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FROM THE BARTHOLOMAEUS 22

This contains the verse relating to Caxton's first learning to print.

Printed in Caxton's Type 1. Leaf 253, the first of the third book.

Printed in Caxton's Type 3.

Printed in Caxton's Type 2.

Printed in Caxton's Type 3. Intended as an advertisement for the Pica or Directorium ad usum Sarum.

The wood-cut here shewn is engraved in an entirely different manner from the rest.

Shewing the only ornamental initial letter used by Caxton.

Printed in Caxton's Type 5. The wood-cut depicts the visit of Christ to Mary and Martha.

Printed at Paris by W. Maynyal, probably for Caxton. The book is known only from fragments.

Printed in Caxton's Type 7. This type is not mentioned by Blades in his Life of Caxton.

Printed in Caxton's Type 6. This page gives Caxton's curious story about the variations in the English language.

Printed in Caxton's Type 6 and 8 .

Printed in Caxton's Type 5.

Used by Caxton in the Fifteen Oes, and frequently afterwards by Wynkyn de Worde.

Two leaves, one with the colophon, from a manuscript prepared by Caxton for the press, and perhaps in his own hand.

PREFACE

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.

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.

E. G. D.

CHAIN BRIDGE, BERWYN, May, 1902.

CAXTON'S EARLY LIFE.

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 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 ; 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 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."

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 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 ," 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.

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.

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 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.

CAXTON'S PRESS AT BRUGES.

"And also of your charyte call to remembraunce, The soule of William Caxton, the fyrste prynter of this book, In Laten tongue at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce, That every well disposed man may thereon look."

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.

The mechanical part of the work was not at that time a complicated 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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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 , 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.

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.

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.

THE EARLY WESTMINSTER 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 , and in 1488 as the room over the road at the entrance to the Almonry . This latter was perhaps rented as a place to store the unsold portion of his stock.

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.

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