Fine Books Part 12

Caxton does not seem to have followed up this beginning at all quickly, and it was not till printing had been brought much nearer to Bruges by the starting of presses at Alost in 1473 and at Louvain in 1474 that he was stirred to action. The first printer at Louvain was Jan Veldener, who worked there from 1474 to 1477, and Mr. Gordon Duff conjectures that Caxton may have received some help from him. There is no doubt, however, that his partner at Bruges was Colard Mansion, a skilled calligrapher, who continued printing there till 1484, when he fled from the town, leaving his rent unpaid. Caxton's own account in the _Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_ of how he came to start is that

for as moche as in the wrytyng of the same my penne is worn, myn hande wery and not stedfast, myn eyen dimmed with ouer-moche lokyng on the whit paper ... and also because I haue promysid to dyuerce gentilmen and to my frendes to adresse to hem as hastily as I myght this sayd book. Therfore I haue practysed & lerned at my grete charge and dispence to ordeyne this saide book in prynte after the maner & forme as ye may here see.

There is nothing here to encourage the idea which Mr. Proctor seems to have entertained that Colard Mansion had already begun work on his own account, and that Caxton obtained his help for his English books. It seems more likely that it was Caxton who made the start, and that the first two books printed at Bruges were both in English, the first being the _Recuyell_, and the second _The Game and Pleye of the Chesse_, a translation of a moral treatise in which the functions of the chessmen were used as texts for sermonizing, written in Latin by Jacobus de Cessolis. After this a new type was cut and another didactic book, _Les Quatre Derennieres Choses_, a treatise of the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, h.e.l.l, and Heaven) printed in it in French. These three books probably appeared in 1475 and the early months of 1476. By this time Charles the Bold was picking a quarrel with the Swiss, and his disastrous defeat at Morat on 21 June, 1476, must have powerfully quickened the desire with which we may reasonably credit Caxton, of being the first printer in his native land. He made arrangements to rent a shop in the Sanctuary at Westminster from the following Michaelmas and departed for England, taking with him the newer of the two types and leaving the older one to Colard Mansion, who printed with it the original French of Lefevre's _Recueil des histoires de Troye_, and the same author's _Les Fais et prouesses du n.o.ble et vaillant cheualier Jason_, and then abandoned it, having already cut a larger type for his own use.

The first dated book produced by Caxton in England was _The Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophers_, a translation by Earl Rivers (the brother of Edward IV's queen) from a French version of an anonymous Latin book of the fourteenth century. Caxton was entrusted by the Earl with the oversight of the translation, and contributed to it an amusing Epilogue, in which he gives some unfavourable remarks about women attributed to Socrates, with his own comments. The Epilogue is dated 1477, and in one copy more minutely, 18 November. Though this is the first dated English book, it cannot be said that it was the first book printed in England, as it was probably preceded both by Caxton's English version of Lefevre's _Jason_, and also by some of the thin quartos in the same type.

Among the earlier books printed by Caxton after he set up his press at Westminster was Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, of which later on he printed a second edition which he imagined to be from a better text, and ornamented with clumsy pictures of the pilgrims. He printed also in separate volumes most of Chaucer's other works, including his translation of Boethius, _De Consolatione Philosophiae;_ also Gower's _Confessio Amantis_, some of the shorter poems of Lydgate, Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, and several translations of French romances (_Charles the Great_, _Paris and Vienne_, the _Four Sons of Aymon_, etc.), translations of _Aesop_ and of _Reynard the Fox_, Higden's _Polychronicon_, and the _Chronicles of England_, the _Golden Legend_ (the name given to the great collection of Lives of the Saints by Jacobus de Voragine), several editions of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, a Latin Psalter, a decorative edition of the Prayers called the _Fifteen Oes_ with a border to every page (see Plate XXVII), numerous moral treatises and books of devotion, and several Indulgences. In all just one hundred books and doc.u.ments issued from his press, printed in eight different types (including that left behind at Bruges). More than twenty of these books he had translated himself, and to others he contributed interesting prologues or epilogues. While many printers on the Continent easily surpa.s.sed him in typographical skill, few published more books which can still be read with pleasure, and his prefaces and epilogues show a real love of good literature (especially of Chaucer) and abundant good sense, kindliness, and humour. Caxton died in 1491 while engaged on translating into English the Latin Lives of the Fathers, and the account-books of the churchwardens of S. Margaret's, Westminster, show that he was buried in its churchyard, four torches being supplied at a cost of two s.h.i.+llings and sixpence, and another sixpence being charged for the bell.

