Art. 11.-WILLIAM CAXTON: MAN OF LETTERS.

1. William Caxton. By H. R. Plumer. Parsons, 1925. 2. Wynkyn de Worde and his Contemporaries from the Death of Caxton to 1535. Grafton, 1925.

3. Caxton. A Study of the Literature of the First English Press. By Nellie Slayton Aurner. Philip Allan, 1926.

THE names of eighteen English men of letters are inscribed round the rotunda of the British Museum reading room. The first is Chaucer's, the second Caxton's. Yet, though Caxton has never lacked homage as the first English printer, it has not always been so clearly acknowledged as it might have been that he was also the first of the arbiters of English literary taste, and in some respects the most important of them, since he came in the March of our renaissance and influenced enormously the kind of book that Tudor England was to read and, in consequence, the kind it was to produce. It also needs emphasis that with Caxton the press was only a means to an end and that end the spread of letters.

The two books on Caxton named above do not add anything new to our knowledge of his life or printings. Both duly record the discovery, by Lieut-Col Birch, of the Rhineland Commission, of documentary evidence of Caxton's presence in Cologne for some months in the years 1471 and 1472, but this does not really do anything to substantiate the claim that Caxton learned the art of printing in that city. That he was there in 1471 we knew from his own clear and printed assurance in the Epilogue to the second book of 'The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye,' 'which werke was begonne in Brugis & contynued in Gaunt and finysshid in Coleyn in . . the yere of our lord a thousand four honderd lxxi.' But it does not look as though he was then learning printing, for he goes on to say that though there is no such great need for the third book, since Lydgate had already translated it, yet, since he has now good leisure, being in Cologne, and has nothing else to do, he will translate it as well: which he did.

Both these books, however, have the merit of dealing

with Caxton, not as a printer (and, after all, he was not, merely as a craftsman, the best even in his own day in England), but as a pioneer of literature. Mrs Aurner also earns our gratitude by printing the greater number of Caxton's original writings, in the shape of his prologues, epilogues or colophons, and interpolations. She does not print the additions to 'Polychronicon' or to The Chronicles of Britain,' and she appears not to have seen either Ars Moriendi,' of which the Bodleian contains the only recorded copy, a little eight-leaved translation from the Latin, or the 'Arte and Crafte to knowe well to Die,' a longer rendering of the same theme, translated, as Caxton expressly states, from the French. She speaks of the second as being a translation of the first. Consider, then, what was Caxton's literary work. He printed 3 books in Bruges, and in Westminster, 98, according to Gordon Duff's computation. Two books were also printed for him in Paris, and some of Wynkyn de Worde's early books probably represent Caxton's choice. Of the 98 Westminster printings, many are second or third editions, and others are mere pieces of commercial work, ranging from his own trade advertisement to papal indulgences. The service books, psalter, and church kalendars may also be disregarded by the student of literature. There remain between 60 and 70 books, edited and printed by Caxton, of his own choosing, except for a very few which were suggested to him by patrons, and in very many cases of his own translating. Apart from editorial matter and the additions to the two histories of England mentioned above, we have no original compositions of Caxton's. He always speaks most apologetically of his own literary skill, and apparently thought that his time was better spent in printing the world's admitted masterpieces than in producing original writings of uncertain value. We have, however, sufficient material to gauge Caxton's literary taste with regard both to matter and language. Hardly any man has ever had such an opportunity of imposing his own taste on his neighbours, for, as it chanced, our other early printers were either Caxton's disciples or concerned themselves more with the business side of their profession and printed law-books, service books and educational books of an elementary kind, or

else the sort of work, if not the actual texts, which had already acquired repute in Caxton's type.

It is almost as important to know what Caxton neglected to print as what he chose, but so wisely did he do his work that very little of the available literature has been thought worthy of print since his time that he did not first put forth, or fail to for good and sufficieut reasons. Practically all mediæval literature was written ostensibly for edification. It is only very recently that reading for mere pleasure has been looked upon as an entirely respectable occupation. Caxton, who hated idleness, would certainly not have thought it such. The serious tone in literature was naturally aggravated by the fact that most of the world's books, in manuscript form, were produced in monasteries, and few people outside the Church possessed libraries of any size. Duke Humphrey's famous collection contained only 600 volumes, and the Royal Library at Paris, when the Duke of Bedford seized it, is said to have numbered 835. Against these figures set the 1900 volumes of St Augustine's and the 1850 at Christ Church, both in Canterbury.

