FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
155
thecfaoiee ofbis Mithort, that Ubenluidlndiiitrioiu artist wu redaced tocomply with the Tldous tasteof his reader*, tD gratify the nobles with treatises oa heraldry, hawkinc,* and the Oame of Chess, and to amuae the popular creduUty with romaoces of fabulous knights, and legends of more fsbuioos saints. The ftither of printing expresses a laud- able desire to elucida te the history of his conntry."
THOMAS ASTLE.
Js SmgiiMh amtiquaiy, woj born in Stqfforttahire. He was tke aitkor*/ Me Origin and Progrtu of Writing, tu well Biengtgpkie as Etemenlarjf, and other workt. He died in ISOS.
" William Caxton hath been generally allowed to hare fxstintioduced and practised the art of printing in England in Oie reign of King Edward IV. He became a reputable merchanC and, in U6i, he was one of the persons employ. ed by King Edward IV. in negodating a treaty of com- merce with the Dnke of Burgundy, and was afterwards fstroDized by Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, sister to thst king. Caxton haTing received a good education in his youth, hadataste for learning, and made himself master of the art of prioting."t
Having, as we conceive, fully set aside the claim of Oxford (and her unknutm printer) aud clearly established the unquestionable right of William Caxton, to the distinguished honour of having introduced the art of printing into this country; we shall now proceed to give some farther notice of the labours of our first printer.
Caxton's first performances are very rude and barbarous. Lewis says, " he used a letter lesembling the hand-writing then in use. His d, at the end of a word, is very singular. He used the characteristics which we find in English ma- nuscripts before the Conquest. Instead of com- mas and periods, he used an oblique stroke, thus /, which the Dutch printers do to this day in their Gothic impressions. His letter was pe- culiar and easily known, being a mixture of Secretary and Gothic as to shape; and sometimes of great primer as to size; especially in printing pruper names. He had a way of joining almost any two characters together. In his titles he used the German text, or what our printers call the Gothic, of the size of great primer, and some- times he mixed it with his Secretary or common print, as our printers now do the italic. Like other printers of his time, he never used any direction or catch-word, but placed the signature where that now stands; and rarely numbered his leaves, and never his pages. In most of his books he only printed, as the custom then was, a small letter at the beginning of the chapters, to imitate what the initial or capital letter should be, and left that to be made by the illuminor, who wrote it with a pen, with red, blue, or green ink; but m some of bis books he used two-line letters of a gothic kind. As he printed long before the present method of adding the errata at the end «f books was used, his extraordinary exactness obliged him to take a grent deal more pains thun can ea.sily be imagined; for, after a book was printed off, bis method was, to revise it, and cor-
- OibboD is tiere mistaken. He was probably tliinkln;;
of the St. Albans* Hook on these subjects, of the date of 1480; or of Wyokyn De Worde's reprint of the latter, in l«90. Caxton never printed a work upon 'heraldry or kawUng.* — 27i6dm.
t These extracts are taken from Johnson, with the ex- ception o( the short biegruphical itofjret placed at the head of each article, which, it Is hoped, will not be nnaccept- aUe to the Ttmtxt.—EdU.
rect the faults in it with red ink; this being done to one copy, he then employed a proper person to correct the whole impression." His books are printed on paper made of the paste of linen rags, very fme and good, and not unlike the thin vellum on which they used to write their books at that time.
There is one mistake, however, worth the cor- recting, that the writers have universally fallen into and taken up from each other; that John Islip was the abbot who first encouraged the art, and entertained the artist in his house : whereas it is proved, that he was not the abbot until four years after Caxton's death; and that Thomas Milling was abbot in 1470, made bbhop of Here- ford a few years after, and held the abbey in commendaro in 1485; in which John Estney next succeeded : so that Milling, who was reput- ed a great scholar, must have been the generous finend and patron of Caxton, who gave that libe- ral reception to an art so beneficial to learning.
This shews how unsafe it is to trust to common history, and necessary to recur to original testi- monies, when we would know the state of facts with exactness. Mr. Echard, at the end of Edward IVth's reign, among the learned of that age, mentions William Caxton as a writer of English history; but seems to doubt whether he wa.s the same with the printer of that name. Had he ever looked into Caxton's books, the doubts had been cleared; or had he consulted his CArontr/en/£n^/an<f, which it is strange that an English historian could neglect, he would have learnt at least to fix the beginning of the art of printing in the abbey.
The productions of Caxton's press amount to sixtv-four. Of the most interesting of these works, either from the anecdotes connected with them, from the insight they give into his life and character, or into the manner of the times, or from the specimens they afford of his talents and information, w« shall give a short account, ar- ranging tliem in chronological order : —
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE BOOKS
PRINTKD BY CAXTON.
From Dibdin'9 ediUon of Ames' Typographical Antijuilia.
Accidence [No date.]
jEsop 1484
Arthur, Histories of 1485
Ballad, Fragment of. [No date.]
Blanchardiu and Eglantine Do.
Bfztius Do.
Book of Divers Ghostly Matters Do.
of Oood Manners 148'
forTraveUera Do.
CatoMagnns 1483
, ,: i , [Nodate.]
Cluirk's thi: l.rrat 1485
Chastislni; of (iud's Children [Nodate.]
Chaucer's Book of Fate Do.
Canterbury Tales [Isted.] Do.
Ditto [»nd ed.] Do.
Trolllus and Cre<;side Do.
Minor Works with Lydgate's Do.
Chess, Oame of. 1474
- [Nodate.]
Chivahry, Fait of Arms and 1499
Ordcrof. 1484
Chronicle of England, ate 1480
Cordial 1480
Craft to Know well to Die •4il«
VjOOQ IC
