The Project Gutenberg eBook of "William Caxton" by E. Gordon Duff.

The Publication Committee of the Caxton Club certifies that this is one of an edition of two hundred and fifty-two copies printed on American hand-made paper, of which two hundred and forty are for sale, and three copies printed on Japanese vellum. The printing was done from type which has been distributed.

This is also one of one hundred and forty-eight copies into which has been incorporated a leaf from an imperfect copy of the first edition of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," printed by William Caxton, and formerly in Lord Ashburnham's library, having been purchased for this purpose by the Caxton Club. The copies so treated comprise the three Japanese vellum copies and one hundred and forty-five of the American hand-made paper copies; all of the latter are for sale.

E. GORDON DUFF, M. A. OXON.

SANDARS READER IN BIBLIOGRAPHY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

A life of Caxton must of necessity be little more than an account of his work. As in the case of the great inventor Gutenberg, nothing but a few documents are connected with his name. In those days of tedious communication and imperfect learning, the new art was considered as merely a means of mechanically producing manuscripts, which the general public must have looked on with apathy. By the time that its vast importance was fully perceived, the personal history of the pioneers was lost.

Caxton, however, indulged now and then in little pieces of personal expression in his prefaces, which, if they tell us little of his life, throw a certain amount of pleasant light on his character.

In the present book I have tried to avoid as far as possible the merely mechanical bibliographical detail, which has been relegated in an abridged form to an appendix, and have confined myself to a more general description of the books, especially of those not hitherto correctly or fully described.

Since William Blades compiled his great work, The Life and Typography of William Caxton , some discoveries have been made and some errors corrected, but his book must always remain the main authority on the subject, the solid foundation for the history of our first printer.

Where I have pointed out mistakes in his book or filled up omissions, it is in no spirit of fault-finding, but rather the desire of a worker in the same field to add a few stones to the great monument he has built.

Amongst those men to whom belongs the honour of having introduced the art of printing into the various countries of Europe, none holds a more marked or a more important position than William Caxton. This is not the place to discuss the vexed questions, when, where, or by whom the art was really discovered; but the general opinion may be accepted, that in Germany, before the year 1450, Gutenberg had thought out the invention of movable type and the use of the printing-press, and that before the end of the year 1454 a dated piece of printing had been issued. From town to town down the waterways of Germany the art spread, and the German printers passed from their own to other countries,—to Italy, to Switzerland, and to France; but in none of these countries did the press in any way reflect the native learning or the popular literature. Germany produced nothing but theology or law,—bibles, psalters, and works of Aquinas and Jerome, Clement or Justinian. Italy, full of zeal for the new revival of letters, would have nothing but classics; and as in Italy so in France, where the press was at work under the shadow of the University.

Fortunately for England, the German printers never reached her shores, nor had the new learning crossed the Channel when Caxton set up his press at Westminster, so that, unique amongst the nations of Europe, England's first printer was one of her own people, and the first products of her press books in her own language. Many writers, such as Gibbon and Isaac Disraeli, have seen fit to disparage the [pg 14] work of Caxton, and have levelled sneers, tinged with their typical inaccuracy, at the printer and his books. Gibbon laments that Caxton "was reduced to comply with the vicious taste of his readers; to gratify the nobles with treatises on heraldry, hawking, and the game of chess [Caxton printed neither of the first two]; and to amuse the popular credulity with romances of fabulous knights and legends of more fabulous saints." "The world," he continues, "is not indebted to England for one first edition of a classic author." Disraeli, following Gibbon, writes: "As a printer without erudition, Caxton would naturally accommodate himself to the tastes of his age, and it was therefore a consequence that no great author appears among the Caxtons." And again: "Caxton, mindful of his commercial interests and the taste of his readers, left the glory of restoring the classical writers of antiquity, which he could not read, to the learned printers of Italy."

It is idle to argue with men of this attitude of mind. Of what use would it have been to us, or profit to our printer, to reprint editions of the classics which were pouring forth from foreign presses, and even there, where most in demand, were becoming unsaleable? Those who wanted classics could easily and did easily obtain them from the foreign stationers. Caxton's work was infinitely more valuable. He printed all the English poetry of any moment then in existence. Chaucer he printed at the commencement of his career, and issued a new edition when a purer text offered itself. Lidgate and Gower soon followed. He printed the available English chronicles, those of Brut and Higden, and the great romances, such as the History of Jason and the Morte d'Arthur. While other printers employed their presses on the dead languages he worked at the living. He gave to the people the classics of their own land, and at a time when the character of our literary tongue was being [pg 15] settled did more than any other man before or since has done to establish the English language.

Caxton's personal history is unfortunately surrounded by considerable obscurity. Apart from the glimpses which we catch here and there in the curious and interesting prefaces which he added to many of the books he printed, we know scarcely anything of him. Thus the story of his life wants that variety of incident which appeals so forcibly to human sympathy and communicates to a biography its chief and deepest interest. The first fact of his life we learn from the preface of the first book he printed. "I was born and lerned myn Englissh in Kente in the Weeld where I doubte not is spoken as brode and rude Englissh as is in ony place of Englond."

This is the only reference to his birthplace, and such as it is, is remarkably vague, for the extent or limits of the Weald of Kent were never clearly defined. William Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent , writes thus of it: "For it is manifest by the auncient Saxon chronicles, by Asserus Menevensis, Henrie of Huntingdon, and almost all others of latter time, that beginning at Winchelsea in Sussex it reacheth in length a hundred and twenty miles toward the West and stretched thirty miles in breadth toward the North." The name Caxton, Cauxton, or Causton, as it is variously spelt, was not an uncommon one in England, but there was one family of that name specially connected with that part of the country who owned the manor of Caustons, near Hadlow, in the Weald of Kent. Though the property had passed into other hands before the time of the printer's birth, some families of the name remained in the neighbourhood, and one at least retained the name of the old home, for there is still in existence a will dated 1490 of John Cawston of Hadlow Hall, Essex.

The Weald was largely inhabited by the descendants of the Flemish families who had been induced by Edward III. to settle there and carry on the manufacture of cloth. Privileged by the king, the trade rapidly grew, and in the fifteenth century was one of great importance. This mixture of Flemish blood may account in certain ways for the "brode and rude Englissh," just as the Flemish trade influenced Caxton's future career.

In the prologue to Charles the Great , Caxton thanks his parents for having given him a good education, whereby he was enabled to earn an honest living, but unfortunately does not tell us where the education was obtained, though it would probably be at home, and not in London, as some have suggested. After leaving school Caxton was apprenticed to a London merchant of high position in the year 1438. This is the first actual date in his life which we possess, and one from which it is possible to arrive with some reasonable accuracy at his age.

Although then, as now, it was customary for a man to attain his majority at the age of twenty-one, there was also a rule, at any rate in the city of London, that none could attain his civic majority, or be admitted to the freedom of the city, until he had reached the age of twenty-four. The period for which a lad was bound apprentice was based on this fact, for it was always so arranged that he should issue from his apprenticeship on attaining his civic majority. The length of servitude varied from seven to fourteen years, so it is easy to calculate that the time of Caxton's birth must lie between the years 1421 and 1428. When we consider also that by 1449 he was not only out of his apprenticeship, but evidently a man of means and position, we are justified in supposing that he served the shortest time possible, and was born in 1421 or very little later.

The master to whom he was bound, Robert Large, was one of the [pg 17] most wealthy and important merchants in the city of London, and a leading member of the Mercers' Company. In 1427 he was Warden of his Company, in 1430 he was made a Sheriff of London, and in 1439-40 rose to the highest dignity in the city, and became Lord Mayor. His house, "sometime a Jew's synagogue, since a house of friars, then a nobleman's house, after that a merchant's house, wherein mayoralties have been kept, but now a wine tavern (1594)," stood at the north end of the Old Jewry. Here Caxton had plenty of company,—Robert Large and his wife, four sons, two daughters, two assistants, and eight apprentices. Only three years, however, were passed with this household, for Large did not long survive his mayoralty, dying on the 4th of April, 1441. Amongst the many bequests in his will the apprentices were not forgotten, and the youngest, William Caxton, received a legacy of twenty marks.

On the death of Robert Large, in April, 1441, Caxton was still an apprentice, and not released from his indentures. If no specific transfer to a new master had been made under the will of the old, the executors were bound to supply the apprentices with the means of continuing their service. That Caxton served his full time we know to have been the case, since he was admitted a few years later to the Livery of the Mercers' Company, but it is clear that he did not remain in England. In the prologue to the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye , written in 1471, he says: "I have contynued by the space of xxx yere for the most part in the contres of Braband, Flandres, Holand, and Zeland"; and this would infer that he finished his time of apprenticeship abroad.

About 1445 or 1446 Caxton had served his time, and he became a merchant trading on his own account, and apparently with considerable success, a result naturally to be expected from his conspicuous energy. By 1450 he was settled at Bruges, and there exists in the [pg 18] town archives the report of a lawsuit in which he was concerned in that year. Caxton and another merchant, John Selle, had become sureties for the sum of £110 owed by John Granton, a merchant of the Staple of Calais, to William Craes, another merchant. As Granton had left Bruges without paying his debt, Craes had caused the arrest of the sureties. These admitted their liability, but pleaded that Craes should wait the return of Granton, who was a very rich man, and had perhaps already repaid the debt. The verdict went against Caxton and his friend, who were compelled to give security for the sum demanded; but it was also decreed that should Granton, on his return to Bruges, be able to prove that the money had been paid before his departure, the complainant should be fined an amount double that of the sum claimed.

In 1453 Caxton paid a short visit to England in company with two fellow-traders, when all three were admitted to the Livery of the Mercers' Company.

For the next ten years we can only conjecture what Caxton's life may have been, as no authentic information has been preserved. All that can be said is, that he must have succeeded in his business and have become prosperous and influential, for when the next reference to him occurs, in the books of the Mercers' Company for 1463, he was acting as governor of that powerful corporation, the Merchant Adventurers.

This Company, which had existed from very early times, had been formed to protect the interests of merchants trading abroad, and though many guilds were represented, the Mercers were so much the most important, both in numbers and wealth, that they took the chief control, and it was in their books that the transactions of the Adventurers were entered.

In 1462 the Company obtained from Edward IV. a larger charter, [pg 19] and in it a certain William Obray was appointed "Governor of the English Merchants" at Bruges. This post, however, he did not fill for long, for in the year following we find that his duties were being performed by Caxton. Up to at least as late as May, 1469, he continued to hold this high position. His work at this period must have been most onerous, for the Duke of Burgundy set his face against the importation of foreign goods, and decreed the exclusion of all English-made cloth from his dominions. As a natural result, the Parliament of England passed an act prohibiting the sale of Flemish goods at home, so that the trade of the foreign merchants was for a time paralyzed. With the death of Philip in 1467, and the succession of his son Charles the Bold, matters were entirely changed. The marriage of Charles with the Princess Margaret, sister of Edward IV., cemented the friendship of the two countries, and friendly business relations were again established. The various negotiations entailed by these changes, in all of which Caxton must have played an important part, perhaps impaired his health, and were responsible for his complaint of a few years later, that age was daily creeping upon him and enfeebling his body.

Somewhere about 1469 Caxton's business position and manner of life appear to have undergone a considerable change, though we have now no clue as to what occasioned it. He gave up his position as Governor of the Adventurers and entered the service of the Duchess of Burgundy, but in what capacity is not known. In the greater leisure which the change afforded, he was able to pursue his literary tastes, and began the translation of the book which was destined to be the first he printed, Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes . But there is perhaps another reason which prevailed with him to alter his mode of life. He was no doubt a wealthy man and able to retire from business, and it seems fairly certain that about this time he [pg 20] married. In 1496 his daughter Elizabeth was divorced from her husband, Gerard Croppe, owing apparently to some quarrels about bequests; and assuming Caxton to have been married in 1469 the daughter would have been twenty-one at the time of his death. The rules of the various companies of merchants trading abroad were extremely strict on the subject of celibacy, a necessary result of their method of living. Each nation had its house, where its merchants lived together on an almost monastic system. Each had his own little bed-chamber in a large dormitory, but meals were all taken together in a common room.

Caxton's duties in the service of the Duchess had most probably to do with affairs of trade, in which at that time even the highest nobility often engaged. The Duchess obtained from her brother Edward IV. special privileges and exemptions in regard to her own private trading in English wool, and she would naturally require some one with competent knowledge to manage her affairs. This, with her interest in Caxton's literary work, probably determined her choice, and under her protection and patronage Caxton recommenced his work of translation. In 1471 he finished and presented to the Duchess the translation of Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes , which had been begun in Bruges in March, 1469, continued in Ghent, and ended in Cologne in September, 1471.

The completion of this manuscript was no doubt the turning-point in Caxton's career, as we may judge from his words in the epilogue to the printed book. "Thus ende I this book whyche I have translated after myn Auctor as nyghe as god hath gyven me connyng to whom be gyven the laude and preysyng. And for as moche as in the wrytyng of the same my penne is worn, myn hande wery and not stedfast, myn eyen dimmed with overmoche lokyng on the whit paper, and my corage not so prone and redy to laboure [pg 21] as hit hath ben, and that age crepeth on me dayly and febleth all the bodye, and also because I have promysid to dyverce gentilmen and to my frendes to addresse to hem as hastely as I myght this sayd book. Therefore I have practysed and lerned at my grete charge and dispense to ordeyne this said booke in prynte after the maner and forme as ye may here see. And it is not wreton with penne and ynke as other bokes ben to thende that every man may have them attones. For all the bookes of this storye named the recule of the historyes of troyes thus enprynted as ye here see were begonne in oon day, and also fynysshed in oon day."

The trouble of multiplying copies with a pen was too great to be undertaken, and the aid of the new art was called in. Caxton ceased to be a scribe and became a printer.

In what city and from what printer Caxton received his earliest training in the art of printing has been a much debated question amongst bibliographers. The only direct assertion on the point is to be found in the lines which form part of the prologue written by Wynkyn de Worde, and added to the translation of the De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, issued about 1495.

As Wynkyn de Worde was for long associated with Caxton in business and became after his death his successor, it seems impossible to put aside his very plain statement as entirely inaccurate. William Blades, in his Life of Caxton , utterly denies the whole story. "Are we to understand," he writes, "that the editio princeps of Bartholomaeus proceeded from Caxton's press, or that he only printed the first Cologne edition? that he issued a translation of his own, which is the only way in which the production of the work could advance him in the Latin tongue? or that he printed in Latin to advance his own interests? The last seems the most probable reading. But though the words will bear many constructions, they are evidently intended to mean that Caxton printed Bartholomaeus at Cologne. Now, this seems to be merely a careless statement of Wynkyn de Worde; for if Caxton did really print Bartholomaeus in that city, it must have been with his own types and presses, as the workmanship of his early volumes proves that he had no connexion with the Cologne printers, whose practices were entirely different."

The meaning which Mr. Blades has read into the lines seems hardly a reasonable one. Surely, the expression "hymself to avaunce" cannot apply to the advancement of his own interests, but rather to knowledge; nor can we imagine a sensible person who wished to learn Latin entering a printing-office for that purpose. It must rather apply to the printing itself, and point to the fact that when at Cologne he printed or assisted to print an edition of the Bartholomaeus in Latin in order to learn the practical details of the art.

It must also be borne in mind that in 1471, when Caxton paid his visit to Cologne, printing had been introduced into few towns. Printed books were spread far and wide, and some of Schoeffer's editions have inscriptions showing that they had been bought at an early date, within a year of their issue, at Bruges; but Cologne was the nearest town where the press was actually at work, and where already a number of printers were settled.

Blades adds as another argument the fact that no edition of a Bartholomaeus has been found printed in Caxton's type, but when starting as a mere learner in another person's office he could hardly be expected to have type of his own. But there is an edition of the Bartholomaeus , which, though without date or name of place or printer, was certainly printed at Cologne about the time of Caxton's visit. It is a large folio of 248 leaves, with two columns to the page and 55 lines to a column. It is described by Dibdin in his Bibliotheca Spenceriana (Vol. III., p. 180), though with his usual inaccuracy he gives the number of leaves as 238. There is little doubt that the words of Wynkyn de Worde refer to this edition.

