FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
191
ami corpt lietk buried in thabbay of Watmettn, betide London, to fort the ehapele of aeunt Benet, by wkot tepulture it wreten on a table, honging on a pylere, kit epitaphye maad by a poete laurtat, tchenof the copye jollotBeth, Ifc.
" Epitaphium Gal&idi Chaucer, per poetam lanreatum Stephanum Surigonum Mediolanen- aem in decietis licenciatum."
Beginning:
" Pyeridm mose si poamnt nomina fletos ; Tndeie, dlninas atq ; ilgan Rcnaa OaUHdi TmtU cbaacer crndelia fM* Plangite, &c.
Candndior :
Rut oUtom Caxton Tololt te nlnen eun
WiUelmi, Chancer clare poeta toi. Nam tua non solnm compreasit opascnla formls Haa qnoq ; aed laodea Juasit hlc esse tuaa."
This was inscribed on a tablet, hung on a pillar near the poet's grave, in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. The following remarks win amply justify what we hate stated respect- ing Caxton's ability, fully to understand, and thoroughly to relish, the merits and beauties of Chaucer's poetry. " We ought to give a singular laud unto that noble and great philosopher, Geoffrey Chaucer, the which, for his ornate writings in our tong, may well hare the name of a laureate poet. For, to fore that he embellbbed and omated and made fair our English, in this toyaume was had rude speech and mcongrue, as yet it appeareth by old Ixwks, which, at this day, ought not to have place, ne be compared among nnto his beauteous rolumes and ornate writings, of whom he made many bools and treatises of many a noble history, as well in metre as in ifarme and prose: and then so craftily made, that he comprehended his mattert in thort, quick, amd high tentencet, etchewing perplexity ; catting away the chaff of tuperfluity, and thewing the picked grain of tentence, uttered by crafty and mgared eloquence."
And speaking of Chaucer's Book of Fame, which he also printed, he says, " Which work, as me seemeth, is craftilv made and digne to be written and known ; for he toucheth in it right great wisdom and subtle understanding; and to in all hit works lie excelleth, in mine opinion, all other writer* in our English, for he writeth no toid wordt, but all his matter is full of high and pack sentence, to whom ought tor be given laud tadpraite for his noble making and writing."
Chaucer's translation of Boethius was also printed by Caxton, without date. It is al- ternately in Latin and English, but the former is not given entire ; a few verses of a period in Latin being succeeded by the whole oi the cor- responding period in Englbh, and so through the whole volume : the Latin type is large com- pared with the English.
A curious volume was printed by Caxton, about the period when the French, which bad hitherto b^n spoken almost exclusively at court, was giving place to the English language ; it is entiUed the Book for Travellers. It contains the rorresponding terms in both languages, for those
things moct commonly talked of at court, espe- cially such as relate to dress.
Having given a sketch of the life of Caxton, little remains, but to award to him that praise which bis perseverance and ingenuity so highly deserves for establishing in his native land, an art so vast and important, that " the productions of men of genius and learning ; the records of literature and of science ; of whatever is either brilliant in imagination or profound in thought ; whatever may cither adorn or improve the human mind, — thenceforth became imperishable. The light of knowledge cannot again be quenched — it is free, and open, and accessible as the air we breathe. The future history of the world may, indeed, disclose enough both of misery and of vice ; but it cannot acain present an universal blank, or he disgracea by another age of utter and cheerless ignorance."* The character of William Caxton may be collected from the ac- count we have given of his labours, and the ex- tracts we have made from his prefaces ; he was possessed of good sense and sound judgment; steady, persevering, active, zealous, and liberal in his services for that important art which he introduced into this kingoom; labouring not only as a printer, but as translator and editor. It has been objected that he was too much given to admire and print romances; but in this he only partook of the spirit of the age; perhaps, indeM, it survived in oim longer and with more power, than in most of his cotemporaries ; but that his love of romance did not blunt his judg- ment and taste for real talent is evident by his printing Chaucer's works, and his criticisms on them. It should be recollected, also, that in the selection of works for the press he was necessa- rily guided by public opinion, and by the proba- bility that what he dia print would repay him for his labour and expense. The remarks of Gibbon on this point are sensible and candid : " In the choice of his authors, that liberal and industrious artist was reduced to comply with the vicious taste of his readers, to gratify the nobles with treatises of heraldry, hawldng, and the game of chess, and to amuse the popular credulity with romances of fabulous knights, aud legends of more fabulous saints. The father of printing expresses a laudable desire to eluci- date the history of his countiy, but instead of publishing the Latin Chronicle of Ralph Hig- den, he could only venture on the English ver- sion by John de Trevisa ; and his complaint of the difficulty of finding materials for his own continuation of that work, sufficiently attests, that even the writers which we now possess of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, had not yet emerged from the darkness of the cloister." If we reflect, too, on the state of England at this period, that he established his press soon after the murder of Henry VI., and that he car- ried on his works during the remainder of the reign of Edward IV., and the reigns of Edward V. and Richard III., when the minds of those
- Li/r of Ciulon, Library of Osefiil Knowledge.
VjOOQ IC
