the playser of gody to whome I fußmytte al myy entête to write no thenge that ought to be Bla medy/ne but that it be to the hels the & sauacion of euery persone/ here fololbyng/Besechyng al them that thal fynde faute in the same to correct and amend it/And also to pardone me of the rude & symple woucynge /and though so be there be no gay fermes/ne fußtyl ne nelbe eloquenc/wet I hope that it shal k Bnærstonær ew that enænæ I have specy s ally wduæd it /after the sym s ple connynge that god hath lente to me/therof I humbly & Wyth al my krt thanke hym & also am kunden to pray for my fa dez and modere foules! that m my youthe (ette me to (cole (by whyche by the suffraunce of god 3 gete my Crupng I hope truly And that I may so do e conty nuej Byseche Hym to graute me Henne for as mock I Late Pad fynyffled in enprynte the book of the noble & Byctoryous kynge Arthur fyrst of the the moost noble & woz thy of cryfton kynges/and also tofore had redund in to engliffie the noble hystore e lyf of Go, efroy of boloyn yng of Jerus falem/last of the said in worthy Somme persones of noble estate andy degwe haue æfyredy me to. reduce thystore and lyf of the noble and crysten prynce Charof Leo the gute kyng of frauuæ & emperour of Rome / the second of the thw Worthy/w thend that thystores /acts/ & lyues may Le had in our maternal tongue lyke as they be in latyn or in Frene/for the moost quanty? te of the people Bnærftonde not Latyn ne fænffle here in this no Ble ropame of englond/And for w satyffye the few & æquests of my good fenguler lozes & Specyal mayfters and fændes I have enprpled and concluded in my self w œduœ this sayd? Book in to our englyff® /as all abnge and playnely ye may rede/Bere/ and (ce in thys Book his grace / andy so w faboure and occupy my self Bertuously that I may come out of atte waly synne/that after this lyf I may come to hys Blyffe in he↑ um ÁMEN / A Page from "Charles the Grete," printed by Caxton in 1485 appeared in Flanders in the character of a fugitive and exile, and Caxton can hardly have failed to be brought into connection with him. In 1471 he completed the translation of the Recueil, and hit upon the idea which made him famous by resolving not merely to have the book printed, but to print it himself. To this end it was needful for him to learn the art of printing, so far as we know not possessed, certainly not exercised in the capacity of master-printer, by any Englishman before him. France, which has been thought, not without plausible grounds, to have had the first glimmering conception of the art, had practically received it only the year before from German hands. Spain had still to wait three years, Poland four; and although the art had probably been practised for some years in Holland, there was as yet no Dutch book with a date. Germany and Italy alone were active and Caxton is the only man in fifteenth-century Europe of whom it can be affirmed with certainty that he deliberately took up printing from a distinct perception of its importance as an agent in the propagation of literature. Paper-making in the Fifteenth Century Caxton's principal coadjutor, whose name should always be remembered along with his, was probably actuated by different motives. We are told that Colard Mansion of Bruges, had been "a skilful caligrapher," whose reason for taking up printing would be the same as that which has in our own day induced so many miniaturists to turn photographers. Though Caxton's colleague, he does not appear to have been his instructor. It seems probable that Caxton learned printing at Cologne, and, returning thence to Bruges, executed his Recuyell in partnership with Mansion about 1474. It was, therefore, the first English printed book, but not the first book printed in England. The Game and Play of the Chess, not a treatise upon the game but a moralisation of it, translated from a French version of the Latin original of Jacobus de Cessolis, was until recently considered as the first printed English book, but is now allowed to have been but the second, and like its predecessor to have been printed at Bruges. Caxton says that he completed the translation in March 1475, and the book was no doubt printed in the same year. In 1476 Caxton returned to his native country after an absence of thirty-five years, and established himself at Westminster, renting a shop from the Dean and Chapter at the annual rent of ten shillings from Michaelmas 1476. In November 1477 he issued the first book printed in England, The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, a translation from the French by no less influential a person than Earl Rivers, the King's brother-in-law and governor of the Caxton's career as a printer Caxton as printer and publisher little Prince of Wales, for whose prospective benefit the version was probably made. Edward IV. and his successors did themselves honour by their patronage of Caxton, who also took rank as a man of letters by his publication of the Dictes, revising Rivers's version at the latter's request, and humorously dilating on his omission of Socrates in his relation to the female sex. The highly interesting history of Caxton's press, so ably elucidated by Mr. Blades, only falls within our subject in so far as it affords a clue to the literary taste and general culture of the time. On these points Caxton, how ever unintentionally, is a sure guide, for he was an eminently practical man. The whole character of his mind, mirrored in the general style of his publications, assures us that he would