day. I had instinctively moved backwards towards the door. I found myself in the open air. A bugle was playing, and the light infantry company of my own regiment was entering the village with loud shouts and huzzas.

(Asseeghur, after its surrender to the British Arms; from Memoirs of Lieut. Shipp.)-In the afternoon we went to examine the fort, and every step I took more thoroughly convinced me of the utter impossibility of any earthly power ever taking it by storm. I was obliged to halt half a dozen times in ascending, quite at my leisure, towards the grand entrance. By the time I reached the gate I was completely exhausted, and I was ten minutes in getting to the top. If we had stormed this place, it would, beyond question, have been the grave of hundreds. On the walls were huge stones, piled up for our destruction, some of them weighing two or three hundred weight, which a child might have pushed of. When once up, the eye extended along a considerable level plain, on which were fields, woods, and gardens. In the centre was a large tank of water, as clear as crystal, but purple streams of blood lingered on its margins and banks. Many dead bodies lay by the side of this tank. Some of them must have been shot in the very act of drinking. The stench was dreadful. Their sacred temple was contaminated and defiled with every kind of dirt and filth, and their gods wore marks of disfigurement from our shells. One had lost a head—but which, by the by, he could well spare, as he had a dozen. In one of the excavations of the rock was discovered a woman lying dead, with a dead infant in her arms. She was seated on a large stone, with her right side reclining on another rock or side of the excavation. Her left hand grasped the child round the body, and on her right reclined her head. The head of the infant, which I should suppose was about a year old, hung over her right knee. The woman had not a bruise about her; but it was supposed she had fled there from those destructive instruments of death, the shells. Near her lay several dead and mutilated bodies, in a state of putrefaction. She was a young woman about twenty, and well-dressed. On inquiry among the prisoners, we learned that her husband had been killed by one of our first shells, and thrown into the very hole near which she was found, but it was not known whether she had followed him there, or whether she died before him; for the soldiers were so panic-struck that they could not directly answer the most simple question. Behind the temple lay a headless trunk. We understood that this was the body of the head priest of the said temple; that he was boasting of his being proof against anything that could be hurled against him by his hated foe, and as we were informed by a surviving mendicant, scarcely had the superstitious words escaped his mouth, than he fell, a headless body, to the ground. His head, we were told, was found some yards from the spot where he lay. We immediately went in search of it, and found it eleven paces from the body, but not a human feature was left. The face was literally torn to pieces. To sketch the horrible scenes that presented themselves would fill a volume.

The large masses of congealed blood, seen at almost every step between the temple and tank, were convincing proofs that the loss of life must have been very great! but most of the dead bodies had been thrown over the walls, to find their way to the bottom of some excavated rock or tiger's den. The place altogether exhibited nothing but signs of poverty and distress, and they must have been, after the loss of the town, literally in a state of starvation. From this eminence the prospect was extensive and truly beautiful.

(Extract of a Letter from an Officer in the 16th Lancers, dated Camp near Bhurtpore, Feb. 7, 1826.)-The Jauts profess neither to give nor receive quarter, and the most horrible sight I ever saw was the following day to the storm. went round the walls, and found five or six thousand of the garrison lying dead, -the artillery-men under their guns, whichthey had never thought of quitting, and the Sepoys strewed in every direction, so as to make it difficult to pass without treading on a body. A soldier's blood by this time is as cool as your's, Jack; and you may judge of my feelings by your own, when I tell you that at each gateway there were five or six hundred carcasses lying one upon another, in all the attitudes of death you can imagine a human being to exhibit on such an occasion; and, as in sudden death the countenance retains the expression of the last moment of feeling, you might read defiance, fear, resignation, and fury, in the same assemblage of bodies. The expression of agony and pain was beyond description. These gallant soldiers wore a dress made like an English woman's warm winterpellisse of two pieces of dyed calico, and stuffed with raw cotton, and quilted; which garment was intended to serve the double purpose of warmth and armour, as a sword would not cut through it. In consequence, when our people came in close contact with them at those gateways, where the enemy could retreat no

further, their dress caught fire, and as hundreds fell one upon another, many were burnt, both of the wounded and the dead. I was so horror-struck, that I could have knelt down, resigned my commission, and have foresworn war in all its circumstances; and I am not very squeamish either, for I have seen many horrible sights in my time, but certainly none like to this.

MEMOIR OF BISHOP MILES COVERDALE.

(Continued from p. 665.)

For the Christian Observer.