Cologne, as might be expected from its advantageous position on the Rhine, was one of the earliest towns to which the art of printing spread from Mainz. Ulric Zel, its first printer, was settled there some time before 1466, when he issued his first dated book, and by 1470 several others were at work. The study of early Cologne printing is extremely complex, for the majority of books which were produced there contain no indication of printer, place of printing, or date. Some printers issued many volumes, and their names are still unknown, so that they can only be referred to under the name of some special book which they printed; as, the "Printer of Dictys ," the "Printer of Dares ," and so on.

M. Madden, the French writer on early printing, who had a genius for obtaining from plausible premisses the most utterly preposterous conclusions, was possessed with the idea that the monastery of Weidenbach, near Cologne, was a vast school of typography, where printers of all nations and tongues learned their art. He ends up his article on Caxton, as he ended up those on other early printers, "Je finis cette lettre en vous promettant de revenir, tôt ou tard, s'il plaît à Dieu, sur William Caxton se faisant initier à la typographie, non pas à Bruges, par Colard Mansion, comme le veut M. W. Blades, mais à Weidenbach , par les frères de la vie commune."

As we know from Caxton's own statements, he had when at Cologne considerable leisure, which was partly employed in writing out his translation of Le Recueil , and like all literary persons, must have felt great interest in the new art. It was no longer a secret one, and there would be little difficulty for a rich and important man like Caxton to obtain access to a printing-office, where he might learn the practical working and master the necessary details.

The mechanical part of the work was not at that time a complicated [pg 25] process, and would certainly not have taken long to master. Caxton no doubt learned from observation the method of cutting and the mechanism of casting type, and by a little practical work the setting up of type, the inking, and the pulling off the impression.

At the close of 1471 Caxton returned to Bruges, and presented to the Duchess of Burgundy the manuscript of the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye , which he had finished while at Cologne. This work, which had been undertaken at the request of the Duchess, proved to be exceedingly popular at the court. Caxton was importuned to set to work on other copies for rich noblemen. The length of time which the production of these copies would take reminded him of the excellent invention which he had seen at work at Cologne, that art of writing by mechanical means, "ars artificialiter scribendi," as the earliest printers called it, by which numerous copies could be produced at one and the same time.

Mr. Blades, in common with almost every writer, assumes that printing was introduced into Bruges at a very much earlier date than there is any warrant for supposing. He speaks of Colard Mansion as having "established a press shortly after 1470 at Bruges." Other writers put back the date as much as three years earlier, confusing, as is often the case, the date of the writing of a book with the date of its printing. Colard Mansion's name does not occur in a dated colophon before 1476, in his edition of the French translation of a work of Boccaccio, and we have no reason to suppose that he began to work more than two years at the outside before this date. In the guild-books at Bruges he is entered as a writer and illuminator of manuscripts from 1454 to 1473, so that we are certainly justified in considering that he did not commence to print until after the latter date. Other writers have brought forward a mysterious and little known printer, Jean Brito, as [pg 26] having not only introduced the art into Bruges, but as being the inventor of printing. An ambiguous statement in one of his imprints, where he says that he learned to print by himself with no one to teach him, refers more probably to some method of casting type, and not to an independent discovery, and his method of work and other details point almost certainly to a date about 1480. Some of his type is interesting as being almost identical with a fount used a few years later in London.

Now, there is one very important point in this controversy which appears to have been quite overlooked. Caxton, we may suppose, learned the art of printing about 1471 at Cologne, the nearest place to Bruges where the printing-press was then at work. But, say the opponents of this theory, his type bears no resemblance to Cologne type, so that the theory is absurd. It must, however, be remembered that in the interval between Caxton's learning the art and beginning to practice it printers had begun to work in Utrecht, Alost, and Louvain. If he required any practical assistance in the cutting or casting of type or the preparation of a press, he would naturally turn to the printers nearest to him,—Thierry Martens, with John of Westphalia at Alost, or to John Veldener or John of Westphalia (who had moved from Alost in 1474) at Louvain.

Caxton's preparations for setting up a printing-press on his own account were most probably made in 1474. His assistant or partner, Colard Mansion, by profession a writer and illuminator of manuscripts, is entered as such in the books of the Guild of St. John from 1454 to 1473, when his connexion with the guild ceases. This may point to two things: he had either left Bruges, perhaps in search of printing material, or had changed his profession; and the former seems the most probable explanation.

If Caxton was assisted by any outside printer in the preparation [pg 27] of his type, there can be little doubt that that printer was John Veldener of Louvain. Veldener was matriculated at Louvain in the faculty of medicine, July 30, 1473. In August, 1474, in an edition of the Consolatio peccatorum of Jacobus de Theramo, printed by him, there is a prefatory letter addressed "Johanni Veldener, artis impressoriae magistro," showing that he was by that time a printer. He was also, as he himself tells us, a type-founder, and in 1475 he made use of a type in many respects identical with one used by Caxton.

In body they are precisely the same, and in most of the letters they are to all appearance identical; and the fact of their making their appearance about the same time in the Lectura super institutionibus of Angelus de Aretio, printed at Louvain by Veldener, and in the Quatre derrenieres choses , printed at Bruges by Caxton, would certainly appear to point to some connexion between the two printers.

Furnished with a press and two founts of type, both of the West Flanders kind and cut in imitation of the ordinary book-hand, William Caxton and Colard Mansion started on their career as printers.

Unlike all other early printers, Caxton looked to his own country and his own language for a model, and although in a foreign country, issued as his first work the first printed book in the English language. Other countries had been content to be ruled by the new laws forced upon them by the revival of learning. Caxton then, as through his life, spent his best energies in the service of our English tongue. The Recuyell of the Hystoryes of Troye , a translation by Caxton from the French of Raoul Le Fevre, who in his turn had adapted it from earlier writers on the Trojan war, was the first book to be issued.

The prologue to the first part and the epilogues to the second and third contain a few interesting details of Caxton's life. That to the third contains some remarks about the printing. "Therefore I have practysed and lerned at my grete charge and dispense to ordeyne this said booke in prynte after the maner and forme as ye may here see, and it is not wreton with penne and ynke as other bokes ben to thende that every man may have them attones. For all the bookes of this storye named the recule of the historyes of troyes thus enprynted as ye here see were begonne in oon day, and also fynysshed in oon day."

The wording of this sentence, which is perhaps slightly ambiguous, has caused several writers to fall into a curious error in supposing that Caxton meant to assert that the printed books were begun and finished in one day. His real meaning, of course, was, that while in written books the whole of a volume was finished before another was begun, in printed books the beginnings of all the copies of which the edition was to consist were printed off in one day, so also the last sheet of all the copies would be printed off in one day, and the whole edition finished simultaneously.

The Recuyell is a small folio of 352 leaves, the first being blank, and each page contains 31 lines, spaced out in a very uneven manner. The second leaf, on which the book begins, contains Caxton's prologue, printed in red ink. The book is without signatures, headlines, numbers to the pages, or catchwords.

Although a considerable number of copies—some twenty in all—are still in existence, almost every one is imperfect. The very interesting copy bought by the Duke of Devonshire at the Roxburghe sale in 1812 for £1,060 10 s. which had at one time belonged to Elizabeth, wife of Edward IV., wanted the last leaf; Lord Spencer's wanted the introduction. Blades, it should be noticed, in his lists of existing copies of Caxton's books, uses the word "perfect" in a misleading way, often taking no notice of the blank leaves being missing, which are essential to a perfect copy, and often also omitting to distinguish between a made-up copy and one in genuine original condition.

The finest copy is probably that formerly in the library of the Earl of Jersey, which was sold in 1885. It was described as perfect, and possessed the blank leaf at the beginning. Valued in 1756, when Bryan Fairfax's library was bought by Lord Jersey's ancestor, Mr. Child, at £8 8 s. , it produced the high price of £1,820.

The next book to appear from the Bruges press was the Game and playe of the Chess , "In which I fynde," as Caxton says in his prologue, "thauctorites, dictees, and stories of auncient doctours philosophres poetes and of other wyse men whiche been recounted and applied unto the moralite of the publique wele as well of the nobles as of the comyn peple after the game and playe of the chesse."

The original of the work was the Liber de ludo scacchorum of Jacobus de Cessolis, which had been translated into French by Jean Faron and Jean de Vignay, both belonging to the order of preaching friars, but who worked quite independently of each other. Caxton appears to have made use of both versions, part of his book being translated from one and part from the other.

It is a considerably shorter book than the Recuyell , containing only 74 leaves, of which the first and last were blank. Like the last, it is a folio, with 31 lines to the page. It is not a very scarce book, as about twelve copies are known, but of these almost every one is imperfect. The best copy known is probably that belonging to Colonel Holford, of Dorchester House, which still remains in its old binding, and another beautiful copy was obtained [pg 30] by Lord Spencer from the library of Lincoln Minster, the source of many rarities in the Spencer collection. The story has often been told how Dibdin, the well-known writer of romantic bibliography, persuaded the lax Dean and Chapter of Lincoln to part with their Caxtons to Lord Spencer. We must, however, give even Dibdin his due, and point out that he was quite ignorant of the transaction, which was carried out by Edwards, the bookseller. The letter from Lord Spencer to Dibdin is still in existence, in which he describes the new Caxtons he had acquired, carefully omitting to say through whom or from what source. This, however, Dibdin found out for himself some time after, and raided Lincoln on his own account. He issued a small catalogue of his purchases, under the title of A Lincoln Nosegay , and a few were bought by Lord Spencer, the remainder finding their way into the libraries of Heber and other collectors.

The last book printed by Caxton and Mansion in partnership at Bruges was the Quatre derrenieres choses , a treatise on the four last things, Death and Judgment, Heaven and Hell, commonly known under the Latin titles of De quattuor novissimis or Memorare novissima , and later issued in English by Caxton as the Cordyale .

In this book first appears Caxton's type No. 2, which bears so strong a resemblance to the fount used by Veldener. The book is a folio of 74 leaves (not 72, as stated by Blades), and has 28 lines to the page. There is a certain amount of printing in red, which was produced in a peculiar way. It was not done by a separate pull of the press, as was the general custom, but the whole page having been set up and inked, the ink was wiped off from the portions to be printed in red, and the red colour applied to them by hand, and the whole printed at one pull.

For long but one copy of this book was known, preserved in the [pg 31] British Museum, and bound up with a copy of the Meditacions sur les sept pseaulmes , to be described shortly. Some years ago, however, another copy wanting two leaves was found, and it is now in a private collection in America.

This was the last book printed abroad with which Caxton had any connexion, and the new type used in it was no doubt specially prepared for him to carry to England. It contained far more distinct types than the first, which had 163, for it began with 217, which were increased on recasting to at least 254.

Supplied with new type and other printing material, Caxton made his preparations to return to his own country. The exact date cannot now be determined, but it was probably early in the year 1476. It is curious that just about this time one of the Cologne presses issued the first edition of the Breviary for the use of the church of Salisbury, the use adopted by all the south of England, and it may be that Caxton, who had had dealings with the Cologne printers, may have been connected in some way with its production and publication in England.

After Caxton had left Bruges his former partner, Colard Mansion, continued to print by himself. In Caxton's first type, which had been left behind at Bruges, he printed three books, Le Recueil des histoires de Troyes , Les fais et prouesses du chevalier Jason , and the Meditacions sur les sept pseaulmes . All three are in folio, with 31 lines to the page. As they are often confused by writers with books really printed by Caxton, and as they are produced from type which was at one time in his possession, they may perhaps merit a short description.

The Recueil contains 286 leaves, of which two are blank. Six copies are known, of which by far the finest was sold at the Watson Taylor sale in 1823 to Lord Spencer. It was then in its original [pg 32] binding and uncut, but Lord Spencer, who, like most collectors of his day, despised old bindings, had it rebound in morocco, and the edges trimmed and gilt. Another very fine copy, probably "conveyed" from some continental library, was purchased from M. Libri by the British Museum in 1844.

The Jason contains 134 leaves, of which the first and last two are blank. A magnificent copy, the only one in England, is in the library of Eton College, and there are two other copies, slightly imperfect, at Paris.

Of the third book, the Meditacions sur les sept pseaulmes , only one copy is known to exist. It is in the British Museum, bound up with a copy of the Quatre derrenieres choses , and is quite perfect. It contains 34 leaves, the last being blank.

Mansion continued for some time onwards to print at Bruges in the workshop which perhaps he had shared with Caxton, over the church porch of St. Donatus, but later in life seems to have been unsuccessful and fallen on evil times. The books which he then printed with such little success are now by the chance of fate the most sought for and valuable amongst the productions of the early continental press.

In 1476 Caxton returned to England and took up his residence in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, at a house with the sign of the "Red Pale" in the "almonesrye." This locality is thus described by Stow: "Now will I speake of the gate-house, and of Totehill streete, stretching from the west part of the close.... The gate towards the west is a Gaile for offenders.... On the South-side of this gate, King Henry the 7. founded an almeshouse.... Near unto this house westward was an old chappel of S. Anne, over against the which, the Lady Margaret, mother to King Henry the 7. erected an Almeshouse for poore women ... the place wherein this chappell and Almeshouse standeth was called the Elemosinary or Almory, now corruptly the Ambry, for that the Almes of the Abbey were there distributed to the poore."

In the account roll of John Estenay, sacrist of Westminster from September 29, 1476, to September 29, 1477, we find, under the heading "Firme terrarum infra Sanctuarium," the entry "De alia shopa ibidem dimissa Willelmo Caxton, per annum X ^s ." Another account-book, still preserved at Westminster, shows that in 1483 Caxton paid for two shops or houses, and in 1484 besides these for a loft over the gateway of the Almonry, described in 1486 as the room over the road (Camera supra viam), and in 1488 as the room over the road at the entrance to the Almonry (Camera supra viam eundo ad Elemosinariam). This latter was perhaps rented as a place to store the unsold portion of his stock.

The neighbourhood of the Abbey seems to have been a place much favoured by merchants of the Staple and dealers in wool, and this may have had something to do with Caxton's choice. He always continued to be a member of the Mercers' Company, and many of his fellow-members must have formed his acquaintance, or learned to esteem him, while he held his honourable and responsible post of Governor of the English nation in the Low Countries. Like himself, many were members of the Fraternity of our Blessed Lady Assumption and benefactors to the church of St. Margaret. The abbots of Westminster themselves were in the wool trade, and according to Stow had six wool-houses in the Staple granted them by King Henry VI. Some such special causes, or perhaps certain privileges obtained from Margaret, Henry VII.'s mother, who was one of the printer's patrons, must have made Caxton fix his choice on Westminster rather than on London, the great centre for all merchants, and which might have been supposed more suitable for a printer.

The first book with a date issued in England was the Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres , which was finished on the 18th of November, 1477. That Caxton should have allowed more than a year to elapse before issuing any work from his press seems improbable, especially considering the untiring energy with which he worked. On this point a curious piece of evidence is to be found in the prologue to the edition of King Apolyn of Tyre , printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1510. Robert Copland, an assistant of De Worde and the translator of the book, says: "My worshipful master Wynken de Worde, having a little book of an ancient history of a kyng, sometyme reigning in the countree of Thyre called Appolyn, concernynge his malfortunes and peryllous adventures right espouventables, bryefly compyled and pyteous for to here, the which boke [pg 35] I Robert Coplande have me applyed for to translate out of the Frensshe language into our maternal Englysshe tongue at the exhortacion of my forsayd mayster, accordynge dyrectly to myn auctor, gladly followynge the trace of my mayster Caxton, begynnynge with small storyes and pamfletes and so to other."

Now, taking all the books printed by Caxton before the end of the year 1478, in number twenty-one, and considering that the first dated book was not issued until almost the end of 1477, and that Caxton had then presumably been in England for over a year, there does seem some reasonable ground for believing the statement of Copland, especially as there are amongst these early books a number which exactly answer to the description of "small storyes and pamfletes."

