1480-1483.
The year 1480 saw a considerable change in Caxton's methods of
printing. Hitherto he had been content to print his books without
signatures, although these were generally in use abroad, but their
obvious utility appears to have impressed him, and henceforward he
always printed them. The earlier books were of course signed, but the
signatures were written in by hand, a very laborious process compared
with setting them up with the type, and the greater clearness of the
printed letter must have been an advantage to the bookbinder. About
this time also he began to decorate his books with illustrations, a
concession perhaps to popular taste, for his own inclination seems
to have led him more to the literary than the artistic side of book
production.
Another matter also may have helped to bring about this change, the
settlement of a rival printer in London. Two other presses had before
this started in England, one at Oxford in 1478, and one at St. Alban's
about a year later, but their distance rendered them little dangerous
as rivals, while the nature of their productions was mainly scholastic
and little suited to the popular taste. But with a press setting up
work some two miles away matters were quite different. There was no
knowing what it might not print.
John Lettou, this first London printer, came apparently from Rome,
bringing with him a small, neat gothic type, which had already been
used in that city to print several books. To judge from his name, he
was a native of Lithuania, of which Lettou is an old English form. He
was certainly a practised workman, and his books are very foreign
in appearance, and quite unlike the work of any other early English
printer.
Caxton's first piece of work in 1480 was a broadside _Indulgence_,
issued by John Kendale by authority of Sixtus IV., to all persons
who would contribute towards the defence of Rhodes, which was being
besieged by the Turks. The copy in the British Museum, which is
the only one at present known, is filled in with the names of Symon
Mountfort and Emma, his wife, and is dated the last day of March.
Another example which was in existence about 1790, but has now
disappeared, was filled in with the names of Richard and John Catlyn,
and dated April 16th. This _Indulgence_ begins with a wood-cut initial
letter, the first to be used in England.
John Kendale, in the proclamation of Edward IV. of April, 1480, which
relates to this appeal for assistance, is styled "Turcopolier of
Rhodes and locum tenens of the Grand Master in Italy, England,
Flanders, and Ireland," and he was at a later date implicated in a
plot against the King's life. He is the subject of the earliest known
existing contemporary English medal, which was struck in 1480. No
sooner had Caxton issued this _Indulgence_, which is printed in the
large No. 2* type, and very unsuitable for that kind of work, than the
rival printer, John Lettou, issued two editions printed in his small,
neat type. This attracted Caxton's attention, and he immediately
set to work on a new small type, No. 4, which came into use soon
afterwards.
Two books only in this new type are without signatures, so that they
may presumably be taken to be the earliest; these are a _Vocabulary
in French and English_, and a _Servitium de Visitatione Beatae Mariae
Virginis_. The first is a small folio of 26 leaves, of which the
first is blank, and consists of words and short phrases in the two
languages, arranged in opposite columns. It is an uninteresting book
to look at, but must have been useful, for it was reprinted in the
fifteenth century both by Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson, and also
in the early sixteenth. Four copies are known, in Bamburgh Castle,
Ripon Cathedral, the Rylands Library, and an imperfect copy in the
Duke of Devonshire's library.
The second book, the _Servitium_, has, I think, been always wrongly
described. All that now remains of it are seven leaves in the British
Museum, the last being blank; and the whole book was considered to
have consisted of a quire of eight leaves, the first being wanting.
The _Servitium_ was a special service intended to be incorporated into
the _Breviary_ and _Missal_. The Pope had announced it in 1390, but it
was not until 1480 that the Archbishop of Canterbury received from the
Prolocutor a proposal to order the observance of July 2d as a fixed
feast of the Visitation, "sub more duplicis festi secundum usum Sarum,
cum pleno servitio." The book would therefore contain the full service
for the day itself, the special parts for the week days following
(except the fourth which was the octave of SS. Peter and Paul), and
the service for the octave. Almost the whole of the principal service,
which would have occupied a considerable space, is wanting, so that
it may be assumed that the book consisted originally of at least two
quires, or sixteen leaves. An edition of the _Psalter_ must have been
printed about this time, and is perhaps the first book in which Caxton
made use of signatures; it is at any rate the only one, with the
exception of _Reynard the Fox_, in which he went so far wrong as to
necessitate the insertion of an extra leaf in one quire. This book,
a quarto of 177 leaves, has a handsome appearance, as it is printed
throughout with the formal church-type No. 3, the only complete
book in which this type alone is used. The only copy known is in
the British Museum, to which it came with the Royal Library, having
belonged at one time to Queen Mary, whose initials are on the back of
the binding.
