During the last thirty or forty years of the fifteenth century, while
printing was becoming gradually more and more practised on the
Continent, and the presses of Mentz, Bamberg, Cologne, Strasburg,
Augsburg, Rome, Venice, and Milan, were sending forth numbers of Bibles,
and various learned and theological works, chiefly in Latin, an English
merchant, a man of substance and of no little note in Chepe, appeared at
the court of the Duke of Burgundy at Bruges, to negotiate a commercial
treaty between that sovereign and the king of England; which
accomplished, the worthy ambassador seems to have liked the place and
the people so well, and to have been so much liked in return, that for
some years afterwards he took up his residence there, holding some
honourable, easy appointment in the household of the Duchess of
Burgundy. This was William Caxton, who here ripened, if he did not
acquire, his love of literature and scholarship, and began, from hatred
of idleness, to take pen in hand himself.
"When I remember," says he, in his preface to his first work, a
translation of a fanciful "Recueil des Histoires de Troye," "that every
man is bounden by the commandment and counsel of the wise man to eschew
sloth and idleness, which is mother and nourisher of vices, and ought to
put himself into virtuous occupation and business, then I, having no
great charge or occupation, following the said counsel, took a French
book, and read therein many strange marvellous histories. And for so
much as this book was new and late made, and drawn into French, and
never seen in our English tongue, I thought in myself, it should be a
good business to translate it into our English, to the end that it might
be had as well in the royaume of England as in other lands, and also to
pass therewith the time; and thus concluded in myself to begin this said
work, and forthwith took pen and ink, and began boldly to run forth, as
blind Bayard, in this present work."
While at work upon this translation, Caxton found leisure to visit
several of the German towns where printing presses were established, and
to get an insight into the mysteries of the art, so that by the time he
had finished the volume, he was able to print it. At the close of the
third book of the "Recuyell," he says: "Thus end I this book which I
have translated after mine author, as nigh as God hath given me cunning,
to whom be given the laud and praise. And for as much as in the writing
of the same my pen is worn, mine hand weary and not steadfast, mine eyen
dimmed with overmuch looking on the white paper, and my courage not so
prone and ready to labour as it hath been, and that age creepeth on me
daily, and feebleth all the body; and also because I have promised to
divers gentlemen and to my friends, to address to them as hastily as I
might, this said book, therefore I have practised and learned, at my
great charge and dispense, to ordain this said book in print, after the
manner and form you may here see; and is not written with pen and ink as
other books are, to the end that every man may have them at once. For
all the books of this story, named the 'Recuyell of the Historyes of
Troye,' thus imprinted as ye here see, were begun in one day, and also
finished in one day" (that is, in the same space of time).
By the year 1477, Caxton had returned to London, and set up a printing
establishment within the precincts of Westminster Abbey; had given to
the world the three first books ever printed in England,--"The Game
and Play of the Chesse" (March 1474); "A boke of the hoole Lyf of
Jason" (1475); and "The Dictes and Notable Wyse Sayenges of the
Phylosophers" (1477),--and was fairly started in the great work of
supplying printed books to his countrymen, which, as a placard in his
largest type sets forth, if any one wanted, "emprynted after the forme
of this present lettre whiche ben well and truly correct, late hym come
to Westmonster, in to the Almonesrye, at the reed pale, and he shal have
them good chepe." From the situation of the first printing office, the
term chapel is applied to such establishments to this day.
[Illustration: WILLIAM CAXTON. Page 30.]
Caxton published between sixty and seventy different works during the
seventeen years of his career as a printer, all of them in what is
called black letter, and the bulk of them in English. He had always a
view to the improvement of the people in the works he published, and
though many of his productions may seem to us to be of an unprofitable
kind, it is clear that in the issue of chivalrous narratives, and of
Chaucer's poems (to whom, says the old printer, "ought to be given great
laud and praising for his noble making and writing"), he was aiming at
the diffusion of a nobler spirit, and a higher taste than then
prevailed.
In 1490, Caxton, an old, worn man, verging on fourscore years of age,
wrote, "Every man ought to intend in such wise to live in this world, by
keeping the commandments of God, that he may come to a good end; and
then, out of this world full of wretchedness and tribulation, he may go
to heaven, unto God and his saints, unto joy perdurable;" and passed
away, still labouring at his post. He died while writing, "The most
virtuous history of the devout and right renouned Lives of Holy Fathers
living in the desert, worthy of remembrance to all well-disposed
persons."
Wynkyne de Worde filled his master's place in the almonry of
Westminster; and the guild of printers gradually waxed strong in numbers
and influence. In Germany they were privileged to wear robes trimmed
with gold and silver, such as the nobles themselves appeared in; and to
display on their escutcheon, an eagle with wings outstretched over the
globe,--a symbol of the flight of thought and words throughout the
world. In our own country, the printers were men of erudition and
literary acquirements; and were honoured as became their mission.