The Indian title-page reads as follows: WUSKU WUTTESTAMENTUM NUL-LORDUMUN JESUS CHRIST NUPPOQUOHWUSSUAENEUMUN. CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY SAMUEL GREEN AND MARMADUKE JOHNSON. MDCLXI. The translation of the Indian reads NEW HIS-TESTAMENT OUR-LORD JESUS CHRIST OUR-DELIVERER. The book in size is a small quarto of 130 printed leaves without pagination. By exact measurement the leaves are 7 inches by 5% inches, while the printed pages are 65 inches by 4ğ inches. The text is in double columns with marginal references. The Indian language from St. Matthew to Revelation covers 126 pages. Between the two title-pages there is a dedication in English to Charles the Second.1 This is found only in a limited number of copies intended for presentation. There is a diamond-shaped figure of thirty-two printers' flowers on the Indian title-page, and this familiar ornamentation is common to nearly all the Eliot Testaments. Forty copies of the New Testament with the English title-page and kingly dedication were sent to Hon. Robert Boyle, the governor of the Corporation in England. The first twenty were sent in 1661, and the remaining twenty in 1662. The first copy was presented to Charles the Second. The second was given to Lord High Chancellor Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon; the third, to Rev. Edward Reynolds, D.D., the Bishop of Norwich; the fourth, to the Rev. Joseph Caryl; the fifth, to the Rev. Richard Baxter; and the sixth and seventh, to the Vice Chancellors of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The thirteen copies that remained, and the second lot of twenty, were left to the disposal 1 Appendix A. of Mr. William Ashurst and Mr. Richard Hutchinson, officers of the English Corporation. Copies of the New Testament of 1661, solely in Indian and without the English title-page, were bound up, but the exact number is not known. The Eliot New Testament of 1661 is now an exceedingly rare book, as only nineteen copies have been located. Two copies are in the British Museum, and two in the Lenox Library, New York. Trinity College (Dublin), Glasgow University, Edinburgh University, Bodleian Library (Oxford), the British and Foreign Bible Society (London), Town Library, Leicester, Eng., Harvard University, and the Boston Athenæum, each possesses a copy. The remaining seven are in private libraries. The hopeful work accomplished among the Indians encouraged Mr. Eliot in placing the whole Bible in their hands. The printing of the Old Testament began in September, 1660, and by the same month in the following year the five books of Moses were completed. The commissioners in September, 1662, wrote to Mr. Boyle from Boston, saying, "The Bible is now about half done; and constant progress therein is made; the other half is like to be finished in a year." In 1663 the completed Bible appeared. It contains four title-pages. The first is in English and reads thus: Ordered to be printed by the Commissioners of the United Colonies in NEW-ENGLAND, At the Charge, and with the Consent of the CAMBRIDGE: Printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke Johnson. |