We have now a great many later versions, much more scholarly, so far as correct scholarship is concerned, than the King James version, but none having any claim to literary importance.

Unfortunately, exact scholars are very seldom men of literary ability; the two faculties are rarely united.

The Bible of 1870, known as the Oxford Bible, and now used in the Anglican state-church, evoked a great protest from the true men of letters, the poets and critics who had found their inspirations in the useful study of the old version.

The new version was the work of fourteen years; it was made by the united labour of the greatest scholars in the English-speaking world; and it is far the most exact translation that we have.

Nevertheless the literary quality has been injured to such an extent that no one will ever turn to the new revision for poetical study.