Pope Sixtus the Fifth’s Vulgate so swarmed with errors that paper had to p 136be pasted over some of the erroneous passages, and the public naturally laughed at the bull prefixed to the first volume which excommunicated any printer who altered the text.  This was all the more annoying to the Pope, as he had intended the edition to be specially free from errors, and to attain that end had seen all the proofs himself.  Some years ago a copy of this book was sold in France for 1210 francs.

The King’s Printers, Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, in the reign of Charles I. were not excommunicated, but, what perhaps they liked less, were fined Pd300 by the Court of High Commission for leaving the not out of the seventh commandment in an edition of the Bible printed in 1631.  Although this story has been frequently quoted it has been disbelieved, and the great bibliographer of Bibles, the late Mr. George Offer, asserted that he and his father searched diligently for it, and could not find it.  Now, six copies are known to exist.  The late Mr. Henry Stevens gives a most interesting account of the first discovery of the book p 137in his Recollections of Mr. James Lennox.  He writes:—­

``Mr. Lennox was so strict an observer of the Sabbath that I never knew of his writing a business letter on Sunday but once.  In 1855, while he was staying at Hotel Meurice in Paris, there occurred to me the opportunity one Saturday afternoon, June 16th, of identifying the long lost octavo Bible of 1631 with the negative omitted in the seventh commandment, and purchasing it for fifty guineas.  No other copy was then known, and the possessor required an immediate answer.  However, I raised some points of inquiry, and obtained permission to hold the little sinner and give the answer on Monday.  By that evening’s post I wrote to Mr. Lennox, and pressed for an immediate reply, suggesting that this prodigal though he returned on Sunday should be bound.  Monday brought a letter `to buy it,’ very short, but tender as a fatted calf.  On June 21st I exhibited it at a full meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, at the same time nicknaming it The Wicked Bible, a name that stuck to p 138it ever since, though six copies are now known. . . .  Lord Macaulay was present at the meeting, but did not at first credit the genuineness of the typographical error.  Lord Stanhope, however, on borrowing the volume, convinced him that it was the true wicked error.’’

Curiously enough, when Mr. Stevens took the Bible home on Saturday night he overhauled his pile of octavo Bibles, and found an imperfect duplicate of the supposed unique ``wicked’’ Bible.  When the owner came for his book on Monday morning he was shown the duplicate, and agreed, as his copy was not unique, to take Pd25 for it.  The imperfect copy was sold to the British Museum for eighteen guineas, and Mr. Winter Jones was actually so fortunate as to obtain subsequently the missing twenty-three leaves.  A third copy came into the hands of Mr. Francis Fry, of Bristol, who sold it to Dr. Bandinel for the Bodleian Library.  A fourth copy is in the Euing Library, at Glasgow; a fifth fell into the hands of Mr. Henry J. Atkinson, of Gunnersbury,in 1883; and p 139a sixth copy was picked up in Ireland by a gentleman of Coventry In 1884.