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the diffusion of a taste for inquiry, the want of books became more and more severely felt, the restorers of learning strove in vain to satisfy the anxious applications of their followers, and the people at large heard of the worth of literature, and were sufficiently improved to desire an acquaintance with it, but found, at the first step towards acquisition, an almost insuperable barrier to their progress.

William Caxton, who contributed so greatly to remove this impediment to the diffusion of knowledge in England, was a native of Kent and was born in the latter part of the reign of Henry the Fourth. His parents were persons in the middle rank of life, but his mother was sufficiently well-informed to be able to instruct him herself in reading and writing, accomplishments in those days not universally possessed by the female part of the population. At the age of fifteen he was bound apprentice to a Mr Robert Large, a respectable mercer of London, and who, in the year 1430, served the office of lord-mayor. Caxton continued with him till his death, which occurred in 1441, and the integrity with which he had fulfilled his duty was proved by the will of his employer, who left him thirty-four marks, and made the most affectionate mention of his virtuous conduct.

The respect he had acquired with Mr Large, placed Caxton in an advantageous situation among the merchants of the city, and the year after the death of his master, he went to the continent, and was appointed by them to superintend their affairs as factor in Holland and the Low countries. He remained abroad twenty-three years, and during that time was, it would appear, principally occupied in his business as a merchant. But his biographers have not been able to discover any precise details respecting him from the time of his leaving England till the year 1464, when he was appointed one of the two commissioners to whom the English government entrusted the important office of settling the commercial dispute into which it had entered with the duke of Burgundy. It is evident from this circumstance that he had been steadily advancing in fortune and reputation during his residence on the continent, and there is every reason to believe that he, at the same time, acquired a large stock of learning and general information. The Netherlands were at that period the great nursery of erudition; the profoundest and most active scholars were assembled there, theology and classical literature had poured their richest and most valuable stores into the libraries,-and the churches were filled with the noblest productions of the fine arts. It was impossible that an aspiring and intelligent mind like that of Caxton should remain without profit amid such temptations to learning. But there was another circumstance which could not fail of being viewed by a man of his character with the most intense interest. Printing had been lately invented, and the perseverance and ingenuity with which many of the best scholars in Italy, Germany, and other parts of the continent had furthered the first rude attempts made in the art, were at this period demonstrating in the most striking manner its importance to the interests of literature. It is not known when Caxton commenced his labours as a printer; but soon after his appointment to some official situation in the court of the duchess of Burgundy, the sister of King Edward, he printed his translation of the Recuyell, or a collection of the Histories of Troye, by Raoul le Fevre. Both the translation and the printing of

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this work were undertaken at the request of the duchess, but were delayed above ten years by the fears which Caxton entertained of his inability to execute the task. He has himself left on record the time employed in this—for that age-laborious enterprize. "The translation," he says, was begun in Bruges, the first of Marche, in the yere 1468, continued in Gaunt, and finished in Colen, the 19th of September, 1471." But this was the least fatiguing part of the design. The version being completed, he then "deliberated in himself," says he, "to take the labour in hand of printing it together with the third book of the destruction of Troye, translated of late by John Lydgate, a monk of Burye, in English ritual." It is not unpleasing to hear him utter his complaints respecting the fatigues he had undergone in writing the translation. "Thus," says he, "end I this book, and for as muche as in wrytynge of the same, my penne is worne, myne hand wery, and myne eyes dimmed with overmuche lokyinge on the whit paper; and that age crepeth on me daily, and feebleth all the body, and also because I have promised to dyverce gentlemen and to my frendes to addresse to them as hastily as I might this said booke; therefore I have practised and learned, at my great charge and dis pense, to ordeyne this said booke in prynte after the manner and forme as ye may here see, and is not writen with penne and ynke as other bookes been, to the end that every man may have them attones for all the bookes of this streye named. The Recuyell of the Historye of Troye, thus imprinted as ye here see, were begonne in one day, and also finished in one day."