WE left Miles Coverdale publishing his Bible in the year 1535. It was the first edition of the whole Bible in English ever printed. It has no name of place or printer; but it is believed to have been printed at Zurich, the types corresponding to those generally used by C. Froschover of that city.* It is dedicated to "The most victorious prince, and our most gracious sovereign Lord, king Henry the Eighth;" the translator praying that "The right and just administration of the laws that God gave unto Moses and unto Joshua; the testimony of faithfulness that God gave of David; the plenteous abundance of wisdom that God gave unto Solomon; the lucky and prosperous age, with the multiplication of seed, which God gave unto Abraham and Sarah his wife, be given unto you, most gracious Prince, with your dearest just wife, and most virtuous princess, Queen Anne;" so read some copies; others Queen " Jane." This discrepancy is the more singular, because at the end of the volume the following date is added: Printed in the year of our Lord 1535, and finished the fourth day of October;" at which period Anne (Boleyn) was queen; and Jane (Seymour) did not marry the king till May 1536. The obvious solution appears to be, as we mentioned in our notes on English Bibles in our volume for 1836, (p. 480), that the name in the dedication was originally Anne,but that after the work was finished, and before many copies had gone abroad, Coverdale altered it, in consequence of Anne Boleyn's being beheaded, and Jane Seymour's being made queen. Other hypotheses have been offered; but it seems to us very clear that it was merely a cancel after a portion of the work had been circulated. The compiler of the life of Coverdale lately published (whom we might guess to be Mr. Offor, and for whose laborious and interesting researches we again express our gratitude), says: "If we suppose, as Mr. Cotton is inclined to think, that the preliminary pieces of this Bible were printed in England, we can easily account for part having been published in Queen Anne's time, and part in James's." Yes; successive parts; but not the same part. The compiler adds: "It may seem a curious piece of negli

It has recently been suggested that the work must have been printed at Frankfort, there being extant two works printed by Egenolph of that place, the one dated in 1533, and the other in 1539, in which are found (as is stated) impressions from the identical wood-cuts which adorn Coverdale's Bible. As these blocks were at Frank

fort two years before Coverdale's Bible was printed and four years after, the presumption would be, that they were there in the intermediate time. The interval however between 1533 and 1535 would allow of their being lent to the Zurich printer; but the whole matter is conjectural.

gence not to have reprinted the last page as well as the preliminary pieces, to make them consistent the one with the other; but Prayerbooks may be seen in which King William and Queen Adelaide are printed in the proper places, and yet the date in the title page still remains of 1828." This illustration shews that Coverdale, or his printers, may have inadvertently involved themselves in an inconsistency by a partial alteration; but it is quite possible that they were aware of what they were doing, but did not consider that they ought to alter the last page, which stated a fact, to make it speak what was not a fact; for if the printing was finished in October 1535 they could not say that it was not finished till May 1536. But they might without duplicity substitute Jane for Anne in the heading of the Dedication, to adapt it to actual facts; for dedications and prefaces are usually printed after the book; and often refer to events posterior to it in date. It might be that the dedication with the prior word Anne in it was not printed, or even written, before October1535; and if in this case there would be no "curious piece of negligence,' but all would be orderly, neither would there of necessity in the inserting of the word Jane, except that six months' interval is not likely to have occurred between the text and the dedication; though the publication of a work is sometimes delayed a much longer time after the sheets are printed off.

But the matter appears to us very simple. The Dedication had originally the name of Anne, the queen consort, in it. Whether it was printed in, or before, or shortly after, October 1535, is of no consequence. But before the edition was exhausted,—it might be before many copies were issued,—Anne was beheaded, and Jane was made queen. It was not likely after this that the king would allow the name of Anne to be continued; and as the passage was a prayer, beseeching God to give the king and his consort various virtues, with prosperity, and an abundant offspring, it became inapplicable to Anne after her death, and Coverdale inserted the name of the actual queen, for whom he implored the same blessings.

We have offered these remarks in justice to Coverdale, because he has been accused of time-serving and disingenuousness in cancelling one name and inserting another. But the passage was not a dedication to the queen but to the king; he prayed for the queen as connected with the king; and when that connection was severed by death, and he could pray no longer for her, there surely could be nothing wrong in inserting the new name, just as it might be inserted in the liturgy by the cancel of a leaf, without meaning thereby to cast reflections on the dead, or to curry favour with the living.

There was a much more remarkable, and we fear a somewhat timeserving, alteration in the preface of a biblical work about the middle of the next century-we mean Brian Walton's Polyglott Bible, a publication which has reflected lasting honour upon the learned and indefatigable compiler and on his native land; being far superior to the Spanish and French Polyglotts, and à fortiori to all others. Every biblical scholar owes a huge debt of gratitude to Walton, and to those who aided his labours; chiefly Usher, Castel, Fuller, Sheldon, Ryves, Saunderson, Hammond, Fearne, Thorndike, Johnson, Drake, Whelocke, Pocock, Greaves, Smith, Seldon, Huisse, Clarke, Lightfoot, Hyde, and Loftus;-all memorable, and most of them illusrious and venerable names. The first volume was published in 1654,

the second in 1655, the third in 1656; and the fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes in 1657;-one of the most remarkable facts in the annals of editing and printing. Six such volumes in four years—not one fourth of the time of the Paris Polyglott (1628-1645). The whole, it will be seen, was finished and issued during the protectorate of Cromwell, who had encouraged the work, and allowed the importa. tion of the paper duty free. Now there is a floating story that Bishop Walton first published a flattering dedication to Cromwell, which on the accession of Charles II. he cancelled, and supplied its place by a dedication to Charles the Second. But this is not true. It is indeed true that various copies are to be found containing a dedication to the king (there are two in the British Museum, one in the Bodleian Library, and one at Lambeth); but no copy is extant with a dedication to Cromwell; so that the accusation of substituting one dedication for another is unproved, and it probably originated in another circumstance which we will now mention.

