5 SEPTEMBER 1868, Page 23

The English Bible. By a Barrister-at-Law. (Bartlett.) —The Barrister attempts

too much. His subject is the evidence relating to the history and authenticity of the Bible generally. It is impossible to compress. into a volume of a hundred and eighty pages oven the results of the con-. troversies which have been raised on these questions. His title suggests a speciality to which he might have confined himself with advantage He gives, for instance, some interesting information about the circum- stances under which our own Authorized Version was drawn up ; but he says next to nothing on a subject which, in one point of view, is of at least equal importance, the attempts at translation which wore made before Wickliffe's timo. On this he satisfies himself with a quotation from Foxe. Nor is his account of Wickliffe and his successors as full as it should be. How imperfect is his treatment of other topics may be- gathered from the faot that in speaking of the external evidence to the authenticity of the New Testament, he gives no account of what must always be the principal item in it, the quotations found in the writings of the early Christian fathers. The book, nevertheless, has a certain. value, and it is written in a sensible and moderate spirit.