* * * * *
It is hoped that the above summary statement of the arguments for and
against the date of the Jerome will serve to make the present position
of the question clear. What general conclusion can be arrived at before
further facts are discovered? Caxton, who began to print in England in
1477, nowhere claims to have introduced printing into England. Is it
still conceivable that Oxford preceded Westminster by nine years? The
answer is that it is still conceivable, but not probable. The ground has
been slowly and surely giving way beneath the defenders of the Oxford
date, in proportion to the advance of our knowledge of early printing,
and all that can be said is that it has not yet entirely slipped away.
All the new contributions to the argument and all the chief
bibliographers are against it, while no fresh defending forces are in
sight. But it is still allowable to assert that the destructive
arguments, even if we admit their cumulative cogency, do not at the
present time amount to proof.
In the venerable building at the north-east corner of St. Mary’s Church
at Oxford—the old House of Congregation, which, though once the cradle
of the University,