Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

51 82 XVII. SIR THOMAS MORE.wit, but onely suche as be founden faultie. Wherof manybe sette foorth with euill prologes or gloses, maliciouslye ^°made by Wickliffe and other heretikes. For no goodmanne would (I wene) be so mad to burne vp the byble,wherin they founde no faulte, nor anye lawe that letted itto be looked on & read.[(C) From the sanie ; Book III. ch. i6 ;p. 243.]Nor I neuer yet heard any reason layd, why it were notThere can be conuenient to haue the byble translated into the"i^eTybie"^^^ cngllshe tong, but al those reasons, semed theytStted i^euer so gayimo& glorious at the first sight : yet whe//er.ghshe.^^^, werc Well examined, they myght in effect, 5for ought that I can see, as wel be layde against /^e holywriters that wrote the scripture in the Hebrue tongue, andagainst the blessed euawgelistes thai wrote the scripture inGreke, and against all those in likewise that translated itoute of euery of those tonges into latine, as to their charge 10that would well & faithfully translate it oute of latine intoour englishe tong. For as for that our tong is called barbarous,is but a fantasye. For so is, as euery lerned ma;/knoweth, euery stralmge language to other. And if theywould call it barayn of wordes, there is no doubte but it is 1plenteous enough to expresse our myndes in anye thingwherof one maw hath vsed to speke with another. Nowe,as touchynge the difficultie which a translatour fyndeth inexpressing well and liuely the sente;zce of his author, whicheis hard alwa)e to doe so surely but that he shall sometime 20minyshe eyther of the sentence or of the grace that it berethin the formar tong : that poynt hath lyen in their lyght thathaue translated the scrypture alreadye, eyther out of greke