Before leaving the continent, Caxton had also printed another work of some extent,-Bartholomeus de Proprietatibus Rerum; but the date of his return to England is a subject of dispute; and the only settled point in the chronology of this part of his life, is, that in the year 1471 he was regularly established in Westminster as a printer. The 'Dictes or Sayengis' of the philosophers, appeared from his press at that period, and the fame he had acquired by his art not only introduced him to the principal men of the country, but procured him the privilege of carrying on his business in the almonry of the abbey,—a circumstance which is to this day kept in mind, by the appellation of the chapel, the common name among printers of their work-room.

The works which Caxton now produced in quick succession, are too numerous to allow of our giving their titles. For some time he was the only one who practised the art in this country, but a few years after his establishment in Westminster, some person set up the business at Oxford, and such was the increasing demand for books, that in 1483, an act of parliament was passed, entitling "any artificer or merchant stranger, of whatever realm or country he was or should be of, to bring into the realme and selle by retaile or otherwise, aine bookes written or printed," there being, it was stated, "but few printers within the realme, which could well exercise and occupie the science and crafte of printing." We should form, however, but a very imperfect idea of Caxton's character, did we view him simply as a printer at this time. While anxiously engaged in overcoming the many difficulties which necessarily attend the exercise of any new art, he was also occupied in producing by his own pen, most of the works on which his press was to be employed. besides several other translations from the French, he produced one of

Ovid's Metamorphoses from that language in 1480, and about the same time finished printing his work, entitled 'The Chronicles of England.' The following year, appeared the translation of Godfrey of Bologne, which he says he made "to the ende that every Christen man may be the better convinced, the enterprize was for the defense of Christendom. and to recover the said cyte of Jerusalem." Cicero's Treatises on Old age and of Friendship, followed soon after, and in 1482, the celebrated Polychronicon of Barnulph Higden, translated into English by Trevisa. In the preface to this work, Caxton says, "that he had careally rewritten it, and had somewhatt changed the rude and olde Eng lish, that is to wyte certayne wordes which in these dayes are neither used ne understude."

Nothing appears with the name of Caxton, after 1490, and according to the calculation of his most curious biographers, he was then not less than ninety years of age. He was still, however, employed, and the last effort of his industry was directed to the translation of the "Vita Patrum, or the righte devout and solitairye lyfe of the ancien te or olde holy faders, hermytes dwellyinge in the deserts." It is a singular circumstance, that he concluded this work on the day he died, which event took place in the latter end of May, or the beginning of June 1492. He was succeeded in his business by a German printer, named De Unde, whom he brought with him from the continent, and an apprentice of his soon after set up the trade in the city. Printing establishments were now also to be found in several other parts of the kingdom, and in proportion to the extension of the business, the ma terials of the art became improved. It has been observed, that some of the most admirable specimens of typography were produced in the age immediately succeeding its invention; and when it is considered, that the first types used were cut out of wood,-that after the manufacture of metallic letters, the preparations for printing the Vulgate, published at Mentz in 1450, occupied eight years, and that it was not till 1459 the casting of metal types was introduced, surprise may well be felt, when the clear and beautiful pages are perused which proceeded from the press before the close of the century.

The character which Caxton bore in his private capacity, was that of a pious, industrious, and, in all respects most virtuous man. His education had been that of a tradesman only, and he often observed that his learning was confined to an acquaintance with English and French Uninstructed however, as he had been in the higher walks of scholarship, he did much towards enlarging the circle of general literature in this country, and though several of the works he published are strongly embued with the errors common to his age, they were in many respects calculated to create a love of reading, and quicken the appetite for intelligence. To the book of Chivalry which he translated from the French, he affixed an epilogue of his own composition, and did we possess no other means of judging of his character but that, we should be greatly inclined to give him praise for the most generous love of benevolence and high morality.

END OF VOL. I.

EDINBURGH:

FULLARTON AND MACNAB, PRINTERS, LEITH WALK.

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