(Vol. ii., pp. 99. 122. 142. 187. 233.)
I confess, after having read MR. J.G. NICHOLS' critique in a recent number
of the "NOTES AND QUERIES," relative to the locality of the first
printing-press erected by Caxton in this country, I am not yet convinced
that it was not within the Abbey of Westminster. From MR. NICHOLS' own
statements, I find that Caxton himself says his books were "imprynted" by
him in the Abbey; to this, however, MR. NICHOLS replies by way of
objection, "that Caxton does not say in the church of the Abbey."
On the above words of Caxton "in the Abbey of Westminster," Mr. C. Knight,
in his excellent biography of the old printer, observes, "they leave no
doubt that beneath the actual roof of some portion of the Abbey he carried
on his art." Stow says "that Caxton was the first that carried on his art
in the Abbey." Dugdale, in his _Monasticon_, speaking of Caxton, says, "he
erected his office in one of the side chapels of the Abbey." MR. NICHOLS,
quoting from Stow, also informs us that printing-presses were, soon after
the introduction of the art, erected in the Abbey of St. Albans, St.
Augustin at Canterbury, and other monasteries; he also informs us that the
scriptorium of the monasteries had ever been the manufactory of books, and
these places it is well known formed a portion of the abbeys themselves,
and were not in detached buildings similar to the Almonry at Westminster,
which was situated some two or three hundred yards distant from the Abbey.
I think it very likely, when the press was to supersede the pen in the work
of book-making, that its capabilities would be first tried in the very
place which had been used for the object it was designed to accomplish.
This idea seems to be confirmed by the tradition that a printer's office
has ever been called a chapel, a fact which is beautifully alluded to by
Mr. Creevy in his poem entitled _The Press_:--
"Yet stands the chapel in yon Gothic shrine,
Where wrought the father of our English line,
Our art was hail'd from kingdoms far abroad,
And cherish'd in the hallow'd house of God;
From which we learn the homage it received
And how our sires its heavenly birth believed.
Each printer hence, howe'er unblest his walls,
E'en to this day, his house a chapel calls."
Mr. Nichols acknowledges that what he calls a vulgar error was current and
popular, that in some part of the Abbey Caxton did erect his press, yet we
are expected to submit to the almost unsupported dictum of that gentleman,
and renounce altogether the old and almost universal idea. With respect to
his alarm that the _vulgar error_ is about to be further propagated by an
engraving, wherein the mistaken draftsman has deliberately represented the
printers at work within the consecrated walls of the church itself, I may
be permitted to say, on behalf of the painter, that he has erected his
press not even on the basement of one of the Abbey chapels, but in an upper
story, a beautiful screen separating the workplace from the more sacred
part of the building.