the Greek word doth signify."[184] Strype says of
Cheke in a passage chiefly concerned with Cheke's attempt at translation
of the Bible, "He brought in a _short_ and expressive way of writing
without long and intricate periods,"[185] a comment which suggests that
possibly the appreciation of conciseness embraced sentence structure as
well as phrasing. As Tyndale suggests, careful revision made for
brevity. In Laurence's scheme for correcting his part of the Bishop's
Bible was the heading "words superfluous";[186] the preface to the
Authorized Version says, "If anything be halting, or _superfluous_, or
not so agreeable to the original, the same may be corrected, and the
truth set in place."[187] As time went on, certain technical means were
employed to meet the situation. Coverdale incloses in brackets words not
in the Latin text; the Geneva translators put added words in italics;
Fulke criticizes the Rhemish translators for neglecting this
device;[188] and the matter is finally settled by its employment in the
Authorized Version. Fulke, however, irritated by what he considers a
superstitious regard for the number of words in the original on the part
of the Rhemish translators, puts the whole question on a common-sense
basis. He charges his opponents with making "many imperfect sentences
... because you will not seem to add that which in translation is no
addition, but a true translation."[189] "For to translate out of one
tongue into another," he says in another place, "is a matter of greater
difficulty than is commonly taken, I mean exactly to yield as much and
no more than the original containeth, when the words and phrases are so
different, that few are found which in all points signify the same
thing, neither more nor less, in divers tongues."[190] And again, "Must
not such particles in translation be always expressed to make the sense
plain, which in English without the particle hath no sense or
understanding. To translate precisely out of the Hebrew is not to
observe the number of words, but the perfect sense and meaning, as the
phrase of our tongue will serve to be understood."[191]

For the distinguishing characteristics of the Authorized Version, the
beauty of its rhythm, the vigor of its native Saxon vocabulary, there is
little to prepare one in the comment of its translators or their
predecessors. Apparently the faithful effort to render the original
truly resulted in a perfection of style of which the transla