, and inexpressible fatigue to themselves, judiciously corrected and improved the rude and imperfect Draughts of the Editor.

The running titles at the top of the columns in each page, how trifling a circumstance soever it may appear, required no small degree of thought and attention.

Many of the proper names being left untranslated, whose etymology was necessary to be known, in order to a more perfect comprehension of the allusions in the text, the translation of them, under the inspection of the above named Committee, has been for the benefit of the unlearned supplied in the margin.

Some obvious and material errors in the chronology have been considered and rectified.

The marginal references, even in Bishop Lloyd’s Bible, had in many places suffered by the inaccuracy of the Press; subsequent editions had copied those Errata, and added many others of their own; so that it became absolutely necessary to turn to and compare the several passages; which has been done in every single instance, and by this precaution several false references brought to light, which would otherwise have passed unsuspected. It has been the care of the Editor to rectify these, as far as he could, by critical conjecture, where the copies universally failed him, as they did in most