The biographers of Caxton may be divided into two classes; those who
wrote before the publication of the _Typographical antiquities_, A.D.
1749, and those who wrote after that date. The same distinction may be
made with regard to those who have incidentally noticed his life or
publications.
The principal writers of the first period are Leland, Bale, Stow, Pits,
Fuller, Nicolson, Middleton, Birch, Oldys, Lewis and Tanner. At the
present moment, I must content myself with a critical remark on the mode
in which Leland has been so often quoted. The first passage contains the
expression to which I allude.
(1.) "Gulielmus Caxodunus, _Angliæ prototypographus_, hæc, aut
similia his, Anglice refert" etc.
(2.) "Quanquam priusquam id, quod modo sum pollicitus,
præstitero, non alienum meo erit instituto palam facere
_Gulielmum Caxodunum_, hominem nec indiligentem, nec indoctum,
_et quem constat primum_ LONDINI _artem exercuisse
typographicam_, Chauceri opera, quotquot vel pretio vel precibus
comparare potuit, in unum volumen collegisse."
The incidental expression _Angliæ prototypographus_ has been considered
as a proof that Leland discredited the typographical claims of Oxford.
The second quotation conveys an opposite notion. I tax no one, however,
with unfairness, but ascribe the oversight to reliance on the _Index
scriptorum à Joanne Lelando laudatorum_, which refers only to the first
quotation.