Printer of the books of Common Prayer. I performed my work
in the house of my said friend, Edward Whitchurch, a man well known of
upright heart and dealing, an ancient zealous Gospeller, as plain and
true a friend as ever I knew living, and as desirous to do anything to
common good, specially to the advancement of true religion.... In the
doing hereof I did not only trust mine own wit or ability, but examined
my whole doing from sentence to sentence throughout the whole book with
conference and overlooking of such learned men, as my translation being
allowed by their judgment, I did both satisfy mine own conscience that I
had done truly, and their approving of it might be a good warrant to the
reader that nothing should herein be delivered him but sound, unmingled
and uncorrupted doctrine, even in such sort as the author himself had
first framed it. All that I wrote, the grave, learned, and virtuous man,
M. David Whitehead (whom I name with honorable remembrance) did among
others, compare with the Latin, examining every sentence throughout the
whole book. Beside all this, I privately required many, and generally
all men with whom I ever had any talk of this matter, that if they found
anything either not truly translated or not plainly Englished, they
would inform me thereof, promising either to satisfy them or to amend
it."[256] Norton's next sentence, "Since which time I have not been
advertised by any man of anything which they would require to be
altered" probably expresses the fate of most of the many requests for
criticism that accompany translations, but does not essentially modify
the impression he conveys of unusually favorable conditions for such
work. One remembers that Tyndale originally anticipated with some
confidence a residence in the Bishop of London's house while he
translated the Bible. Thomas Wilson, again, says of his translation of
some of the orations of Demosthenes that "even in these my small
travails both Cambridge and Oxford men have given me their learned
advice and in some things have set to their helping hand,"[257] and
Florio declares that it is owing to the help and encouragement of "two
supporters of knowledge and friendship," Theodore Diodati and Dr.
Gwinne, that "upheld and armed" he has "passed the pikes."[258]

The translator was also sustained by a conception of the importance of
his work, a conception sometimes exaggerated, but becoming, as the
century progressed, clearly and truly