An edition of the _Book of Hours_ of Salisbury use was printed about
the same time in the same type, but nothing remains of it now except
two fragments found in the binding of a Caxton _Boethius_ in the
Grammar School at St. Alban's, and since purchased by the British
Museum. It was a quarto of the same size as the _Psalter_, and a full
page contained 20 lines.
On the 10th of June, 1480, Caxton finished his first edition of the
_Chronicles of England_, a folio of 182 leaves, which, as he says in
his preface, "Atte requeste of dyverce gentilmen I have endevourd
me to enprinte." Though mainly derived from the ordinary manuscript
copies, the history has been brought down to a later date, and this
continuation may very well have been written by Caxton himself. In
August of the same year, the _Description of Britain_ was issued. It
is taken from Higden's _Polycronicon_, and was clearly intended to
form a supplement to the _Chronicles_, with which it is commonly found
bound up. More copies of it appear to have been printed than of the
_Chronicles_, for it is found also with the second edition of the
_Chronicles_, though it was not reprinted.
John Lidgate's poem, _Curia Sapientiae_, or _The Court of Sapience_, a
poem in seven-line stanzas, containing descriptions of animals, birds,
and fishes, with a survey of the arts and sciences, was published
about this time. It is a folio of 40 leaves, of which the first and
last two are blank. Three copies only are known, all of which are in
public libraries.
[Illustration:
PLATE VI
THE MIRROUR OF THE WORLD
(see page 51)
]
[Illustration:
PLATE VII
THE MIRROUR OF THE WORLD
(see page 51)
]
Early in 1481 Caxton finished his translation of _The Mirror of the
World_, and it must have been printed immediately after. The work was
a commission from his friend Hugh Bryce, a fellow-member of the
Mercers' Company, and who must often have met Caxton on his official
visits to Bruges. In this book for the first time the printer made
use of illustrations. These are of two kinds. The first consists of
little pictures, rudely designed and coarsely cut, of masters engaged
in teaching their pupils various sciences, or of single figures
engaged in scientific pursuits. These are original and introduced by
Caxton. The second series are diagrams more or less carefully copied
from the MSS. In his prologue he says that there are twenty-seven
figures, "without whiche it may not lightly be understande."
Curiously enough, he himself goes astray, for in the first part,
which should contain eight diagrams, he puts the second and third in
their wrong places and omits the fourth. The nine diagrams of the
second part are wrongly drawn, and in some cases misplaced, owing to
the original text having been misunderstood. The diagrams of the
third part are most correct, but although ten are mentioned, only
nine appear.
An interesting point about these diagrams is, that they have short
explanations written in them in ink, and in all copies where these
inscriptions are found they are in the same handwriting. Oldys, who
first drew attention to this peculiarity, supposed the handwriting to
be that of Caxton himself, and though this is not impossible, it is
more probable that this simple and monotonous task would be done by
one of his assistants.
The _History of Reynard the Fox_ was translated by Caxton in 1481 from
the Dutch edition printed at Gouda in 1479 by Gerard Leeu, a printer
who later on at Antwerp reprinted some of Caxton's English books.
The story of Reynard was extremely popular and widely spread, yet it
appears that no manuscripts exist with the story in the form given by
Caxton. Five copies of this book are known; one of them, the fine copy
which was in the Spencer collection, is part of the spoil obtained
from Lincoln Minster. A mistake of the printer necessitated the
insertion of a half printed leaf in all copies between leaves 48 and
49.
On the 12th of August, 1481, Caxton issued a translation of two
treatises of Cicero, _De senectute_ and _De amicitia_, and a work of
Bonaccursus de Montemagno, entitled _De nobilitate_. The translation
of the first two into French was made by command of Louis, Duke of
Bourbon, in 1405, by Laurence de Premierfait, and the last by Jean
Mielot. The English translation seems to have been made by Tiptoft,
Earl of Worcester, at the desire of Sir John Fastolfe, for whom his
son-in-law, Scrope, a kinsman of Tiptoft, had translated the _Dictes
or Sayengis_. Cicero apparently did not appeal so much to the popular
taste as such stories as _Reynard_, so that it is now one of the
commonest of Caxton's books, some twenty-five to thirty copies being
known.
On the 20th of November, in the same year, appeared another romance,
_The History of Godfrey of Bologne_, or _The Conquest of Jerusalem_,
translated by Caxton from the French. Almost every copy known of this
book is imperfect, but there is a beautiful example in the possession
of Colonel Holford. It was Edward the Fourth's own copy, and at
the end of the fifteenth century had come by some means into the
possession of Roger Thorney, a mercer of London and a patron of
Caxton's successor, Wynkyn de Worde, who printed, at his request, his
edition of the _Polycronicon_. After various changes of ownership, it
came into the possession of a noted collector, Richard Smith, and at
his auction in 1682 was bought by the Earl of Peterborough for the not
excessive sum of eighteen shillings and two pence.