Works in the nature of encyclopædias, such as the 'De Proprietatibus Rerum' of Bartholomæus Anglicus, on which Caxton is said to have learned his craft at Cologne, were a favourite production of the medieval author, unwieldy and uncritical compilations, instance heaped upon instance and quotation upon quotation. But they did at least provide a quarry of anecdotes to an age which was not allowed to read mere fiction. Of this type of book Caxton chose one of the best-not the least of its merits being its brevity-which he put into English under the title of The Mirror of the World,' a most entertaining book, teaching in a brief compass all the seven arts known to the medieval curriculum. It is interesting to observe that our translator, like a good man of Kent, omits Gossouin's reference to the 'tailed men' of his county; on the other hand, he is careful to inform us that no snakes may live on Irish soil, and he inserts many other local references.

'Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophers' is also edifying in the fashion sufficiently well indicated by its title. This is the first book ever printed in England,

and Caxton reprinted it twice in later years. It is not, however, a book of his own choosing, but was translated, except for a chapter concerning the nature of woman, by the gallant Lord Rivers. Herein we are introduced to Homer, Solon, Diogenes, Socrates, and Plato, and if a knowledge of the book would hardly avail a candidate in the Oxford Schools to-day, yet Lord Rivers and Caxton showed sound instincts in this choice. The same commendation may be bestowed on three pieces which purport to introduce us to the wisdom of Cato the Censor. Two are school books, Parvus Cato' and 'Magnus Cato.' The most important of the three is 'The Boke Called Cathon,' another collection of moral tales and apophthegms. This book Caxton dedicated to the city of London, which he regarded as being then in a decline, fallen off in wealth and civic devotion. The children of to-day, he remarks, are not growing up to such increase and profit as their elders did; yet he is convinced that there are no fairer, wiser, or better spoken children anywhere. So he hopes that they will profit by the doctrine of this book, which is 'composed upon' the book of Cathon with some addicions and auctoritees of holy doctours & prophetes.'

The true classics are better represented by Tully's 'Of Old Age' and 'Of Friendship,' translated, Caxton says, the one at the desire of Sir John Fastolfe, whose exploits in the French wars he commemorates, and the other by the Earl of Worcester (John Tiptoft). These are books that every age has delighted to honour, in translations after its own style, and Caxton's choice is to be commended. Boethius, again, a favourite author of the Middle Ages, which were hampered by no prejudices in favour of Augustan Latin, is an obvious choice, even if he were not hallowed in Caxton's eyes by association with his great translater, Geoffrey Chaucer, 'first foundeur & embellissher of ornate eloquence in our english.' Caxton believed as firmly as any Wykehamist that 'manners makyth man,' an opinion which he expresses in so many words in the preface to 'The Book of Good Manners,' he that is not manerd is no man, for maners make man.' This book, indeed, deals rather with morals than with what we should call manners. These are, however, inculcated in several other books, The

Morale Proverbes of Cristyne,' 'The Boke of Curtesye (or Lytyll John '), Lydgate's Stans Puer ad Mensam,' and that very entertaining volume, 'The Knyghte of the Towre to his Doughters,' interesting both for its anecdotes and for its lively picture of medieval life. 'The Curial' of Alain Chartier deals with the dangers of court life, and recommends the supposed recipient to stay at home. It is an early essay in the same style as Castiglione and Guevara practised later. Nor did Caxton neglect the needs of the body. The Governayle of Helthe' is a popular manual of hygiene, an entertaining little book, if of no great medical authority. Its advice amounts to, 'Don't eat or drink too much; take plenty of exercise; don't catch cold; and don't get excited.' What could be more sensible?

In Caxton's day morality might hardly be divorced from religion, so that it is not surprising that a good many of his books deal with holy living, whence he passes naturally to holy dying. For the teaching of these things the allegory has always been a favourite vehicle; Bunyan is only the populariser in prose of a long tradition. The Court of Sapience,' a poem often ascribed to Lydgate, is of this class; so is The Pylgrimage of the Soule. Piety rather than literary merit recommended these and also 'The Royal Book,' 'Ars Moriendi,' 'The Arte and Crafte to knowe well to Die,' and 'The Cordyale or the Four Last Things'; this last piece being another of Lord Rivers' choosing and translating, though Caxton had already printed its French original at Bruges. There are a few other short pieces of a similar kind. St Bonaventure's 'Speculum Vitæ Christi' is, however, a book of considerable fame, and this Caxton translated under the title of The Myrroure of the blessyd lyf of Jhesu Chryste.' This brings us to the consideration of another large and popular class of medieval book, the 'Lives of the Saints.' Besides one or two shorter pieces, Caxton produced a noble version of that great storehouse of this kind of literature, 'The Golden Legend.' This was a vast undertaking, for Caxton not only put together lives from French, Latin, and English sources, but he added others dealing with both Flemish and English saints. He tells us in an interesting preface that he nearly abandoned the labour, but was encouraged