An exactly analogous case occurs in regard to the introduction of printing into Scotland. The first printer, Andrew Myllar, while preparing for the publication of the Aberdeen Breviary, which was issued at Edinburgh in 1509-10, published in 1508 a series of small pamphlets, consisting of stories and poems by Dunbar, Chaucer, and others. As might naturally be expected, such small books were especially liable to destruction, both on account of their size and the popularity of their subjects. It is not surprising to find that the majority have been preserved to us in single copies only. All the ten Edinburgh books are unique, and almost all the early Caxton quartos, so that it is impossible under these conditions to estimate what the output of Caxton's first year's working may have been. In writing of these earliest books, it will be perhaps best to take the folios first, and then the numerous small works, since, as they all agree so exactly as regards printing, they cannot be arranged in any definite order.

The first of the folios issued was most probably the History of [pg 36] Jason , translated by Caxton himself from the French version of Raoul Le Fevre immediately after he had finished those of the Recueil and the Game of Chess . The translation was undertaken under the patronage of Edward IV., with a view to the presentation of the book when finished to the ill-fated Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward V., "to thentent he may begynne to lerne rede Englissh." The book has every appearance of having been one of the very earliest issues of the Westminster press, and at the end of 1476 or beginning of 1477 the young prince would have been about four years old, a very suitable age to begin his education.

The book contains 150 leaves, of which the first and last are blank, and a full page has 29 lines. Like all early Caxtons, it has no signatures, which were not introduced until 1480; no headlines, which were rarely used; no numbers to the pages, which occur still more rarely; and no catch-words, which were never used at all.

As in all other early printed books, spaces were left for the insertion of illuminated initials at the beginnings of the chapters. Now, while in contemporary French, Italian, and Low Country books such spaces were often filled with the most gracefully designed and beautifully illuminated initials, rich in scrollwork and foliage, and ornamented with coats of arms or miniatures, there is not, so far as I know, any early English book in existence containing any attempt at such decoration. As a rule, the spaces were left blank as they came from the printer. In some cases, where the paragraph marks have been filled in by the rubricator, he has roughly daubed in the initial with his brush, making no attempt at ornament, or even neatness in the letter itself.

Seven copies of the Jason are still extant, the majority imperfect. By far the finest copy known was that sold at the Ashburnham sale in 1897, and which is now in a private collection in America. It is in the original leather binding as it issued from Caxton's workshop, and is quite uncut. This copy has generally been considered the finest Caxton in existence, and its various changes of ownership can be traced back for over two hundred years.

The great admiration which Caxton had for the work of Chaucer would no doubt make him anxious to issue it from his press as soon as possible, and we may therefore ascribe to an early date the publication of the Canterbury Tales and the translation of Boethius . The Canterbury Tales is a small folio of 374 leaves, with 29 lines to the page, and so rare that it is believed that no genuine perfect copy is in existence. Blades, in his account of the book, censures Dibdin for describing the copy at Merton College, Oxford, as imperfect, which, however, in Dibdin's time it certainly was, though through the kindness of Lord Spencer the missing leaves were afterwards supplied. One other copy, complete as regards text, is in the British Museum, having formed part of the library of George III. The Boethius contains 94 leaves, and is a much more common book. One copy is worthy of special mention, as it was the means of bringing to light the existence of three books printed by Caxton which up to that time were unknown. It was found by Mr. Blades in the old grammar-school library at St. Alban's, and he has left us an interesting account of its discovery. "After examining a few interesting books, I pulled out one which was lying flat upon the top of others. It was in a most deplorable state, covered thickly with a damp, sticky dust, and with a considerable portion of the back rotted away by wet. The white decay fell in lumps on the floor as the unappreciated volume was opened. [pg 38] It proved to be Geoffrey Chaucer's English translation of Boecius de Consolatione Philosophiae , printed by Caxton, in the original binding, as issued from Caxton's workshop, and uncut!" "On dissecting the covers they were found to be composed entirely of waste sheets from Caxton's press, two or three being printed on one side only. The two covers yielded no less than fifty-six half-sheets of printed paper, proving the existence of three works from Caxton's press quite unknown before." These fragments came from thirteen different books, and though other examples of one of the unknown works have been found, two, the Sarum Horae and Sarum Pica , are still known from these fragments only.

The Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres , though most probably by no means the first book printed in England, must still hold the important position of being the first with a definite date, November 18, 1477. The book was translated from the French by Lord Rivers, who had borrowed the original while on a voyage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella from a fellow-traveller, the famous knight Lewis de Bretaylles. Having finished his translation, he handed it to Caxton to "oversee" and to print, and the printer himself added a chapter "touchyng women." To this a quaint introduction is prefixed, in which it is pointed out that the gallant Earl had omitted the chapter, perhaps at request of some fair lady, "or ellys for the very affeccyon, love and good wylle that he hath unto alle ladyes and gentyl women." "But," continues Caxton, "for as moche as I am not in certeyn wheder it was in my lordis copye or not, or ellis peradventure that the wynde had blowe over the leef at the tyme of translacion of his booke, I purpose to wryte tho same saynges of that Greke Socrates, whiche wrote of tho women of grece and nothyng of them of this Royame, whom I suppose he never knewe."

It is curious that with one exception no copy of this first edition has a colophon. The copy in which it occurs was in Lord Spencer's library and is now at Manchester, but beyond this small addition, it varies in no way from the other copies. All the examples of the second edition, which was issued a few years later, contain a reprint of this colophon.

The Dictes when perfect contained 78 leaves (not, as stated by Blades, 76), of which the first and last two are blank, and though more than a dozen copies of the book are known, not one is quite perfect. In the library of Lambeth Palace is a manuscript of this work on vellum, copied from Caxton's edition, and dated December 29, 1477. It contains one poor illumination showing Earl Rivers presenting the copy to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward V. By the side of the Earl is an ecclesiastic, probably "Haywarde," the writer of the manuscript, and this figure has by some been considered, quite erroneously, to be intended for a portrait of Caxton.

The Dictes or Sayengis was followed shortly by another dated folio, the Morale Proverbes of Cristyne , issued on the 20th of February, 1478. It contains only four printed leaves, and three copies are known. The two verses added at the end of the book tell us of the author, translator, and printer, and are interesting as being the earliest printed specimen of Caxton's poetical attempts.

"Of these sayynges Cristyne was aucteuresse

Whiche in makyng hadde suche Intelligence

That thereof she was mireur and maistresse

Hire werkes testifie thexperience

In frenssh languaige was writen this sentence

And thus Englished dooth hit rehers

Antoin Widevylle therl Ryvers.

[pg 40]

"Go thou litil quayer and recommaund me

Unto the good grace of my special lorde

Therle Ryveris, for I have enprinted the

At his commandement, followyng eury worde

His copye, as his secretaire can recorde

At Westmestre, of feuerer the xx daye

And of kynd Edward the xvjj yere vraye."

The author, Christine de Pisan, wife of Étienne Castel, was one of the most famous women of the middle ages. Left early a widow, with but narrow means, she had three children and her own parents to provide for. Being a woman of high attainments and considerable learning, she took up the profession of literature, and for many years worked incessantly. Les proverbes moraulx was written as a supplement to Les enseignemens moraulx , an instructive work addressed to her young son, Jean Castel, who was for some time in England in the service of the Earl of Salisbury.

Another point to be noticed about this book is the date, which here, fortunately, is quite clear. Among the early printers there is very considerable variation as to the day on which the new year began. Putting on one side the foreign and considering only the English printers, the dates narrow themselves to two, January 1st and March 25th, so that any date falling between these two may be in two different years, according to the habit of the printer. For instance, March 1, 1470, will really mean 1470 if the printer began his year on January 1st. If, on the other hand, he did not begin it until March 25th, the real date will be 1471.

Fortunately, Caxton frequently added to his dates the regnal year, which gives at once a definite solution. For instance, his edition of the Cordyale was begun the day after Lord Rivers handed him the manuscript, on February 3, 1478, and finished on March [pg 41] 24th following, in the nineteenth year of Edward IV. Now, the nineteenth year of Edward IV. ran from March 4, 1479, to March 3, 1480, so that Caxton's 1478 was really 1479, and his custom was, therefore, to begin his years on the 25th of March.

As has been said earlier, it is probable that Caxton began his printing in England with small pamphlets, and of these a considerable number have come down to our time, but as the majority are unique, it is impossible to conjecture how many may have utterly perished. The most considerable collection is in the University Library, Cambridge, which owns a series, originally bound in one volume, which was in the collection of Bishop Moore presented to the University in 1715 by George the First. This library was peculiarly rich in early English books; indeed, the great majority of those now at Cambridge formed part of it, and their acquisition was mainly due to the exertions of that much maligned person, John Bagford, whom Moore employed to search for such rarities, and who did so with conspicuous success.

Amongst these priceless volumes one stands out pre-eminent. It was until recently in an old calf binding, lettered on the back, "Old poetry printed by Caxton," and contained eight pieces, the Stans puer ad mensam , the Parvus Catho , The Chorle and the Bird , The Horse, the Shepe and the Goose , The Temple of Glas , The Temple of Brass , The Book of Courtesy , and Anelida and Arcyte . Five of these are absolutely unique; of the others a second copy is known.

These books must have caught the popular taste, for of several we find second editions issued almost at once. A second issue of the Parvus Catho is known from a unique copy belonging to the Duke of Devonshire. York Cathedral possesses the only known copy (with the exception of a few leaves at Cambridge) of the [pg 42] second edition of The Horse, the Shepe and the Goose , and a unique second edition of The Chorle and the Bird .

All these little poetical pieces agree typographically. They contain nothing but the bare text, and are without signatures, headlines, or pagination. Probably they were all issued at intervals of a few days, and not many printed, so that the second editions may have been issued only a few months after the first.

There are three other early quartos to be noticed, which are of quite a different class from those just mentioned. These are the Sarum Ordinale , the Propositio Johannis Russell , and the Infancia Salvatoris .

The Sarum Ordinale , or Pica , was a book giving the rules for the concurrence and occurrence of festivals, containing an explanation for adapting the calendar to the services of each week, in accordance with the thirty-five varieties of the almanac. This book would be in very considerable demand amongst those officiating in services, and would be a good method of attracting the attention of the priests to the new art, so that no sooner had the book been printed than Caxton struck off a little advertisement about it. "If it plese ony man spirituel or temporel to bye ony pyes of two and thre comemoracions of salisburi use enpryntid after the forme of this present lettre whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come to westmonester in to the almonesrye at the reed pale and he shal have them good chepe. Supplico stet cedula." The quaint Latin ending, "Pray don't tear down the advertisement," was then perhaps a customary formula attached to notices put up in ecclesiastical or legal precincts, but it might naturally be supposed that those most likely to damage or tear down advertisements would be uneducated people, who would be ignorant of Latin.

When the advertisement first came before the notice of writers on printing, the existence of the Ordinale was unknown, and it is amusing to read the various conjectures as to the buying of "pyes" hazarded by them. One of the most ingenious occurred in a letter from Henry Bradshaw to William Blades, which was that the syllable "co" had dropped out by accident, and that the word should read "copyes," and this appeared all the more probable, as the word "pyes" comes at the end of the first line, which is slightly shorter than the rest. This is the only specimen of an early English book advertisement known, though foreign examples are not uncommon.

The Propositio Johannis Russell is one of the very few pieces printed by Caxton dealing with current affairs or politics. It is the oration delivered at Ghent, early in 1470, on the occasion of the investiture of the Duke of Burgundy with the Order of the Garter. It has often been considered as one of Caxton's very earliest pieces,—perhaps printed at Bruges. Blades writes, rather vaguely: "To me it appears most likely that it was issued at Bruges at no long period after its delivery, and before Caxton's final departure for England. At that town, both with the subjects of the Duke of Burgundy and the 'English nation' there resident, it would secure a good circulation; not so if issued seven years after its delivery in another country."

It could not have been printed anywhere by Caxton before 1475, and everything seems to point to its having been printed at Westminster in 1476-1477, perhaps at the instance of the author himself, then Bishop of Rochester.

It is a little quarto tract of four leaves, and two copies only are known, one belonging to the Earl of Leicester at Holkham, the other, formerly in the Spencer Library, now at Manchester. This latter was originally bound up, apparently by mistake, amongst the [pg 44] blank leaves of a note-book used for miscellaneous manuscript treatises of the fifteenth century, which run on over the first and last blank pages of the tract itself. It appeared, unrecognized, at the Brand sale in 1807, and was described amongst the MSS., "A work on theology and religion, with five leaves at the end a very great curiosity, very early printed on wooden blocks, or type." It was bought by Lord Blandford for forty-five shillings, and purchased at his sale in 1819 by Lord Spencer for £126.

Blades speaks of it as in its original binding, a quite inexplicable mistake, for it was bound between the years 1807 and 1819 in resplendently gilt morocco, double, with gauffered gilt edges! The copy at Holkham, which used to be in an old vellum wrapper, has also been rebound, and the two inner leaves, by some unfortunate mistake, transposed.

Of the Infancia Salvatoris , a version of one of the smaller treatises among the apocryphal books of the New Testament, but one copy is known. It was in the celebrated Harleian Library, which was bought entire by Osborne in 1746. The Caxton collectors of the period seem to have passed it over, for it did not get sold, even at its very modest price, until three years later, when it was bought for the University Library of Göttingen. It is still in its old red morocco Harleian binding, with Osborne's price—15—on the fly-leaf. Another note records, "aus dem Katalogen Thomas Osborne in London d. 12 Maij 1749 (No 4179) erkauft." Blades, in his description of the book, which he had not examined, conjectured that it was made up in three quires, the first of eight leaves, the second and third of six each, making in all twenty leaves, including a blank both at beginning and end. An examination of the water-marks of the paper shows that this was not the case, and that it consisted of two quires, the [pg 45] first of eight leaves, the second of ten, and that there were no blank leaves.

This tract, and the Compassio lamentationis Beate Marie Virginis , are the only two unique Caxtons in libraries outside England.

Some time towards the end of 1478 Caxton recast his fount No. 2, in which almost all the books so far mentioned were printed, and added a few extra types. With this new fount he printed the Margarita Eloquentiae of Laurentius de Saona, Saona being the earlier form of Savona, the birthplace of Columbus, a city not far from Genoa. At the end of the book, which contains neither name of printer nor place, is a notice that the work was completed at Cambridge on the 6th of July, 1478.

In an old catalogue of books bequeathed by Archbishop Parker to the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the entry occurs, "Rethorica nova impressa Canteb. fo. 1478." Strype, in writing his life of the Archbishop, came across this notice and communicated it to Bagford, who reported it in his turn to Tanner, the antiquary. Ames, from their information, placed it at the head of Cambridge books in his Typographical Antiquities , and Herbert, in his reprint, merely reproduced the account. Dibdin does not mention it, and it was not until 1861 that Henry Bradshaw, coming across it by accident, discovered that it was a genuine production of Caxton's press.

The book is a folio of 124 leaves, and besides the copy at Cambridge, one other is known, now in the University Library at Upsala.

On the 24th of March, 1479, was issued the Cordyale , a translation from the French Quatre derrenieres choses , by Earl Rivers. The translation, as the colophon tells us, was handed to Caxton on the day of the Purification (February 2d), and the printing was [pg 46] begun "the morn after the saide Purification of our blissid Lady, which was the daye of Seint Blase, Bisshop and Martir: And finisshed on the even of the annunciacion of our said bilissid Lady fallyng on the wednesday the 24 daye of Marche."

The Cordyale contains 78 leaves, with a blank at each end, and is not very uncommon. The second edition of the Dictes or Sayengis was issued this year, and is considerably rarer than the first, only four copies being known. Its collation is exactly the same as the first, and Blades has fallen into the same mistake, and gives it two leaves too few.

The year 1480 saw a considerable change in Caxton's methods of printing. Hitherto he had been content to print his books without signatures, although these were generally in use abroad, but their obvious utility appears to have impressed him, and henceforward he always printed them. The earlier books were of course signed, but the signatures were written in by hand, a very laborious process compared with setting them up with the type, and the greater clearness of the printed letter must have been an advantage to the bookbinder. About this time also he began to decorate his books with illustrations, a concession perhaps to popular taste, for his own inclination seems to have led him more to the literary than the artistic side of book production.

