of 1763. It is signed, but not dated. The second edition is dated "Germantown, December 8th, 1763." The title-pages are the same, and a similar reduction of the type in the middle of the book. Substantially, the editions of 1763 and 1776 are one and the same.

Saur died in 1784, leaving five sons and three daughters. His business, though sadly disturbed by the war, descended to his son, Christopher Saur the third. Generations of printers sprang from this stock, and the publishing house in Philadelphia still bearing the name of Saur can point back to an honorable record extending over one hundred and fifty years. There were but three issues of the Saur Bibles, but a number of editions of the New Testament in German. These publications bear the dates of 1745, 1755, 1760, 1761, 1763, 1764, 1769, and 1775. The editions of 1761 and 1764 are extremely rare. O'Callaghan does not mention them, and evidently was not aware of their existence. The first edition of the Saur Bible -that of 1743-is a scarce book, and commands

a high price. A copy offered at the Brinley sale a few years ago brought $350. The editions of 1763 and 1776 are not considered as valuable. Nearly all the copies of the Saur Bible are owned in the United States and Germany. No library making a specialty of Americana can be considered complete without possessing this Bible, the first printed in this country in a European language.

The New Testament in German was published in several places in the United States after the Saur Bible of 1776, but no issue of the entire Bible in German was undertaken for

thirty years. Then, in 1805, Gottlob Yungmann published at Reading, Pa., a German Bible in quarto. In typography and general appearance it resembles the Saur Bible, and may be considered a continuation of it, and evidently the publisher so intended it to be. In the preface he says,

"In this part of the world, which is called the American United States, there appear once more, after a lapse of thirty years, the Holy Scriptures (which are also called the 1 Appendix F.

Bible), publicly printed in the High German language, to the honor of the descendants of the old German nation. Whether a Bible in the language mentioned will again make its appearance in these United States, is open to much and great doubt, more especially as the German language is declining in them with such extraordinary rapidity, and is suffering English, as the established and generally used, and, indeed, preferable language, to make astonishing progress. Whether this is to be ascribed more to the industrious reading of the Holy Scriptures by the English descendants in this part of the world, or to something else, whatever it may be, I will not here inquire, but recommend it to every individual German descendant himself, for investigation and alteration."

After speaking of the value of the Word of God to "apostate human creatures," he refers to Christopher Saur, and ends by quoting nearly the whole of the preface of the Saur Bible of 1776. This publication by Yungmann never reached a second edition.

THE AITKEN BIBLE.

MR. ISAIAH THOMAS, in his "History of Printing in America," when referring to the booksellers of Boston, says, 1"Kneeland and Green printed, principally for Daniel Henchman, an edition of the Bible in small 4to. This was the first Bible printed in America, in the English language. It was carried through the press as privately as possible, and has the London imprint of the copy from which it was reprinted, — yiz., ‘London: Printed by Mark Baskett, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty,' — in order to prevent a prosecution from those in England and Scotland, who published the Bible by a patent from the crown, or cum privilegio, as did the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge. When I was an ap

1 Thomas's History of Printing, vol. i., pp. 107, 108.

prentice, I often heard those who had assisted at the case and press in printing this Bible make mention of the fact. The late Governor Hancock was related to Henchman, and knew the particulars of the transaction. He possessed a copy of this impression. As it has a London imprint, at this day it can be distinguished from an English edition of the same date only by those who are acquainted with the niceties of typography. This Bible issued from the press about the time that the partnership of Kneeland and Green expired. The edition was not large; I have been informed that it did not exceed seven or eight hundred copies."

The correctness of this statement has been assailed by Mr. Bancroft, who, in his "History of the United States," 1 says that Thomas "repeats only what he heard. Himself a collector, he does not profess ever to have seen a copy of the alleged American edition of the English Bible. Search has repeatedly been made for a copy and always without success. Six or eight

1 Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. v., p. 266.