[Illustration:
PLATE VIII
THE GAME AND PLAYE OF THE CHESSE
(see page 53)
]
About this time two more illustrated books were issued, a third
edition of Burgh's _Cato parvus et magnus_, and a second edition of
the _Game of Chess_.
The _Cato_ contains two wood-cuts out of the set made for the _Mirror
of the World_. It is a folio of 28 leaves, of which the first was
blank, and is wanting in the two known copies, those in St. John's
College, Oxford, and the Spencer collection.
The _Game of Chess_ contains twenty-four illustrations, but the
wood-cuts used number only sixteen, for many served their purpose
twice. The first cut is of the son of Nebuchadnezzar, named
Evilmerodach, described in the text as "a jolly man without justice,
who did do hew his father his body into three hundred pieces." Most of
the remainder are pictures of the various pieces.
The suggestion which has sometimes been made that Caxton's wood-cuts
were engraved abroad is quite without foundation. They are very often
copied from those in foreign books, but their very clumsy
execution would be well within the capacity of the veriest tyro in
wood-engraving. Mr. Linton suggested that they might have been cut
in soft metal, but as the blocks when found in later books often have
marks clearly showing that they had been injured by worm-holes, this
conjecture is untenable.
As with all illustrated books, most of the remaining copies of the
_Game of Chess_ are more or less imperfect. The dated books of
1482 are two in number, and both historical; these are Higden's
_Polycronicon_ and the second edition of the _Chronicles of England_.
The first was finished on the 2d of July, and is a large, thick folio
of 450 leaves. The work was originally compiled by Ralph Higden in the
fourteenth century from various earlier sources, and was translated
into English in 1387 by John of Trevisa, chaplain to the Earl
of Berkeley. The whole of this Caxton revised, and continued the
chronicle up to the year 1460, this continuation being the only
important piece of Caxton's own composition which we possess. This
book shares with the _Golden Legend_ the position of being the
commonest of Caxton's books, and like it is unrepresented by a
single absolutely perfect copy, the blank leaves, five of which
occur throughout the book, being always in part wanting. A copy which
belonged to Tutet contained the inscription, "Presens liber pertinet
ad Willelmum Perde emptus a Willelmo Caxton, Regio impressore
vicessimo Novembrio anno Regis Edwardi quarti vicessimo secundo." This
would be November 20, 1482, immediately after the issue of the book.
The printing of the second edition of the _Chronicles_ was finished
on October 8, 1482. It agrees exactly with the first edition, and
curiously enough, almost the same number of copies are known, though
none are quite perfect.
The _Pilgrimage of the Soul_ came out on June 8, 1483, during Edward
the Fifth's short reign. It was an adaptation by Jehan de Gallopes
from the larger work of Guillaume de Deguilleville, translated into
English by Lidgate. Five copies are known, of which the finest is in
the British Museum.
I traced out some time ago the history of two copies of this book,
which is worth mentioning as showing the extraordinary manner in which
Caxtons were mutilated and made up. About the year 1750 there were in
existence two copies, A and B. A had two leaves in the middle, 52 and
53, taken from B, and after these leaves had been taken B came into
the possession of W. Herbert, the bibliographer. A still wanted one
leaf at end; B wanted three at the beginning, the two taken from the
middle, and the leaf at the end.
In 1814 B belonged to Heber, the celebrated collector, who parted with
it to Lord Spencer in exchange for some other books. In the same year
Lord Spencer obtained a duplicate last leaf from the British Museum,
which he added to this copy B.
In 1819, at the "White Knights" sale, Lord Spencer bought copy A,
took out the last leaf from B and inserted it in A, thus making A
practically complete. B was then sold as a duplicate, repurchased
by Heber, and is now in the splendid library formed by Mr. Christie
Miller at Britwell Court.
Fortunately in these days collectors are beginning to recognize
that such doctored and made-up books are of little value or interest
compared to genuine even if imperfect copies. Like paintings which
have been "restored," the charm is gone. A few wealthy buyers who
acquire libraries as part of the suitable furniture of a great house,
and to whom the name and fine appearance of a rare book is all that is
necessary, keep up such books to a fictitious value, but their day is
slowly but surely passing and giving way to intelligent appreciation.