Another matter also may have helped to bring about this change, the settlement of a rival printer in London. Two other presses had before this started in England, one at Oxford in 1478, and one at St. Alban's about a year later, but their distance rendered them little dangerous as rivals, while the nature of their productions was mainly scholastic and little suited to the popular taste. But with a press setting up work some two miles away matters were quite different. There was no knowing what it might not print.

John Lettou, this first London printer, came apparently from Rome, bringing with him a small, neat gothic type, which had already been used in that city to print several books. To judge [pg 48] from his name, he was a native of Lithuania, of which Lettou is an old English form. He was certainly a practised workman, and his books are very foreign in appearance, and quite unlike the work of any other early English printer.

Caxton's first piece of work in 1480 was a broadside Indulgence , issued by John Kendale by authority of Sixtus IV., to all persons who would contribute towards the defence of Rhodes, which was being besieged by the Turks. The copy in the British Museum, which is the only one at present known, is filled in with the names of Symon Mountfort and Emma, his wife, and is dated the last day of March. Another example which was in existence about 1790, but has now disappeared, was filled in with the names of Richard and John Catlyn, and dated April 16th. This Indulgence begins with a wood-cut initial letter, the first to be used in England.

John Kendale, in the proclamation of Edward IV. of April, 1480, which relates to this appeal for assistance, is styled "Turcopolier of Rhodes and locum tenens of the Grand Master in Italy, England, Flanders, and Ireland," and he was at a later date implicated in a plot against the King's life. He is the subject of the earliest known existing contemporary English medal, which was struck in 1480. No sooner had Caxton issued this Indulgence , which is printed in the large No. 2* type, and very unsuitable for that kind of work, than the rival printer, John Lettou, issued two editions printed in his small, neat type. This attracted Caxton's attention, and he immediately set to work on a new small type, No. 4, which came into use soon afterwards.

Two books only in this new type are without signatures, so that they may presumably be taken to be the earliest; these are a Vocabulary in French and English , and a Servitium de Visitatione Beatae Mariae Virginis . The first is a small folio of 26 leaves, of which [pg 49] the first is blank, and consists of words and short phrases in the two languages, arranged in opposite columns. It is an uninteresting book to look at, but must have been useful, for it was reprinted in the fifteenth century both by Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson, and also in the early sixteenth. Four copies are known, in Bamburgh Castle, Ripon Cathedral, the Rylands Library, and an imperfect copy in the Duke of Devonshire's library.

The second book, the Servitium , has, I think, been always wrongly described. All that now remains of it are seven leaves in the British Museum, the last being blank; and the whole book was considered to have consisted of a quire of eight leaves, the first being wanting. The Servitium was a special service intended to be incorporated into the Breviary and Missal . The Pope had announced it in 1390, but it was not until 1480 that the Archbishop of Canterbury received from the Prolocutor a proposal to order the observance of July 2d as a fixed feast of the Visitation, "sub more duplicis festi secundum usum Sarum, cum pleno servitio." The book would therefore contain the full service for the day itself, the special parts for the week days following (except the fourth which was the octave of SS. Peter and Paul), and the service for the octave. Almost the whole of the principal service, which would have occupied a considerable space, is wanting, so that it may be assumed that the book consisted originally of at least two quires, or sixteen leaves. An edition of the Psalter must have been printed about this time, and is perhaps the first book in which Caxton made use of signatures; it is at any rate the only one, with the exception of Reynard the Fox , in which he went so far wrong as to necessitate the insertion of an extra leaf in one quire. This book, a quarto of 177 leaves, has a handsome appearance, as it is printed throughout with the formal church-type No. 3, the only complete book in [pg 50] which this type alone is used. The only copy known is in the British Museum, to which it came with the Royal Library, having belonged at one time to Queen Mary, whose initials are on the back of the binding.

An edition of the Book of Hours of Salisbury use was printed about the same time in the same type, but nothing remains of it now except two fragments found in the binding of a Caxton Boethius in the Grammar School at St. Alban's, and since purchased by the British Museum. It was a quarto of the same size as the Psalter , and a full page contained 20 lines.

On the 10th of June, 1480, Caxton finished his first edition of the Chronicles of England , a folio of 182 leaves, which, as he says in his preface, "Atte requeste of dyverce gentilmen I have endevourd me to enprinte." Though mainly derived from the ordinary manuscript copies, the history has been brought down to a later date, and this continuation may very well have been written by Caxton himself. In August of the same year, the Description of Britain was issued. It is taken from Higden's Polycronicon , and was clearly intended to form a supplement to the Chronicles , with which it is commonly found bound up. More copies of it appear to have been printed than of the Chronicles , for it is found also with the second edition of the Chronicles , though it was not reprinted.

John Lidgate's poem, Curia Sapientiae , or The Court of Sapience , a poem in seven-line stanzas, containing descriptions of animals, birds, and fishes, with a survey of the arts and sciences, was published about this time. It is a folio of 40 leaves, of which the first and last two are blank. Three copies only are known, all of which are in public libraries.

Early in 1481 Caxton finished his translation of The Mirror of the World , and it must have been printed immediately after. The work was a commission from his friend Hugh Bryce, a fellow-member of the Mercers' Company, and who must often have met Caxton on his official visits to Bruges. In this book for the first time the printer made use of illustrations. These are of two kinds. The first consists of little pictures, rudely designed and coarsely cut, of masters engaged in teaching their pupils various sciences, or of single figures engaged in scientific pursuits. These are original and introduced by Caxton. The second series are diagrams more or less carefully copied from the MSS. In his prologue he says that there are twenty-seven figures, "without whiche it may not lightly be understande." Curiously enough, he himself goes astray, for in the first part, which should contain eight diagrams, he puts the second and third in their wrong places and omits the fourth. The nine diagrams of the second part are wrongly drawn, and in some cases misplaced, owing to the original text having been misunderstood. The diagrams of the third part are most correct, but although ten are mentioned, only nine appear.

An interesting point about these diagrams is, that they have short explanations written in them in ink, and in all copies where these inscriptions are found they are in the same handwriting. Oldys, who first drew attention to this peculiarity, supposed the handwriting to be that of Caxton himself, and though this is not impossible, it is more probable that this simple and monotonous task would be done by one of his assistants.

The History of Reynard the Fox was translated by Caxton in 1481 from the Dutch edition printed at Gouda in 1479 by Gerard Leeu, a printer who later on at Antwerp reprinted some of Caxton's English books. The story of Reynard was extremely popular and widely spread, yet it appears that no manuscripts exist with the story in the form given by Caxton. Five copies of this book are [pg 52] known; one of them, the fine copy which was in the Spencer collection, is part of the spoil obtained from Lincoln Minster. A mistake of the printer necessitated the insertion of a half printed leaf in all copies between leaves 48 and 49.

On the 12th of August, 1481, Caxton issued a translation of two treatises of Cicero, De senectute and De amicitia , and a work of Bonaccursus de Montemagno, entitled De nobilitate . The translation of the first two into French was made by command of Louis, Duke of Bourbon, in 1405, by Laurence de Premierfait, and the last by Jean Mielot. The English translation seems to have been made by Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, at the desire of Sir John Fastolfe, for whom his son-in-law, Scrope, a kinsman of Tiptoft, had translated the Dictes or Sayengis . Cicero apparently did not appeal so much to the popular taste as such stories as Reynard , so that it is now one of the commonest of Caxton's books, some twenty-five to thirty copies being known.

On the 20th of November, in the same year, appeared another romance, The History of Godfrey of Bologne , or The Conquest of Jerusalem , translated by Caxton from the French. Almost every copy known of this book is imperfect, but there is a beautiful example in the possession of Colonel Holford. It was Edward the Fourth's own copy, and at the end of the fifteenth century had come by some means into the possession of Roger Thorney, a mercer of London and a patron of Caxton's successor, Wynkyn de Worde, who printed, at his request, his edition of the Polycronicon . After various changes of ownership, it came into the possession of a noted collector, Richard Smith, and at his auction in 1682 was bought by the Earl of Peterborough for the not excessive sum of eighteen shillings and two pence.

About this time two more illustrated books were issued, a third edition of Burgh's Cato parvus et magnus , and a second edition of the Game of Chess .

The Cato contains two wood-cuts out of the set made for the Mirror of the World . It is a folio of 28 leaves, of which the first was blank, and is wanting in the two known copies, those in St. John's College, Oxford, and the Spencer collection.

The Game of Chess contains twenty-four illustrations, but the wood-cuts used number only sixteen, for many served their purpose twice. The first cut is of the son of Nebuchadnezzar, named Evilmerodach, described in the text as "a jolly man without justice, who did do hew his father his body into three hundred pieces." Most of the remainder are pictures of the various pieces.

The suggestion which has sometimes been made that Caxton's wood-cuts were engraved abroad is quite without foundation. They are very often copied from those in foreign books, but their very clumsy execution would be well within the capacity of the veriest tyro in wood-engraving. Mr. Linton suggested that they might have been cut in soft metal, but as the blocks when found in later books often have marks clearly showing that they had been injured by worm-holes, this conjecture is untenable.

As with all illustrated books, most of the remaining copies of the Game of Chess are more or less imperfect. The dated books of 1482 are two in number, and both historical; these are Higden's Polycronicon and the second edition of the Chronicles of England .

The first was finished on the 2d of July, and is a large, thick folio of 450 leaves. The work was originally compiled by Ralph Higden in the fourteenth century from various earlier sources, and was translated into English in 1387 by John of Trevisa, chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley. The whole of this Caxton revised, and continued the chronicle up to the year 1460, this continuation [pg 54] being the only important piece of Caxton's own composition which we possess. This book shares with the Golden Legend the position of being the commonest of Caxton's books, and like it is unrepresented by a single absolutely perfect copy, the blank leaves, five of which occur throughout the book, being always in part wanting. A copy which belonged to Tutet contained the inscription, "Presens liber pertinet ad Willelmum Perde emptus a Willelmo Caxton, Regio impressore vicessimo Novembrio anno Regis Edwardi quarti vicessimo secundo." This would be November 20, 1482, immediately after the issue of the book.

The printing of the second edition of the Chronicles was finished on October 8, 1482. It agrees exactly with the first edition, and curiously enough, almost the same number of copies are known, though none are quite perfect.

The Pilgrimage of the Soul came out on June 8, 1483, during Edward the Fifth's short reign. It was an adaptation by Jehan de Gallopes from the larger work of Guillaume de Deguilleville, translated into English by Lidgate. Five copies are known, of which the finest is in the British Museum.

I traced out some time ago the history of two copies of this book, which is worth mentioning as showing the extraordinary manner in which Caxtons were mutilated and made up. About the year 1750 there were in existence two copies, A and B. A had two leaves in the middle, 52 and 53, taken from B, and after these leaves had been taken B came into the possession of W. Herbert, the bibliographer. A still wanted one leaf at end; B wanted three at the beginning, the two taken from the middle, and the leaf at the end.

In 1814 B belonged to Heber, the celebrated collector, who parted with it to Lord Spencer in exchange for some other books. [pg 55] In the same year Lord Spencer obtained a duplicate last leaf from the British Museum, which he added to this copy B.

In 1819, at the "White Knights" sale, Lord Spencer bought copy A, took out the last leaf from B and inserted it in A, thus making A practically complete. B was then sold as a duplicate, repurchased by Heber, and is now in the splendid library formed by Mr. Christie Miller at Britwell Court.

Fortunately in these days collectors are beginning to recognize that such doctored and made-up books are of little value or interest compared to genuine even if imperfect copies. Like paintings which have been "restored," the charm is gone. A few wealthy buyers who acquire libraries as part of the suitable furniture of a great house, and to whom the name and fine appearance of a rare book is all that is necessary, keep up such books to a fictitious value, but their day is slowly but surely passing and giving way to intelligent appreciation.

The publication of the Liber Festivalis on the last day of June, 1483, marks the beginning of a new group of books, for in it first appears a recasting of type No. 4 on a slightly larger body, and with one or two different letters, thus giving us a clear date by which to divide all books in this type into two divisions.

The Liber Festivalis , or Festial as it should more properly be called, was compiled by John Mirk, canon of the abbey of St. Mary at Lilleshall, in Shropshire. It was intended, as the compiler tells us, to supply short sermons for ignorant priests to expound to their congregations on saints' days, and the stories were obtained from the Golden Legend and the Gesta Romanorum . It was in no way a service book, though often so considered, indeed, it is included in Dickinson's List of printed service books according to the ancient uses of the Anglican Church , but was more in the nature of a preacher's assistant, such as are published to the present day, giving a series of headings and anecdotes applicable to particular subjects.

This first edition of Caxton's differs considerably in the text from all later editions, which follow the version printed at Oxford by Rood and Hunte in 1486.

It is a folio of 116 leaves, of which the first is blank, and has 38 lines to the page.

With it was issued a supplement of 30 leaves, called Quattuor Sermones , which were homilies on such matters as the Seven Sacraments, Seven Deadly Sins, and the like.

About this time was issued the Sex Epistolae , edited by Petrus Carmelianus, an Italian scholar settled in England, who afterwards became Latin secretary to Henry VII. The letters were published in the interest of the Venetians, who were indignant at the separate terms made between Pope Sixtus IV. and the Duke of Ferrara.

This book, one of the earliest known separate publications of diplomatic correspondence, is quite different in character from any of Caxton's other books, except perhaps the Oration of John Russell. The only known copy of the tract was discovered in 1874 in the Hecht-Heine Library at Halberstadt, bound up in a volume of late theological pamphlets, by Dr. Könnecke, Archivist at Marburg, and after various cautious overtures, was finally secured by the trustees for the British Museum. It is a very uninteresting-looking quarto of 24 leaves, of which the first is blank. Lidgate's Life of Our Lady , a folio of 96 leaves, appeared about this time. There were apparently two editions issued, one of which has almost entirely disappeared, with the exception of a few leaves, which evidently varied very considerably in the text. Blades mentions only the one edition, and in this connexion a rather curious and amusing point may be noticed. When he published his Enemies of Books he was anxious to give an illustration of the ravages of a book-worm, and for this purpose gave a fac-simile of two fragments of a Caxton almost destroyed by these pests. Now, the very pages which he reproduced were from this variant edition of the Life of Our Lady , and yet, not thinking of comparing them with the ordinary edition, he missed the opportunity of adding another to his list of Caxtons.

The second edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales , also ascribed to the year 1483, is an interesting book in many ways. The prologue shows very strongly how much enthusiasm Caxton took in [pg 58] the literary side of his work. I give the following quotation in his own words: "Whyche book I have dylygently oversen and duly examyned to thende that it be made acordyng unto his owen makyng. For I fynde many of the sayd bookes whyche wryters have abrydgyd it and many thynges left out. And in somme place have sette certayn versys that he never made ne sette in hys booke, of whyche bookes so incorrecte was one brought to me vj yere passyd whyche I supposed had ben veray true and correcte. And accordyng to the same I dyde do enprynte a certayn nombre of them whyche anon were sold to many and dyverse gentyl men of whome one gentylman cam to me and said that this book was not accordyng in many places unto the book that Gefferey chaucer had made. To whom I answered that I had made it accordyng to my copye and by me was nothyng added ne mynusshyd. Thenne he sayd he knewe a book whyche hys fader had and moche lovyd that was very trewe and accordyng unto hys owen first book by hym made; and sayd more, yf I wold enprynte it agayn he wold gete me the same book for a copye, how be it he wyst wel that hys fader wold not gladly departe fro it. To whom I said, in caas that he could gete me suche a book trewe and correcte yet I wold ones endevoyre me to enprynte it agayn. And thus we fyll at accord. And he ful gentylly gate of hys fader the said book and delyverd it to me, by whiche I have corrected my book."

Besides revising his text, Caxton added illustrations. There are twenty-four of these, but several are made to do duty twice over, a common custom with early printers. Thus the "poor parson" and the "doctor of physick," the "somnour" and the "Franklin," are represented by the same cuts; while the large illustration depicting the pilgrims sitting at supper at a round table does duty in some later publications for the "Assembly of the Gods."