That circumstance is that in the last leaf of the preface the good bishop originally mentioned Cromwell's liberality with great respect; whereas when Charles was restored to the throne, the last two leaves of the preface were silently cancelled in the unsold copies, and their place was supplied by others, omitting the republican allusions, and the name of the Protector. The passage, as it was originally published, said, that "in the first place" ought to be commemorated (" Primo autem commemorandi," &c.) the (republican) Council which antecedently to Cromwell's Protectorate had granted the immunity from revenue duties, and Cromwell and his Council who had "benignantly confirmed and continued" the boon; whereas in the royalist copies Cromwell and the republican Councils are left out, the allusion to their liberality being thrown into a vague parenthesis, which a reader who did not know or think of the dates, would be likely enough to transfer to the king's ministers. "Inter hos effusiore bonitate labores nostros prosecuti sunt (præter eos quorum favore chartam a vectigalibus immunem habuimus) Serenissimus Princeps D. Carolus," &c. Then follows a list of those who had encouraged the work, with the Serenissimus Princeps D. Carolus" at the head, instead of the "Serenissimus D. PROTECTOR ejusque Concilium," &c. who had vanished into the indefinite " Eos quorum favore," &c. We have no wish to judge harshly; but if Walton thought it right to receive a favour from the usurper, and to record it while he was in power, there seems, to say the least, a want of dignity, if not some time-serving, in obliterating it when the exiled family returned. In another work, or another edition of this, Dr. Walton might have used his discretion; but to cancel a leaf of what had actually been published in Cromwell's time, and which expressed a fact, and to substitute another which kept it out of sight, was not a magnanimous proceeding. Coverdale's substitution of Jane was very different; he did not retract, or slur over, an expression of gratitude; he merely substituted in a prayer the name of the living instead of the dead. Walton might find that his respectful allusion to Cromwell was a bar to the sale of his work, or prejudicial to his own preferment; but he should have remembered that as he had printed the passage in Cromwell's time, when he thought himself justified in what he said, he ought not now to unprint it. If he chose to add any explanation, apology, or retractation, he should have done so openly and manfully. We believe the circum

stances were first particularly noticed about the middle of the last century, in consequence of a conversation at Cambridge between De Missy and some members of Trinity College, in which, in reply to a suggestion that, as the college had two copies of the Polyglott, it might be well to sell one of them, De Missy said that duplicates in public libraries (even of the same edition) are not always superfluities, for that they might have been purposely placed together on account of some latent difference between them. The remark led to a collation; when upon comparing the prefaces it was discovered that the one was (what is now called) a Republican and the other a Royalist copy.

Coverdale's Bible was not a version directly from the Hebrew, but as the title page expresses, was "Faithfully and truly translated out of the Dutch and Latin into English." He says in the preface that he used five different versions, and that he did not put forth his translation in contempt of other men's, but humbly following his interpreters and that he had not wrested or altered a word for the maintenance of any manner of sect, but had with a clear conscience given purely, and faithfully translated, having before his eyes only the manifest truth of Scripture.

The Dedication to the king is couched in terms of obsequious eulogy, which have been reprobated as inconsistent with the stern duties of a religious reformer; but the habits and language of the times ought to be remembered; for the English monarchy in the days of Henry VIII. was the most absolute in Europe; and the personal character of that remarkable man was so arbitrary and despotic, that no person dared to dispute his will; and Coverdale addressed him only according to accustomed forms; and whatever might be his personal character, he was powerfully aiding religious reformation, by his resistance to the usurped authority of the bishop of Rome, and was allowing the holy Scriptures now, for the first time, to be circulated in his realm in the vernacular tongue, by royal authority. Coverdale therefore addresses him as in reality a "Defender of the faith," which the pope had called him; not thinking, says Coverdale, that he would in very deed defend "the faith, yea, even the true faith of Christ, no dreams, no fables, no heresy, but the uncorrupt faith of God's holy word, which to set forth, (praised be the goodness of God, and increase your gracious purpose), your highness, with your most honourable council, applieth all his study and endeavour." The pope, whom he compares to Caiaphas, had kept, he says, the word of faith secret, "lest his own decretals and decrees, his own laws and constitutions, his own statutes and inventions, should come to none effect; lest his intolerable exactions and usurpations should lose their strength; lest it should be known what a thief and murderer he is in the cause of Christ; and how heinous a traitor he is to God and man, in the defrauding all Christian kings and princes of their due obedience, lest we, your grace's subjects should have eyes in the word of God, at the last, to spy out his crafty cunning and juggling; and lest men should see how sore he and his false apostles have deceived all Christendom, especially your noble realm of England." These are strong words; but all history attests that popery deserved them. He goes on to shew that the bishop of Rome was afraid that kings and princes should read the Scriptures, lest they should discover, CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 36.

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