be the last person to give his countrymen what, however salutary for them, they were not conscious of requiring. When we find that he never prints a classic in the original language, we may be sure that there was then no demand for such literature in England. Had Caxton's press been set up at Oxford or Cambridge, he might possibly have been tempted by the prospect of learned patronage to speculate in Latin editions of Latin books; but clearly no allurement of the kind presented itself at London or Westminster. On the other hand, Englishmen did not object Bookbinding in the Fifteenth Century From "Stände und Handwerker," by Jobst Amman to read classical authors in their own language, and Caxton published versions of Cicero, De Amicitia and De Senectute, which latter may have been that made for Sir John Fastolf. More significant is the evidence of a taste for English poetry afforded by Caxton's editions of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, works expensive to produce, and upon which he would not have ventured without the assurance of popular support. His edition of Malory's Morte d'Arthur is an enterprise of the same class. On the whole, the leading departments of literature as represented in the Caxton press may be defined as theology and romance. The total number of his known publications, now extant, issued in England between his first publication in 1477 and his death in 1491, is seventy-one, excluding repeated editions of the same work, which would raise the number to 102. Allowing for the deference which he was compelled as a man of business to accord to popular taste, great credit is due to Caxton for his power of initiative in the conduct of his affairs. Everything appears to have been done by himself. There is no trace of any help from a CAXTON'S PUBLICATIONS 269 reader or a literary adviser. He was his own editor and generally his own translator. He did not, indeed, decline to receive suggestions; the Book of Good Manners was translated and published at the request of his friend William Pratt; and the remarkable publication of the official letters from the Republic of Venice to Pope Sixtus IV. must have been made at the instance of the Venetians. In the main, however, Caxton's publications undoubtedly exhibit the tastes of Caxton as well as of his public. It may be regretted that he had not some counsellor near him who could have influenced him in the direction of typographic elegance, for he was no Jenson or Aldus. Homeliness is the expression by which his type and his illustrations are best described. The idea that he could have any call to vie with the grandeur of the German or the elegance of the Italian type evidently never occurred to him. With the latter, indeed, he could not compete, for he never uses the Roman character. Yet he was nice respecting his type, using no less than eight founts at various times, but he never once stumbles into beauty. Paper, just beginning to be manufactured in England, was imported by him from the Low Countries. translator In one point of view Caxton's services to his country's literature cannot be Caxton as overestimated; he poured new blood into its exhausted veins by the numerous translations which he executed with an industry almost incredible in one who personally superintended the mechanical part of his business, and was moreover continually engaged in commercial affairs. To appreciate the magnitude of his service we must consider that literary English prose was in Caxton's day almost extinct. The nation did indeed possess a monument of noble diction in Wycliffe's Bible, but this was proscribed and inaccessible. The other prose books of the fourteenth century had become obsolete through the mutation of the times, and except for Malory, who himself owed his preservation to Caxton, the fifteenth century had done nothing to supply their place. Caxton could not write original books, but he could render books from other languages, and, so great was the dearth and penury of English letters at the time, that he was actually obliged to do so to keep his press going. Many of the French books he translated were romances, but others, such as the Knight of the Tower's advice to his daughters, Cato, and The Doctrinal of Sapience, were works of morality and others, such as Esop, were French versions of classical originals. Caxton, nevertheless, was not unskilled in Latin; he used the original text as well as the French version when translating the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine; and a translation by him of six books of the Metamorphoses, strangely left unprinted in our day, is extant in the Pepysian Library at Magdalen College, Cambridge. One book, Reynard the Fox, was translated by him from the Dutch or Flemish, with which residence in the Low Countries had made him acquainted. The general character of his publications is proof that he wrought for a cultivated society, a genuine, though limited reading public. He speaks of many copies of his Chaucer being bought by "gentlemen." Professional literature is hardly represented; there are no legal books, and but one medical nor is there anything relating to agriculture, handicraft, the fine arts, or military affairs. Of Caxton's one hundred and two publications thirty-eight exist only in a fragmentary condition. Several, no doubt, have entirely perished. Those extant books contain more than fourteen thousand pages, usually of folio size. When the amount of translation is also taken into account, this manifests a |