As might have been expected, such a book became very popular, and is now consequently very rare. Besides a few more or less imperfect copies, only one perfect one is known, now in the library of St. John's College, Oxford, which unfortunately has the cuts rudely daubed with colour. When perfect, the book should contain 312 leaves, the first being blank. Chaucer's Troilus and Creside and Hous of Fame , as well as a little tract of six leaves called the Curial , were also printed about this time.

September 2, 1483, is another definite date, for on that day Caxton finished an edition of Gower's well-known poem, the Confessio Amantis , or Lover's Confession , written by command of Richard II., who, meeting the poet rowing on the Thames, near London, invited him into the royal barge, and after much conversation requested him to "book some new thing." The book is a folio of 222 leaves, of which no less than four are blank, and only one copy is now in existence in which these blank leaves have been preserved. Otherwise the book is not uncommon, though nearly every copy is imperfect. An extremely fine copy, wanting only the blank leaves, is in the library of Shrewsbury School, and is mentioned here to correct an error of Blades, who goes out of his way to state, "The copy ascribed by N. Carlisle to Edward VI. Grammar School, Shrewsbury, is not from the press of Caxton."

The Life of the Holy and Blessed Virgin Saint Winifred is a small folio of 16 leaves, printed about this date. Caxton states that he "reduced" this book into English, but there is some difficulty as to the source from which he took it. The life of the celebrated Welsh saint was written in Latin in the twelfth century by Robert, Prior of Shrewsbury, and this Caxton may have translated, but as no copy of the manuscript is now in existence the point cannot be determined. Only three copies of the printed book are known.

The book called Caton was translated by the end of December, 1483, and must therefore have been printed at the beginning of 1484. The Catonis Disticha was the best known school-book of the middle ages, and with the Donatus , was the groundwork of Latin learning over Europe. About 1480 a certain Daniel Church added a few Latin precepts to the original book, which acquired the name of Parvus Cato , and after his time the two are generally found together as Cato, parvus et magnus . In the second half of the fifteenth century it was, as Caxton himself tells us, "translated in to Englysshe by Mayster Benet Burgh, late Archdeken of Colchestre and hye chanon of saint stephens at westmestre, which ful craftly hath made it in balade ryal for the erudicion of my lord Bousher, sone and heyr at that tyme to my lord the erle of Estsex." Of this version Caxton printed three editions, which have already been noticed, but the present is a different and considerably larger work. It contains, besides the "disticha" and moral maxims, very extensive glosses or commentaries containing "histories and examples," translated by Caxton from a French original.

It is a folio of 80 leaves, of which four are blank and usually wanting. About twelve copies are known, and a good example is in the Lenox Library, New York.

On the 31st of January, 1484, Caxton issued the Booke whiche the Knyght of the Toure made to the enseygnement and techyng of his doughters . This work was compiled about the year 1371 by Geoffrey de la Tour-Landry, a literary knight of celebrated family, and was translated by Caxton, "at the request of a noble lady which hath brought forth many noble and fair daughters, which be virtuously nourished." In his preface he advises "every gentleman or woman having children desiring them to be virtuously brought forth to get and have this book," though it would in these days be considered anything but suitable for young persons,—or for the matter of that, for their elders.

The Fables of Aesop was issued on March 26th, the first day of the year 1484. This is certainly one of the finest and rarest amongst the books which Caxton printed. It begins with a large full-page frontispiece containing a figure of Æsop similar in treatment to those occurring in some foreign editions. This is found only in the copy at Windsor Castle. In the text there are no less than one hundred and eighty-five wood-cuts, the work of two or perhaps even three different engravers, one of whom apparently cut the illustrations to the second edition of the Game of Chesse . One illustration is engraved in quite a different manner from the rest, and was probably cut hurriedly to replace one accidentally lost or broken, and has an appearance much more resembling modern work than the others, which are simply the ordinary heavy black outline cuts of the period. A complete copy of the book should contain 144 leaves, the last two being blank, and the leaves are numbered. It was twice reprinted in the fifteenth century by Richard Pynson at London, and these two reprints are even rarer than the original, one copy of each being known, and both of them imperfect.

The only perfect copy known of Caxton's edition is in the King's Library at Windsor, and was one of the very few books retained when the Royal Library was handed over to the nation by George IV. A note on the fly-leaf shows the reason for this. "Left to his Majesty by the late Mr. Hewett of Ipswich in Suffolk and delivered to Mr. Allen by Philip Broke, Esq. and Sir John Hewett, Bart. to present to the King." It is in magnificent condition and uncut. The British Museum was fortunate enough to be able to purchase a copy in 1844, which, with the one imperfection of not having the frontispiece, is in as fine condition as the [pg 62] Windsor copy, and in an early sixteenth-century binding by John Reynes. The third and last copy is in the Bodleian, to which it was presented in 1680, with other Caxtons, by Moses Pitt, a London bookseller. It is imperfect, wanting in all about twelve leaves.

A curious broadside was published about this time, which is generally known as the Death-bed Prayers . It contains two prayers to be said by a priest at the bedside of dying persons, and the only known copy, which was formerly in the Spencer Library, was found bound up with a copy of the Pilgrimage of the Soul .

The Order of Chivalry , which was printed in the reign of Richard III., may be ascribed to 1484. The author of the book is not known, but it was translated from the French, and agrees exactly with a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, entitled L'Ordre de Chivallerie , beautifully illuminated, and written in Flanders for Edward IV. Caxton used in this book and the Aesop a large floriated initial letter A, the only large ornamental capital which he seems to have possessed.

Five copies are known, two in the British Museum, two in the Spencer collection at Manchester, and one in a private library in America. The book, which is a small quarto, should contain 52 leaves, the first and last being blank. One copy in the British Museum and one at Manchester are complete as regards text, but neither has both blanks.

The Golden Legend , Caxton's most important work, was finished, so far as regards the translation, on the 20th of November, 1483. In the second prologue the printer tells us that when beginning the translation the magnitude of the task and the heavy expenses of printing made him "halfe desperate to have accomplissd it," and he proposed to put what he had already done to one side and leave the work. The Earl of Arundel, however, encouraged him to proceed, not only by promising to take a certain number of copies when finished, but by the offer of an annual gift of a buck in summer and a doe in winter. Thus assisted, Caxton finished his translation and printed the book, and some idea of the task involved may be gathered from the fact that the work consists of 894 printed pages, each page containing two columns of 55 lines. It is illustrated with a frontispiece, eighteen large and fifty-two small wood-cuts. The translator compiled his version from three sources, for he tells us that he had beside him "a legende in frensshe, another in latyn and the thyrd in englysshe."

The French edition which Caxton used has been clearly identified in a curious manner. In one or two places it contains bad misprints which Caxton translated blindly. In the life of St. Stephen the words "femmes veuves" have been misprinted "Saine venue," which Caxton renders "hole comen," in spite of the words making no sense. In the life of St. Genevieve "a name" occurs in place of "a navire," which appears in the English version as "at name" in place of "by ship." This French version is of great rarity, the only two copies known being in the British Museum and the Cambridge University Library.

Fortunately, the Golden Legend is one of the commonest of Caxton's books, though every copy is more or less imperfect. The finest is that which formerly belonged to Lord Spencer, which was made perfect as regards the text with leaves from other copies, and is, with the exception of these leaves, very large and in fine condition. In 1577 it belonged to Robert Hedrington, who appears to have owned many Caxtons.

The three books which follow the Golden Legend , and which are all dated 1485, are of very great interest. These are the Morte [pg 64] d'Arthur , the Lyf of Charles the Great , and the History of Paris and Vienne , all printed in folio.

Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur , that cycle of stories connected with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and as Sir Walter Scott called it, the best of all English romances, is perhaps the most interesting volume that Caxton ever printed. Two copies only, one perfect, the other wanting a few leaves, are now known. The first has a long and interesting pedigree. It first appeared at Dr. Bernard's sale in 1698, when it produced the magnificent sum of two shillings and ten pence, passing into the vast library of the Earl of Oxford. Osborne, the bookseller who bought that library en bloc , sold the volume to Bryan Fairfax for five pounds, and in 1756 it passed with the whole of his library to Mr. Child, the banker, at a valuation of two pounds, twelve shillings, and six pence. While safely preserved at Osterley at the beginning of last century, it raised the most covetous feelings in the breasts of the two great Caxtonian collectors, Lord Spencer and his nephew, the Duke of Devonshire, who both made overtures for its acquisition. It had almost been ceded to the latter in exchange for some work of art, when it was discovered that it could not legally be parted with, and it remained at Osterley until 1885, when Lord Jersey's library was sold. At this sale it was purchased by Mr. Pope for a sum little under two thousand pounds, and left England for America, where it still remains. The second copy was obtained by Lord Spencer in 1816 at the sale of the library of Mr. Lloyd of Wygfair. Both copies are in very fine condition. The complete book consists of 432 leaves, the first being blank. There are 38 lines to a page, and as these run straight across, instead, as is so often the case, being made up into two columns, the effect of the whole, with the wide margins, is very striking. Sir Thomas Malory's [pg 65] translation from the French was finished in the ninth year of King Edward IV.,—that is, about 1470,—but apparently no manuscript of it is now in existence.

The Life of the noble and christian prince, Charles the Great , was translated by Caxton from an anonymous French version compiled at the request of Henry Bolomyer, Canon of Lausanne. In it the various stories and legends relating to Charlemagne have been gathered together from various sources. Caxton finished his translation on the 18th of June, when he had nearly finished the printing of the Morte d'Arthur , and the printing of the book was finished on the 1st of December.

The only copy known, which is perfect with the exception of the last blank leaf, is in the King's Library in the British Museum.

The moment Caxton had finished the translation of Charles the Great he set to work on another short romance, the History of the knight Paris and the fair Vienne . This he finished on the 31st of August, and the book was printed by the 19th of December. Like the last, only one copy, and that quite perfect, is known; and it is also in the King's Library in the British Museum.

It seems very probable that at an early date these two books were bound together, but either before or on their coming into the possession of the Earl of Oxford they were bound separately. They agree entirely in size and typographical particulars, both having 39 lines to the page in two columns.

The Paris and Vienne was reprinted in 1492 by Gerard Leeu at Antwerp in small folio, with illustrations. He reprinted also in the same month the History of Jason , and in the year following the Chronicles of England . The apathy in book production which seems to have immediately succeeded Caxton's death may have encouraged him to attempt printing for the English market, but [pg 66] his own death while his edition of the Chronicles was passing through the press put an end to the trade. He printed one other English book, the Dialogue of Salomon and Marcolphus , of which one copy exists. This, like the rest, may have been copied from an edition printed by Caxton, but if so, all traces of it have disappeared.

No dated book of 1486 is known, but several may be ascribed to this date. First the Directorium Sacerdotum , or Pica , a work compiled by Clement Maydeston, containing the rules for adapting the calendar to the services of each week in accordance with the thirty-five varieties of the Almanac. Of this book, so interesting to liturgical students, but one copy is known, now in the British Museum, a library, however, to which it should not rightly belong. The volume formed part of the collection bequeathed to the Cambridge University Library by Dr. Holdsworth in 1648, but it was stolen from there in or shortly before 1778, and soon afterwards "bought of a man introduced by Dr. Nugent" by William Bayntun, Esq., of Gray's Inn, after whose death it came into the possession of King George III., and passed with the rest of the King's Library into the British Museum. At the beginning of the book a single leaf containing a large wood-cut has been inserted which does not really belong to the volume. In the centre is a half-length figure of Our Lord with the hands crossed. Behind the head and shoulders is the cross, and on either side the spear and the reed with the sponge. Below is the text of an Indulgence , which in this case has been cut out, while round the whole is a framework composed of twenty-eight small square compartments, each containing some emblem of the crucifixion. These early English prints, several of which exactly similar in treatment are known, go under the name of the Image of Pity .

The Directorium is a folio of 160 leaves, the first, which is wanting in the only known copy, having been most probably blank.

About this year the first edition of Bonaventura's Speculum Vitae Christi was issued, remarkable for its illustrations. These, though not large, are much more graceful in design and better in execution than any which preceded them, and are clearly the work of a new engraver. It is a curious fact that in neither edition which he printed did Caxton use the full series of these cuts, for odd illustrations appear in later books which clearly belong to the set, but which had not been made use of before. Besides the regular series, a few smaller cuts occur, much ruder in execution.

These belong to a set cut for an edition of the Horae ad usum Sarum , but the early editions of this book are known only from fragments, so that we cannot ascertain how many there were in the original series.

Several of these Speculum cuts reappear in the Royal Book , a translation of La Somme des vices et vertus , published very shortly after. This book at present enjoys the distinction of having brought the highest price hitherto paid for a Caxton, a copy having been sold (March 20, 1902) for the sum of £2,225. The history of this particular copy is an interesting one. It belonged early in the seventeenth century to Thomas Archer, parson of Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire, who bequeathed it to the Church Library of St. John's, Bedford. This library was afterwards moved to St. Paul's Church, Bedford, and about 1840 transferred to the Bedford Literary Institute. The council of this Institute, entirely ignoring their moral obligations, determined to make money out of so valuable a book, and not only did they do so, but they also did their best to destroy one of the very few existing evidences of Caxton's work. The book when I examined it several years ago was in its original [pg 68] binding, tooled with stamps which we have many reasons for believing belonged to Caxton himself. This Bedford book afforded the strongest proof of all, for the boards of the binding were lined with unused copies of one issue of Caxton's 1481 Indulgences . Of these there had originally been four, two at each end, but two had been abstracted. When the book was sold the remaining two were taken out and sold separately, thus destroying for ever a most valuable piece of evidence. This book, together with one of the Indulgences , is now in a private library in America.

A few years ago Mr. Robert Proctor, working in the library of New College, Oxford, found in the binding of a book two small slips of vellum with some printing upon them in Caxton's type No. 5. These turned out to be portions of a leaf of a hitherto unknown Caxton, an edition of the Donatus melior , revised by Mancinellus, printed in folio. They are also the earliest specimens of Caxton's use of vellum. The date of the book would be about 1487.

In May, 1487, Caxton finished the printing of the Book of Good Manners , which he had translated from the French at the request of one of his friends, William Pratt, a mercer of London who had lately died. The original book was written by Jacobus Magnus or Jacques Legrand, the author of the Sophologium , and was evidently popular, for it was frequently reprinted, no less than four other English editions having been issued in the fifteenth century. Caxton's edition is a small folio of 66 leaves, and three copies, all in public libraries, are known. The finest is in the Cambridge University Library, and another, also perfect, is in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. This latter, which was sold by auction in 1682 for the sum of two shillings, was purchased by the Copenhagen Library in 1743 for one guinea. The third copy, wanting some leaves, is at Lambeth.

So far Caxton had worked entirely with his own materials and without any assistance from outside. His work had been confined to the most ordinary kind of printing, which required no special trouble and no great variety of type or ornament. The close of the year, however, saw a change in this respect, and the first influences of the French press, which were gradually later on to assume such large proportions, began to make themselves felt.

In December, 1487, Caxton issued an edition of the Sarum Missal , though he was not himself the printer. The work was done for him by a printer at Paris named Guillaume Maynial, about whom but little is known. He is presumed to be a relation, son, perhaps, or nephew, of George Maynial, the partner of Ulrich Gering in 1480. He printed only three books, of which this Missal is the earliest, the other two being the Statutes and the Manual of the Church of Chartres, issued in 1489 and 1490. The only copy of this book at present known is in the library of Lord Newton. It is a folio, and when perfect should have contained 266 leaves, but of these 23 are now missing. The page is printed in two columns, with 39 lines to a column.

One point which gives this book a peculiar interest is, that in it is found for the first time Caxton's well-known device. It consists of his initials, divided by his merchant's mark, with a deep ornamental border at top and bottom. Many ingenious writers have attempted to read into this mark several items of information. The merchant's mark they say is not a merchant's mark at all, but the figures 74 significant of the time when he began to print. Two small ornaments shaped like an S and C stand for Sancta Colonia, where he learned the art of printing. The mark is, however, merely an ordinary merchant's mark, which in some shape or another all printers introduced into their devices, and the letters S C merely ornamental flourishes.

Another question has been raised as to whether this device was cut in England or in France, but it has no resemblance to French work, and is almost certainly a native production. As Mr. Blades justly remarks: "Caxton, desirous of associating his press more directly with this issue than by the colophon only, which many people might overlook, probably designed his mark for the purpose of attracting attention. He no doubt stamped this device on the last blank page of the books after they had been received from abroad and before putting them into circulation."

It seems not improbable that besides the Missal , Maynial printed for Caxton another service-book, the Legenda according to the Salisbury use. The existence of this book is known only from a few odd leaves, for the most part rescued from old bindings and preserved in different libraries, but it agrees in every respect typographically with the Missal . The type is identical, the number of lines and size of page the same, and everything points to the same printer. Perhaps some day a copy with the colophon may be found and our doubts on the subject set at rest.

About 1488 appeared a new issue of the Golden Legend . It is not an entire reprint of the first, but only of certain parts of it. It contains 448 leaves, being one less than the first issue, and of these 256 are reprinted and 192 are of the original edition. It is difficult to explain this reprinting, but it was probably caused by the destruction of a large part of the stock of the original issue. Caxton took the opportunity to make two improvements in the reprint. He compressed the quires signed X and Y, which contained the awkward number of nine leaves, into a single quire X of eight leaves, and instead of having a blank leaf at the end of the book he added the life of St. Erasmus. The parts of the book which are of the second issue may be readily distinguished from [pg 72] the first by the head-lines. In the first issue they are in the larger type No. 3; in the second, in the smaller type No. 5.

On the 14th of July, 1489, Caxton finished printing a translation of the work of Christine de Pisan, entitled the Fayts of Arms and of Chivalry . This translation, as he tells us in the epilogue, he undertook at the express desire of Henry VII., who himself lent him the manuscript with the original French text. It is not improbable that the identical manuscript which Caxton used is one which is now in the British Museum, and which formed part of the old Royal collection. It was written for John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, who died in 1453, and by whom it was presented to Queen Margaret, and it agrees very closely in every way with Caxton's English version.

Considerable doubt has been thrown on the authorship of Christine de Pisan, but apparently unjustly. In the prologues of many manuscripts, and in Caxton's edition, the writer apologizes as a woman for treating of such warlike subjects, and appeals to the goddess Minerva, saying, "I am, as thou wert, a woman Italian."

A complete copy should contain 144 leaves, the first being blank, and over twenty copies are known. A perfect copy in the Cambridge University Library contains a manuscript note showing that it was bought in 1510 for three shillings and eight pence.

In 1489, also, Caxton issued two editions of an Indulgence of John de Gigliis, or rather a license to confessors, giving them power to grant indulgences to any Christian person in England or Ireland who should contribute four, three, two, or even one gold florin to assist a crusade against the Turks. These Indulgences are of peculiar interest, as they were printed in a new type of Caxton's, the smallest which he ever cut, and of which he never again made use. The first to draw attention to them was Archdeacon Cotton, who in the second part of his "Typographical Gazetteer" mentions one which he had found in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and which he considered to be a product of the early Oxford press. Henry Bradshaw, the University Librarian at Cambridge, obtained a photograph of it, and at once conjectured from the appearance of the type that it must have been printed by Caxton. He immediately communicated this discovery to Blades, who, however, refused to accept it as the work of Caxton's press without some further and more convincing proof, and never even alluded to either the type or Indulgence in later issues of his book. The necessary proof was soon afterwards found, for Bradshaw discovered at Holkham an edition of the Speculum Vitae Christi , printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1494, which had the side-notes printed in this type, and as De Worde inherited all Caxton's materials, this fount must have belonged to him.

The Statutes of the first, third, and fourth years of Henry VII. may also be put down to the end of 1489, for the fourth year of Henry VII. ended on August 21, 1489, and the Statutes would no doubt be printed at once.

With the exceptions just given, none of Caxton's books printed between May, 1487, and his death in 1491 bear any date, so that although all may be approximately dated, their exact order cannot be determined. One very common error in the method of arranging Caxton's books may be pointed out here, which arises from the method adopted by Blades. In his Life of Caxton the books are arranged according to types, which would be an excellent plan if the use of one type had been discontinued as soon as a newer one was made. This, however, was not the case, for several were often in use at one time, and thus Blades's system, though correct in one way, is very misleading to a superficial reader. For instance, [pg 74] Caxton started at Westminster with types Nos. 2 and 3, and both are used in his first books, but Blades puts the books in type No. 3 after all those in type No. 2, and thus the Sarum Ordinale , certainly one of the earliest books printed in England, comes thirty-sixth on his list, and while one book with the printed date of 1481 is number 33, another with the printed date of 1480 is number 39. It will thus be seen that Blades's arrangement was not a chronological one, though most writers have made the mistake of thinking so, and have followed it as such, as may be seen, for instance, in the list appended to Caxton's life in the Dictionary of National Biography , which blindly follows Blades's arrangement without any reference to his system or mention of the types.

Two interesting romances were printed about 1489, the History of the Four Sons of Aymon and the History of Blanchardyn and Eglantine . The first was an extremely popular story both at home and on the continent; indeed, it still circulates abroad in the form of a pedler's chap-book, which perpetuates in a very mutilated state the story of Renaud, Alard, Richard, and Guichard, with their famous horse Bayard, on which all four rode at once. The early English editions of this book almost suffered extermination. The earliest edition of which a complete copy is known is that printed at London by William Copland in 1554. The colophon of this book speaks of an edition printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1504, of which no trace remains except perhaps some fragmentary leaves in the Cambridge University Library; while of the edition printed by Caxton only one copy, and that imperfect, is known. It is in folio, and probably contained when complete 278 leaves. The unique copy, wanting some leaves at the beginning, was obtained by Lord Spencer from Triphook, the bookseller, and is now, with the rest of the Spencer Library, in Manchester.

The History of Blanchardine and Eglantine is also known only from an imperfect copy which was in the Spencer Library. It is impossible to settle what the correct collation may have been, as the book breaks off abruptly at leaf 102 and all the remainder is wanting. As, however, the last chapter of the work is just beginning on the last remaining page, it seems probable that only the last quire is missing. On the fly-leaf is a curious note in Lord Spencer's handwriting relating to its purchase. "This book belonged to Mr. G. Mason; at whose sale it was bought by John, Duke of Roxburghe. The Duke and I had agreed not to oppose one another at the sale, but, after the book was bought, to toss up who should win it; when I lost it. I bought it at the Roxburghe sale, on the 17th of June, 1812 for £215 5 s. " At the earlier sale the Duke had paid £21 for it. This book was undertaken at the request of Margaret, Duchess of Somerset, who brought to Caxton a copy of the French version, which she had long before purchased from him, commanding him to translate it into English.

During the last two years of his life at least half of Caxton's books were merely new editions of some of his earlier works, and therefore hardly call for much detailed notice. The Dictes or Sayings was reprinted for the third time, and the Directorium Sacerdotum , Reynard the Fox , and the Mirror of the World for the second.

Of the Directorium but one copy is known, which is in the Selden collection in the Bodleian. Blades remarks about it that it is "still in the original parchment wrapper as issued from Caxton's workshop." All evidence goes to prove that Caxton never made use of parchment or vellum as a binding material, and in the case of the present book it is quite clear, on close examination, that it has been made up from two imperfect copies, and that the binding is not earlier than the seventeenth century.

The Reynard the Fox is also unique, and buried in that almost inaccessible collection, the Pepysian Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. It wants, unfortunately, the last two leaves, so that the colophon, if it had one, is wanting.

The Mirror is a fairly common book, and is an exact reproduction, though in different type, of the first edition. In the interval between the printing of the two editions one wood-cut had been lost or destroyed, so that the illustration for Chapter II., "Why God Made and Created the World," instead of being the correct picture of the Almighty with the globe in his hand (which Blades strangely calls "the figure of a philosopher"), is the inappropriate cut of the Transfiguration of Christ.

The Doctrinal of Sapience , a translation from a French version of the Manipulus Curatorum , was doubtless printed in the latter half of 1489, as the translation had been finished on the 7th of May of that year. The book itself is not of much interest, though one copy deserves special mention. It is preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, to which it was presented by a Mr. Bryant. It is printed throughout upon vellum, and contains three leaves found in no other copy. In the text of the book, Chapter 64 is not printed, but the following heading is inserted: "Of the neclygences of the masse and of the remedyes I passe over for it apperteyneth to prestes and not to laie men. C. Lxiiij."

In the Windsor copy this chapter is printed at the end of the book on three extra leaves, and ends as follows: "This chapitre to fore I durst not sette in the boke by cause it is not convenyent ne aparteynyng that every laye man sholde knowe it."

In June, 1490, Caxton finished the translation of two books, The Art and Craft to know well to die and the Eneydos . The first is not a translation of the complete book, but merely a small abridgment, running to thirteen printed leaves in folio. Blades mentions only three copies, and curiously enough makes no mention of the peculiarly fine one which belonged to Lord Spencer, though he made a careful examination of all the Caxtons at Althorp.

The Eneydos is not, as might be expected from the name, a translation of Virgil's Aeneid , but is more in the nature of a romance founded upon it. Caxton's version was translated from "a lytyl booke in frenshe, named Eneydos," probably the work called Le Livre des Eneydes , printed at Lyons in 1483 by G. le Roy. The most interesting part of the work is the prologue, for in it Caxton sets out at length his views and opinions on the English language, its changes and dialects. He notes that it was rapidly altering. "And certaynly our langage now used varyeth ferre from that whiche was used and spoken when I was borne." While some were anxious to preserve the old style, others were equally wishful to introduce the new. "And thus bytwene playn rude and curious I stande abasshed, but in my judgemente the comyn termes that be dayli used ben lyghter to be understonde than the olde and auncyent englysshe."

In order to make the style as good as possible, Caxton obtained the assistance of John Skelton, lately created a "poeta laureatus" at Oxford, who revised the work for the press.

A second edition of the Speculum Vitae Christi and the Liber Festivalis belong probably to 1490. The latter book is not a reprint of the first edition, but another version, and is reprinted from the Oxford edition of 1486.

The last five books printed by Caxton are theological or liturgical. The Ars Moriendi , a unique little quarto of eight leaves, was discovered in a volume of early tracts in the Bodleian by Henry [pg 78] Bradshaw, and is described by Blades in the second edition of his book. He there states that no other edition in any language is known; but it was certainly reprinted by Wynkyn de Worde. The Fifteen Oes , a little quarto containing fifteen prayers, each commencing with O, is known from a unique copy in the British Museum. The book was no doubt intended as a supplement to the Sarum Book of Hours , but no edition agreeing with it typographically is known. It differs from all other of Caxton's books in having wood-cut borders round each page of text. It also contains a beautiful wood-cut of the Crucifixion, one of a series intended for a Book of Hours . No doubt Caxton possessed the set, and we find it later on in the hands of Wynkyn de Worde.

The Servitium de Transfiguratione Jesu Christi and the Commemoratio lamentationis Beatae Mariae Virginis are special issues of new services to be incorporated into the Breviary . The first contains 10 leaves, and is one of the very few books in which Caxton introduced printing in red. The only copy known, bound up with a unique tract printed by Pynson, and some foreign books, was formerly in the Congregational Library, London, but was purchased by the British Museum in 1862 for £200. The Commemoratio , a quarto of 34 leaves, is known only from the unique copy, wanting two leaves, presented to the University of Ghent by the learned librarian, Dr. Ferdinand Vander Haeghen. This little book was purchased for a trifle at a sale in Ghent and remained unrecognized for many years, until M. Campbell of The Hague identified it as a production of Caxton's press.

The book generally considered to have been the last printed by Caxton consists of three treatises printed with separate signatures. These are the Orologium Sapientiae , the Twelve profits of Tribulation , and the Rule of St. Benet .

A writer in the British Museum speaking of these three books, says that they "are in most of the known copies bound together, and have been usually treated as a single volume under the title, probably dating from the eighteenth century, A Book of Divers Ghostly Matters . There is, however, no reason to suppose the connexion to be due to any other cause than similarity of subject and form, combined with nearly simultaneous publication."

No doubt this idea commends itself to the Museum authorities, since they possess only one of the three portions, ruthlessly abstracted by a thief some years ago from a perfect copy in a private library, but unfortunately it is quite incorrect. The compiler distinctly speaks of the books having been printed together, and on account of their treating different subjects, his wish that the compilation should be called the Book of Divers Ghostly Matters .

When complete the book consisted of 148 leaves in quarto. It contains, at the end of the second tract, a wood-cut which belongs to the series specially cut for the Speculum Vitae Christi , though it was not used in it.

The number of books actually printed by Caxton in England, counting separate editions, is ninety-six, and with the three printed at Bruges and the Missal makes altogether one hundred genuine Caxtons. Blades describes ninety-nine books, but amongst these he includes two which were certainly printed at Bruges after Caxton had left, and three printed by Wynkyn de Worde after Caxton's death, so that the number of genuine books which he describes is ninety-four. The finest collection is now, as is right, in the British Museum, which by judicious purchases in recent years has quite outstripped any possible rival.

Five more books remain to be described, which although not [pg 80] printed by Caxton himself, were printed with his types, and have therefore often been ascribed by different writers to his press. These are the Life of St. Katherine , the Chastising of God's Children , the Treatise of Love , the Book of Courtesy , and the third edition of the Golden Legend .

The first of these books is a small folio of 96 leaves, and contains, besides the Life of St. Katherine of Siena, the Revelations of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. The type used is a modification of Caxton's type No. 4*, recast on a slightly smaller body and with several new additions. Unlike Caxton's books which were made up in quires of eight leaves, this has been made up in quires of six. Another point which distinguishes it and the remaining books from Caxton's work is the introduction of several remarkable capital letters. These were obtained along with a fount of type and some wood-cuts from Godfried van Os, apparently about the year 1490, when he moved from Gouda to Copenhagen. The fount of type was not used until 1496, and then only for one book.

The Chastising of God's Children , a folio of 48 leaves, printed in Caxton's type No. 6, is notable as being the first book issued at the Westminster press with a genuine title-page. It is printed in three lines, and runs as follows: "The prouffytable boke for mannes soule, And right comfortable to the body, and specyally in adversitee and trybulacyon, whiche boke is called The Chastysing of goddes Chyldern."

Why so obvious an improvement as a title-page never commended itself to Caxton it is hard to say. It could not have been for want of examples, for, introduced in Germany as far back as the year 1468, they had at any rate during the last ten years of Caxton's life been in common use abroad. Even the London printer, William de Machlinia, had prefixed one to an edition of the Treatise on the Pestilence , by Canutus, Bishop of Aarhaus, which he printed about the year 1486. Of the Chastising , about twelve copies are known.

The Treatise of Love is also a folio of 48 leaves, and agrees typographically with the Chastising ; indeed, the two were often bound together, and are quoted by Dibdin as two parts of one book. The introduction tells us that it was translated in 1493 from French into English by a person "unperfect in such work," but no mention is made either of the original author or the translator. It was most probably printed also in 1493, for at the end of that year De Worde introduced his own type and ceased the use of Caxton's for the text of his books. At the end his first device is found, consisting of Caxton's initials and mark, much reduced in size, in black on a white ground, and apparently engraved on metal. Blades quotes four copies of this book, all of them perfect, but does not mention the copy in the University Library at Göttingen, and there are probably at least two other copies in private libraries in England.

Of the Book of Courtesy , which, like the earlier editions, was in quarto, nothing now remains but two leaves printed on one side in the Douce collection at the Bodleian. These two leaves, which have been used at some time to line a binding, are waste proof of the beginning and end of the second and last quire of the book, which probably consisted, like the earlier edition, of 14 leaves. On the last page, under the colophon, "Here endeth a lytyll treatyse called the booke of curtesye or lytyll John. Enprynted atte westmoster," is De Worde's device printed upside down, the reason no doubt for the rejection of the sheet.

The last book, the Golden Legend , is a small, thick folio of 436 leaves, with a number of illustrations which had been used in [pg 82] previous editions. The colophon is reprinted verbatim from the first edition, with the simple alteration of the date and regnal year. It ends, as do those of the preceding editions, "By me William Caxton," a circumstance which gives Blades the opportunity of remarking on the carelessness of Wynkyn de Worde. "This is only another instance," he writes, "of the utter disregard of accuracy by Wynken de Worde, who has here reprinted Caxton's colophon, with the date only altered, and thus caused what might have been a puzzling anomaly."

This is, I think, hardly fair criticism. The book is the largest which Caxton translated, and the words "By me William Caxton" may apply quite as much to the translation as to the printing, and it is no doubt that De Worde retained it as applying to the former. As Caxton was but recently dead, and well known to every one, he could not possibly have intended to signify that he was the printer.

One point in connexion with this book is curious. How was it that this third edition was printed when the stock of the earlier edition was not exhausted? Caxton, by his will, bequeathed a certain number to the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, to be sold for the benefit of the church, but these were not exhausted even by 1498, when a fourth edition was printed. In 1496 Caxton's son-in-law received twenty, and a number still remained in possession of his daughter.

A solution of this difficulty has occurred to me, which, though it may be considered as improbable, is by no means impossible. This is, that the "legends" mentioned in the various documents were not copies of the Golden Legend at all, but were copies of the Legenda of Salisbury use, which, as pointed out on page 71 , were probably printed for Caxton. Being a book printed specially for the use of the clergy in church, such a bequest would be very suitable. In 1496 these "legends" were valued in the law-court at thirteen shillings and four pence apiece, but the twelve copies sold by the churchwardens of Westminster between 1496 and 1500 gradually decreased in price from six shillings and eight pence in the first year to five shillings in the last.

Considering the number of Caxton's productions that are now known to us only from mere fragments, it is probable that many have disappeared altogether. Amongst these may be reckoned one of considerable importance, the Metamorphoses of Ovid .

In the introduction to the Golden Legend Caxton writes: "Whan I had parfourmed and accomplisshed dyvers werkys and hystoryes translated out of frensshe into englysshe at the requeste of certeyn lordes, ladyes and gentylmen, as thystorye of the recuyel of Troye, the book of the chesse, the hystorye of Jason, the hystorye of the myrrour of the world, the xv bookes of Metamorpheseos in whyche been conteyned the fables of ouyde, and the hystorye of godefroy of boloyn ... wyth other dyuers werkys and bookes, etc."

These, like all Caxton's translations, were done for the press, so there is every reason for believing that the Ovid also was printed. Fortunately we have further evidence, for in the Pepysian collection at Magdalene College, Cambridge, is a manuscript on paper bought by Pepys at an anonymous auction, which contains the last six books of the Metamorphoses , with the following colophon: "Translated and fynysshed by me William Caxton at Westmestre the xxij day of Apryll, the yere of our lord. M. iiijc iiijxx. And the xx yere of the Regne of kyng Edward the fourth."

Though the point can never be settled, it is not unlikely that this manuscript has preserved for us a genuine specimen of Caxton's own writing, not, of course, the ordinary current hand, but the book hand used in copying manuscripts. At that time there was [pg 84] still a prejudice amongst the nobles against printed books, so that the presentation copy to the patron generally took the form of a neatly written manuscript.

There is another interesting point to be noticed about this manuscript. It contains the autograph of Lord Lumley, who inherited the library formed by the Earls of Arundel. Now, William Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, was one of Caxton's patrons, so that it seems extremely probable that this manuscript was presented to him by Caxton himself.

Another translation of which no trace remains is mentioned in the prologue to the Four Sons of Aymon . The only known copy of Caxton's edition is imperfect, and wants the earlier part containing this prologue, but it occurs in full in the later edition printed by William Copland in 1554, from which the following quotation is taken: "Therefore late at the request and commandment of the right noble and virtuous Earl, John Earl of Oxford, my good singular and especial lord, I reduced and translated out of French into our maternal and English tongue the life of one of his predecessors named Robert Earl of Oxford tofore said with divers and many great miracles, which God showed for him, as well in his life as after his death, as it is showed all along in his said book." What this romance may have been is difficult to say, but it probably refers to the favourite of Richard the Second, the Duke of Ireland, who was killed in France while engaged in a boar-hunt.

Caxton, like all other printers at that time, numbered bookbinders amongst his workmen and issued his books ready bound. Every genuine binding from his workshop is of brown calf, ornamented with dies. His general method of covering the sides of his bindings was to make a large centre panel contained by a framework of dies. This panel was divided into lozenge-shaped compartments [pg 85] by diagonal lines running both ways from the frame, and in each of these compartments a die was stamped. The die most commonly found has a winged dragon or monster engraved upon it. The framework was often composed of repetitions of a triangular die pointing alternately right and left, also containing a dragon. This die is interesting, not only because the use of a triangular die was uncommon, but because it was an exact copy of one used by a London binder of the twelfth century.

The exact date of Caxton's death has never been settled, but from the position of the entry in the parish accounts relating to his burial, it would appear to have taken place towards the end of the year 1491. All the early writers fixed on 1493 as the date, no doubt because his name appears in the colophon of the edition of the Golden Legend printed in that year.

His will, could this be recovered, would doubtless throw light on this and many another obscure point, but the hope of finding it grows daily less and less. The ordinary repositories have been searched in vain; though it was still considered possible that it might be found amongst the large collection of documents preserved in Westminster Abbey. Mr. Scott, of the British Museum, who is at present engaged in calendaring these documents, and to whom I wrote on the subject, replied: "I believe it to be quite impossible that Caxton's will can be in the Muniment Rooms at the Abbey, because all the wills are together in one bundle, arranged chronologically, and also I have calendared, so far as I can see, all papers and deeds relating to Westminster." There is just the possibility that at some period the will, having been recognized as of supreme interest, has been removed to some place of greater security and its whereabouts forgotten.

In a copy of the Fructus Temporum printed by Julyan Notary in 1515, which belonged at one time to a Mr. Ballard of Cambden, in Gloucestershire, a friend of Joseph Ames, the bibliographer, [pg 87] there was written in a very old hand the following epitaph on Caxton:

"Of your charitee pray for the soul of Mayster Wyllyam Caxton, that in hys time was a man of moche ornate and moche renommed wysdome and connyng, and decessed ful crystenly the yere of our Lord M.CCCC.Lxxxxj.

There seems great probability that this is a genuine copy of a genuine inscription, for had it been a forgery of the time when it is first mentioned, early in the eighteenth century, the forger would have given the date as 1493, which was then supposed to be the date of Caxton's death, rather than 1491, the genuine date.

Two years later we find in the colophon to Gerard Leeu's reprint of Caxton's Chronicles the same epithets applied to him by his workmen (by one of whom he had been killed during the progress of the work) as are applied to Caxton, "a man of grete wysedom in all maner of kunnying."

Of Caxton's domestic affairs we know hardly anything. A lucky discovery made by Mr. Gairdner in the Public Record Office proves that he was a married man. This is a copy of a document produced in a lawsuit relating to a separation between Gerard Croppe, a tailor of Westminster, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Caxton, and dated the 11th of May, 1496. Each was bound over, under penalty of one hundred pounds, not to vex, sue, or trouble the other about any matters relating to their marriage, and to live for the future apart, unless the said Gerard could recover the love and favour of the said Elizabeth. This having been agreed to, Gerard was to receive out of the bequest of William Caxton twenty printed [pg 88] Legends at thirteen shillings and four pence a Legend, giving a general quittance to the executors of William Caxton.

Could the record of the original trial be recovered, the evidence of the various witnesses would no doubt afford much information.

In the churchwarden's accounts of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, there occurs an entry in the year 1490.

This has been supposed to refer to Caxton's wife, but beyond the similarity of names there is no evidence to support the conjecture. In the same way, too, the entry of a William Caxton's burial in 1479 in the parish records of St. Margaret's has caused several to conjecture that this may have been the printer's father.

It appears almost certain that Caxton left no son, for all his printing material passed into the hands of Wynkyn de Worde, who had for some time been his assistant.

Wynkyn de Worde, who took out letters of denization in April, 1496, is described as a printer, and a native of the Duchy of Lorraine. Many writers have mistakenly derived his name from the town of Woerden in Holland, whereas he really came from the town of Worth in Alsace, and sometimes uses the name Worth in place of Worde. The suggestion, too, that he came with Caxton from Bruges would appear improbable, for as that event took place in 1476, and De Worde did not die until 1535, he would have been too young to be an assistant.

Amongst the documents, however, in Westminster Abbey is one dated 1480, relating to the giving up of a tenement by Elizabeth, wife of Wynand van Worden. If this really refers to the printer, it is clear that he must have married an Englishwoman, who would be able to hold property, which the husband, as an alien, could [pg 89] not. It makes it also appear probable that he was an assistant of Caxton when he established himself as an English printer in 1476, but De Worde must at that time have been a fairly young man.

Several other printers have been quoted as apprentices of Caxton by different writers, but without any authority. Blades mentions Pynson, and even goes so far as to say that he used Caxton's device, a mistake which may be traced to an imperfect copy of Pynson's Speculum Vitae Christi in the British Museum, formerly in the Offor Library, which has a leaf with Caxton's device inserted at the end.

Although Caxton makes frequent mention of the homeliness and rudeness of his language, yet it is clear that these expressions must not be taken quite literally. He was born in the Weald of Kent, where the peasants no doubt spoke a very marked dialect, but his own English shows no signs of this. His family was not of the peasant class, and he had received a good education, though where he does not say. Living as an apprentice in the house of one of the richest and most important London merchants, and in the company of his fellow-apprentices, he would soon lose any provincialisms he might possess. His position as head of the English merchants abroad, and his confidential position at the court of the Duchess of Burgundy, could hardly have been reached by one who spoke rude and provincial language. His statements must be taken rather as expressions of the mock humility which it was the fashion of the time to insert in prefaces, especially when they were addressed to people in high rank.

In the same way we must hardly take as literal his expressions as to his own want of education and learning. French and Dutch he knew fluently, and we know from his own words in the Golden [pg 90] Legend that he could read Latin, for he made use of both a French and a Latin version in making his translation. He seems, indeed, to have been a really well-educated man of the middle classes, at a time when learning was difficult to obtain, and was generally confined to the professions and the members of the Universities.

His work as a printer and a translator is the best evidence as to what manner of man he was. It shows clearly that he did not look upon the printing-press merely as a means of making money, or his publications would have been of a very different character. His mind seems to have grasped the great possibilities of his art, though he could not have foreseen the immensity of the power it was destined to become. He laboured steadily to give to the English-speaking public the literature of their country, and where a suitable book was not to be found in the vernacular, he set to work and translated it. Death found him at his work. "Thus endyth," writes his successor in the colophon of Jerome's Vitas Patrum , "the moost vertuouse hystorye of the devoute and right renommed lyves of holy faders lyvynge in deserte, worthy of remembraunce to all well dysposed persones, whiche hath be translated out of Frensshe in to Englysshe by Wyllyam Caxton of Westmynstre late deed, and fynysshed it at the laste daye of his lyff."

[When the signatures are within brackets it denotes that the book has no printed signatures.]

BOOKS PRINTED AT BRUGES.
Cessolis (I. de). The game and play of the chess [a-h ⁸ , i ¹⁰ ]; 74 leaves. Leaves 1, 74 blank.	fol. [1475]
Cordiale. Les quartre derrenieres choses [a-d ⁸ , e ¹⁰ , f-i ⁸ ]; 74 leaves. Leaves 1, 74 blank.	fol. [1476]
Le Fevre. The Recuyell of the histories of Troye [a-o ¹⁰ , p ⁸ ; A-I ¹⁰ , K ⁸ , L ⁶ ; aa-kk ¹⁰ ]; 352 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1475]
BOOKS PRINTED AT WESTMINSTER.
Aesop. Fables a-s ⁸ ; 144 leaves. Leaves 143, 144 blank.	fol. 1484
Ars moriendi A ⁸ ; 8 leaves.	4to [1491]
Art and craft to know well to die A ⁸ , B ⁴ , B3 ² ; 14 leaves. Leaf 14 blank.	fol. 1490
Blanchardyn and Eglantine [6] A-M ⁸ ... Full collation unknown.	fol. [1489]
Boethius de consolatione philosophiae [a-l ⁸ , m ⁶ ]; 94 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1478]
Bonaventura. Speculum vitae Christi a-s ⁸ , t ⁴ ; 148 leaves. Leaves 1, 148 blank.	fol. [1486]
Bonaventura. Speculum vitae Christi. Ed. 2 a-s ⁸ , t ⁴ ; 148 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1490]
Book of Courtesy [pg 92] [a ⁸ , b ⁶ ]; 14 leaves. Leaf 14 blank.	4to [1477]
Book of divers ghostly matters A-M ⁸ ; 96 leaves (1-96) Seven points. A-D ⁸ ; 32 leaves (97-128) Twelve profits. aa, bb ⁸ , cc ⁴ ; 20 leaves (129-148) Rule of St. Benet.	4to [1491]
Cato. Cato, parvus et magnus [a-c ⁸ , d ¹⁰ ]; 34 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1477]
Cato. Cato, parvus et magnus. [Ed. 2] [a-c ⁸ , d ¹⁰ ]; 34 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1477]
Cato. Cato, parvus et magnus. [Ed. 3] a-c ⁸ , d ⁴ ; 28 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1481]
Cato. Cathon. [6] a-h ⁸ , i ¹⁰ ; 80 leaves. Leaves 1, 6, 7, 80 blank.	fol. [1483]
Caxton. Advertisement of Sarum Pica Single sheet.	[1477]
Cessolis (I. de). Game of chess a-i ⁸ , k, l ⁶ ; 84 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1483]
Charles the Great, Life a-m ⁸ ; 96 leaves. Leaves 1, 96 blank.	fol. 1485
Chartier (Alain). The Curial i, ii, iii ⁶ ; 6 leaves.	fol. [1484]
Chaucer (Geoffrey). The Book of Fame a-c ⁸ , d ⁶ ; 30 leaves. Leaves 1, 30 blank.	fol. [1483]
Chaucer (Geoffrey). The Canterbury Tales [a-z, A-I ⁸ , K ¹⁰ , L-Q ⁸ , R ⁶ , S-Z ⁸ , aa ⁶ ]; 374 leaves. Leaves 1, 266, 374 blank.	fol. [1478]
Chaucer (Geoffrey). The Canterbury Tales. [Ed. 2] a-t ⁸ , v ⁶ , aa-hh ⁸ , ii ⁶ , A-K ⁸ , L ⁴ ; 312 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1484]
Chaucer (Geoffrey). Queen Anelida and the false Arcyte [a ¹⁰ ]; 10 leaves.	4to [1477]
Chaucer (Geoffrey). The temple of brass [a-c ⁸ ... ]. End not known.	4to [1477]
Chaucer (Geoffrey). Troilus and Creside a-g ⁸ , h ¹⁰ , L-O ⁸ , p ⁶ ; 120 leaves. Leaves 1, 119, 120 blank.	fol. [1483]
Christine of Pisan. Moral proverbs [pg 93] [A ⁴ ]; 4 leaves.	fol. 1478
Christine of Pisan. Fayts of arms and chivalry [2] A-R ⁸ , S ⁶ ; 144 leaves. Leaf 144 blank.	fol. 1489
Chronicles of England [8] a-x ⁸ , y ⁶ ; 182 leaves. Leaves 1, 9 blank.	fol. 1480
Chronicles of England. Ed. 2 [8] a-x ⁸ , y ⁶ ; 182 leaves. Leaves 1, 9 blank.	fol. 1482
Cicero (M. T.). Of old age and friendship 1, a ⁶ , b-h ⁸ , i ⁴ ; 72 leaves (1-72) Old Age. a-f ⁸ ; 48 leaves (73-120) Friendship. Leaves 1, 12, 72 blank.	fol. 1481
Commemoratio lamentationis del. B. V. Mariae a-c ⁸ , d ¹⁰ ; 34 leaves.	4to [1487]
Cordyale [a-i ⁸ , k ⁶ ]; 78 leaves. Leaves 1, 78 blank.	fol. 1479
Death-bed prayers Single leaf.	fol. [1483]
Description of Britain [a-c ⁸ , d ⁶ ]; 30 leaves. Leaf 30 blank.	fol. 1480
Dictes or sayings [a-i ⁸ , k ⁶ ]; 78 leaves. Leaves 1, 77, 78 blank.	fol. 1477
Dictes or sayings. [Variant copy with colophon.] [a-i ⁸ , k ⁶ ]; 78 leaves. Leaves 1, 77, 78 blank.	fol. 1477
Dictes or sayings. Ed. 2 [a-i ⁸ , k ⁶ ]; 78 leaves. Leaves 1, 77, 78 blank.	fol. [1479]
Dictes or sayings. Ed. 3 [2] A-G ⁸ , H-I ⁶ ; 70 leaves. Leaf 70 blank.	fol. [1489]
Doctrinal of Sapience A-I ⁸ , K, L ¹⁰ ; 92 leaves. [The Windsor copy has four extra leaves at end, the last blank.]	fol. 1489
Donatus (Ae). Donatus melior Collation not known.	fol. [1487]
Festum transfigurationis Jesu Christi [pg 94] a ⁶ , b ⁴ ; 10 leaves.	4to [1491]
Festum visitationis beate Mariae virginis Collation not known.	4to [1480]
Fifteen Oes a, b ⁸ , c ⁶ ; 22 leaves.	4to [1491]
Four sons of Aymon Collation not known.	fol. [1489]
Godfrey of Bologne a ⁶ , b ⁴ , 1-16 ⁸ , 17 ⁶ ; 144 leaves. Leaves 1, 11 blank.	fol. 1481
Governal of Helthe A, B ⁸ , [2]; 18 leaves.	4to [1489]
Gower (John). Confessio amantis [8], 1, b-z, &, A, B ⁸ , C ⁶ ; 222 leaves. Leaves 1, 8, 9, 222 blank.	fol. 1483
Higden (Ranulph). Polycronicon a, b ⁸ , c ⁴ , 1-28 ⁸ , 28 ^*2 , 29-48 ⁸ , 49 ⁴ , 50, 52-55 ⁸ ; 450 leaves. Leaves 1, 21, 25, 246, 450 blank.	fol. 1482
Horae ad usum Sarum Collation not known.	8^o [1478]
Horae ad usum Sarum Collation not known.	4to [1480]
Horae ad usum Sarum Collation not known.	8^o [1490]
Horae ad usum Sarum Collation not known.	8^o [1490]
Image of Pity Single sheet.	fol. [1487]
Image of Pity Single sheet.	4to [1490]
Indulgence of John Kendale. Singular issue, no year of pontificate Single sheet.	1480
Indulgence of John Kendale. Plural issue, with year of pontificate Single sheet.	1480
Indulgence of I. de Gigliis. Singular issue, with year of pontificate [pg 95] Single sheet.	1481
Indulgence of I. de Gigliis. Plural issue, with year of pontificate Single sheet.	1481
Indulgence of I. de Gigliis Single sheet.	1489
Indulgence of I. de Gigliis Single sheet.	1489
Infancia Salvatoris [a ⁸ , b ¹⁰ ]; 18 leaves.	4to [1477]
Landry (De la Tour). The knight of the tower [4] a-m ⁸ , n ⁶ ; 106 leaves. Leaves 105, 106 blank.	fol. 1484
Lefevre (Raoul). The history of Jason [a-s ⁸ , t ⁶ ]; 150 leaves. Leaves 1, 150 blank.	fol. [1477]
Legrand (I.). The book of good manners a-g ⁸ , h ¹⁰ ; 66 leaves.	fol. 1487
Lidgate (John). The churl and the bird [a ¹⁰ ]; 10 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1477]
Lidgate (John). The churl and the bird. Ed. 2 [a ¹⁰ ]; 10 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1477]
Lidgate (John). Curia sapientiae a-e ⁸ ; 40 leaves. Leaves 1, 39, 40 blank.	fol. [1480]
Lidgate (John). The horse, the sheep and the goose [a ⁸ , b ¹⁰ ]; 18 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1477]
Lidgate (John). The horse, the sheep and the goose. Ed. 2 [a ⁸ , b ¹⁰ ]; 18 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1477]
Lidgate (John). The life of our lady [2] a-l ⁸ , m ⁶ ; 96 leaves. Leaf 96 blank.	fol. [1484]
Lidgate (John). The life of our lady. Ed. 2 Collation not known.	fol. [1484]
Lidgate (John). The pilgrimage of the soul [4] a-n ⁸ , o ⁶ ; 114 leaves. Leaves 1, 5, 113, 114 blank.	fol. 1483
Lidgate (John). Stans puer ad mensam [pg 96] [a ⁴ ]; 4 leaves.	4to [1477]
Lidgate (John). The temple of glass [a-c ⁸ , d ¹⁰ ]; 34 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1477]
Malory (Sir T.). Morte d'Arthur 1 ⁸ , 5 ¹⁰ , a-z, &, A-Z, aa-dd ⁸ , ee ⁶ ; 432 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. 1485
Maydeston (C.). Directorium sacerdotum [6] a-q ⁸ , r ¹⁰ , s, t ⁸ ; 160 leaves.	fol. [1487]
Maydeston (C.). Directorium sacerdotum a ⁸ , a-y ⁸ , z ¹⁰ ; 194 leaves.	fol. [1489]
Mirk (John). Liber festivalis a-n ⁸ , o, p ⁶ ; 116 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. 1483
Mirk (John). Liber festivalis a-p ⁸ , q ² , R ⁸ , s ⁶ ; 136 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1491]
Order of chivalry a-f ⁸ , g ⁴ ; 52 leaves. Leaves 1, 52 blank.	4to [1484]
Ordinale secundum usum Sarum Collation not known.	4to [1477]
Paris and Vienne a-c ⁸ , d, e ⁶ ; 36 leaves. Leaf 36 blank.	fol. 1485
Psalterium a-x (+7* incipiunt), y ⁸ ; 177 leaves. Leaves 1, 177 blank.	4to [1480]
Quattuor sermones a-c ⁸ , d ⁶ ; 30 leaves.	fol. [1483]
Quattuor sermones A-C ⁸ , D^10; 34 leaves.	fol. [1491]
Reynard the Fox a-h (+8* your children), i ⁸ , k, l ⁶ ; 85 leaves. Leaves 1, 85 blank.	fol. 1481
Reynard the Fox. Ed. 2 [2] a-h ⁸ , i ⁶ ; 72 leaves.	fol. [1489]
Royal book a-t ⁸ , u ¹⁰ ; 162 leaves. Leaves 1, 162 blank.	fol. [1488]
Russell (John). Propositio [pg 97] [a ⁴ ]; 4 leaves.	4to [1478]
Saona (L. G. de). Nova rhetorica [a ⁶ , b ² , c-n ¹⁰ , o ⁶ ]; 124 leaves.	fol. [1479]
Sixtus IV. Sex epistolae a-c ⁸ ; 24 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1483]
Statutes of Henry VII. An. 1, 3, 4 a-d ⁸ , e ¹⁰ ; 42 leaves. Leaves 1, 42 blank.	fol. [1489]
Vincentius. The mirror of the world a-m ⁸ , n ⁴ ; 100 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1481]
Vincentius. The mirror of the world. Ed. 2 a-l ⁸ ; 88 leaves.	fol. [1490]
Virgilius. Eneydos A ⁴ , A3 ² , B-L ⁸ ; 86 leaves. Leaves 6, 86 blank.	fol. 1490
Vocabulary in French and English [a, b ⁸ , c ¹⁰ ]; 26 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1480]
Voragine (I. de). The golden legend AA ⁶ , a-z, & ⁸ , 2 ⁶ , A-V ⁸ , X ⁶ , Y ² (+2*)^3, aa-ff ⁸ , gg ⁶ , hh, ii ⁸ , kk ⁶ ; 449 leaves. Leaves 1, 449 blank.	fol. 1483
Voragine (I. de). The golden legend AA ⁶ , a-z, & ⁸ , ρ ⁶ , A-X ⁸ , aa-ff ⁸ , gg ⁶ , hh, ii ⁸ , kk ⁶ ; 448 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1488]
Winifred, Life a, b ⁸ ; 16 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	fol. [1485]
BOOKS PRINTED FOR CAXTON.
Legenda secundum usum Sarum Collation not known.	[Maynyal, Paris, fol. 1487]
Missale secundum usum Sarum [10] a ¹⁰ , b-z, &, ρ, A-F ⁸ , G ⁶ ; 266 leaves. Leaves 1, 11 blank (?).	Maynyal, Paris, fol. 1487
BOOKS PRINTED BY W. DE WORDE WITH CAXTON'S TYPES.
Book of Courtesy [pg 98] Collation not known.	4to [1492]
Chastising of God's children [2] A-G ⁶ , H^4; 48 leaves.	fol. [1492]
Treatise of Love A-H ⁶ ; 48 leaves.	fol. [1493]
Vineis (R. de). Life of St. Katherine of Senis a ⁸ , b-p ⁶ , q ⁴ ; 96 leaves.	fol. [1493]
Voragine (I. de). The golden legend [4] a-e ⁸ , F ² , f-z, &, ρ ⁸ , [=e] ⁴ , A-Y, aa-ee ⁸ , ff ⁶ , gg ⁴ ; 436 leaves.	fol. 1493

Transcriber's Note

The spelling in parts of this book is from the 15th century, some centuries before spelling rules existed. The text is as printed.

Sundry missing or damaged punctuation has been repaired.

Both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants of many words occur in this book. All have been retained.

Illustrations which interrupted paragraphs have been moved to more convenient positions between paragraphs, and Index page numbers amended, if necessary.

Some of the Plates have comments in the margins and/or museum stamps. Though not always clear, these have been retained, as possibly providing some further information to the reader.

Page 24: 'plait' corrected to 'plaît'.

"tôt ou tard, s'il plaît à Dieu, sur William Caxton...."

Page 93: '8' corrected to 'a'.

Cordyale
[a-i^8, k^6]; 78 leaves. Leaves 1, 78 blank.

fol. 1479

Page 95: 'Ed. 2' added to 2nd entry, as for similar entries above and below.

Lidgate (John). The horse, the sheep and the goose [a ⁸ , b ¹⁰ ]; 18 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to [1477]
Lidgate (John). The horse, the sheep and the goose. Ed. 2 [a ⁸ , b ¹⁰ ]; 18 leaves. Leaf 1 blank.	4to[1477]

Page 115: 'Somerest' corrected to 'Somerset'.

"Somerset, Margaret, Duchess of, 75"

Index: There were a few page number errors in the Index; these have been corrected without comment.

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plate		page
	Binding with Caxton's Dies [From the cover of a book in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.]	Frontispiece
I.	Prologue from the Bartholomaeus This contains the verse relating to Caxton's first learning to print. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.] ( Erratum : Read Prologue for Epilogue on Plate I.)	22
II.	The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye Printed in Caxton's Type 1. Leaf 253, the first of the third book. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	28
III.	Epilogue to Boethius Printed in Caxton's Type 3. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	36
IV.	The Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres Printed in Caxton's Type 2. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	38
V.	Caxton's Advertisement Printed in Caxton's Type 3. Intended as an advertisement for the Pica or Directorium ad usum Sarum. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	42
VI.	The Mirrour of the World Printed in Caxton's Type 2*. The woodcuts in this book are the first used in England. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	50
VII.	The Mirrour of the World Printed in Caxton's Type 2*. This shows a diagram with the explanations filled in in MS. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.] [pg 8]	50
VIII.	The Game and Playe of the Chesse Printed in Caxton's Type 2*. The wood-cut represents the philosopher who invented the game. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	52
IX.	Liber Festivalis Printed in Caxton's Type 4*. The colophon to the second part of the book entitled "Quattuor Sermones." [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	56
X.	Chaucer's Canterbury Tales Printed in Caxton's Type 4*. This is the second edition printed by Caxton, but the first with illustrations. [From the copy in the British Museum.]	58
XI.	The Fables of Esope Printed in Caxton's Type 4*. These two cuts show the ordinary type of work throughout the book. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	60
XII.	The Fables of Esope The wood-cut here shewn is engraved in an entirely different manner from the rest. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	60
XIII.	The Fables of Esope Shewing the only ornamental initial letter used by Caxton. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	62
XIV.	The Image of Pity [From the unique wood-cut in the British Museum.]	66
XV.	Speculum Vitæ Christi Printed in Caxton's Type 5. The wood-cut depicts the visit of Christ to Mary and Martha. [From the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	66
XVI.	Caxton's Device [From an example in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	70
XVII.	Legenda ad usum Sarum Printed at Paris by W. Maynyal, probably for Caxton. The book is known only from fragments. [From a leaf in the University Library, Cambridge.]	70
XVIII.	The Indulgence of 1489 [pg 9] Printed in Caxton's Type 7. This type is not mentioned by Blades in his Life of Caxton. [From a copy in the British Museum.]	72
XIX.	The Boke of Eneydos Printed in Caxton's Type 6. This page gives Caxton's curious story about the variations in the English language. [From the copy in the British Museum.]	76
XX.	Ars Moriendi Printed in Caxton's Type 6 [text] and 8 [heading]. [From the unique copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	76
XXI.	Servitium de Transfiguratione Jesu Christi Printed in Caxton's Type 5. [From the unique copy in the British Museum.]	78
XXII.	The Crucifixion Used by Caxton in the Fifteen Oes, and frequently afterwards by Wynkyn de Worde. [From an example in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.]	78
XXIII.	The Lyf of Saint Katherin Printed by W. de Worde with a modification of Caxton's Type 4*. The large initials serve to distinguish de Worde's work from Caxton's. [From the copy in the British Museum.]	80
XXIV. and XXV.	The Metamorphoses of Ovid Two leaves, one with the colophon, from a manuscript prepared by Caxton for the press, and perhaps in his own hand. [From the MS. in the Pepysian Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge.]	82

The Project Gutenberg eBook of William Caxton

WILLIAM CAXTON

WILLIAM CAXTON

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I.
CAXTON'S EARLY LIFE.

CHAPTER II.
CAXTON'S PRESS AT BRUGES.

CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY WESTMINSTER PRESS.

CHAPTER IV.
1480-1483.

CHAPTER V.
1483-1487.

CHAPTER VI.
1487-1491.

CHAPTER VII.
CAXTON'S DEATH.

APPENDIX.

LIST OF CAXTON'S BOOKS, WITH COLLATIONS.

INDEX.

Transcriber's Note

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

chapter		page
	Preface	11
I.	Caxton's Early Life	13
II.	Caxton's Press at Bruges	22
III.	The Early Westminster Press	33
IV.	1480-1483	47
V.	1483-1487	56
VI.	1487-1491	70
VII.	Caxton's Death	86
	Appendix	91
	Index	99

The Project Gutenberg eBook of William Caxton

WILLIAM CAXTON

WILLIAM CAXTON

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I. CAXTON'S EARLY LIFE.

CHAPTER II. CAXTON'S PRESS AT BRUGES.

CHAPTER III. THE EARLY WESTMINSTER PRESS.

CHAPTER IV. 1480-1483.

CHAPTER V. 1483-1487.

CHAPTER VI. 1487-1491.

CHAPTER VII. CAXTON'S DEATH.

APPENDIX. LIST OF CAXTON'S BOOKS, WITH COLLATIONS.

INDEX.

Transcriber's Note

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

CHAPTER I.
CAXTON'S EARLY LIFE.

CHAPTER II.
CAXTON'S PRESS AT BRUGES.

CHAPTER III.
THE EARLY WESTMINSTER PRESS.

CHAPTER IV.
1480-1483.

CHAPTER V.
1483-1487.

CHAPTER VI.
1487-1491.

CHAPTER VII.
CAXTON'S DEATH.

APPENDIX.

LIST OF CAXTON'S BOOKS, WITH COLLATIONS.