During Caxton's lifetime only one other Englishman set up a press, an anonymous schoolmaster at St. Albans, who began work in 1480 (possibly in 1479) and printed till 1486, producing first six scholastic books and then two English ones. He appears to have borrowed some type from Caxton, so that it was presumably with the latter's goodwill that he reprinted his version of the _Chronicles of England_, adding thereto an appendix ent.i.tled _Fructus Temporum_, or Fruits of Time. It is from Wynkyn de Worde's reprint of this edition in 1497 that we obtain our only knowledge of the printer, for we are there told that it was "compiled in a booke and also enprynted by one sometyme scolemayster of saynt Albons, on whose soule G.o.d haue mercy." His other popular book was that famous trio of treatises _Of Haukyng and Huntyng and also of Cootarmuris_, commonly known as the _Book of St. Albans_. The second treatise, which is in metre, ends with the words "Explicit Dam Julyan Barnes in her boke of huntyng," and this is the only basis for the popular attribution of all three treatises to a hypothetical Juliana Bernes or Berners, who is supposed to have been the daughter of Sir James Berners (executed in 1388), and Prioress of the Nunnery of Sopwell, a dependency of St. Albans, of which the list of prioresses has conveniently perished.[47]

Between 1478 and 1486 or '87, some seventeen books were printed at Oxford by Theodoric Rood of Cologne, who towards the end of his career was in partners.h.i.+p with an English bookseller named Thomas Hunte. The earliest of his books,[48] all of which are in Latin, was an Exposition on the Apostles' Creed wrongly attributed to S. Jerome. By the accidental omission of an X this is dated MCCCCLXVIII, i.e. 1468, but such misprints are common in early books, and no one now maintains that it was printed until ten years later. Among the other books printed at Oxford we may note an edition of Cicero's _Pro Milone_, the spurious Letters of Phalaris, and a very large folio, Lyndewode's _Provincial Const.i.tutions_ of the English Church. That the Oxford press came to an end so soon and that none was started at Cambridge during the fifteenth century may be attributed to a statute of Richard III's permitting the free importation of books into England. Although this measure was amply justified by the interests of learning, it made it practically impossible for any scholastic press to maintain itself in the limited English market against the compet.i.tion of the fine editions which could be imported from Italy.

Caxton's press was at Westminster, which in the fifteenth century was much more sharply distinguished for business purposes from the city of London than it is now. The first press set up within the city itself was that of John Lettou, whose surname shows him to have been a native of Lithuania, which in Caxton's time, as in Chaucer's, was known in England as Lettowe. Mr. Gordon Duff thinks that John Lettou must have learnt to print at Rome and brought his punches with him to England, as the type with which he started to print here is indistinguishable from one used by a small printer at Rome, who bore the curiously English name John Bulle, though he came from Bremen. Lettou printed an Indulgence in 1480, and also a commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, a curiously learned work for a city press, but which he was commissioned to print by a certain William Wilc.o.c.ks, for whom the next year he printed also a commentary on the Psalms.

After 1482 Lettou was joined by William of Mechlin, or Malines, in Belgium, usually known by the Latin name of his birthplace, Machlinia.

Lettou and Machlinia printed five law books together, and then Lettou disappears and Machlinia in 1483 started working by himself, at first at a house near the bridge over the Fleet, where he printed eight books, and then in Holborn, where he printed fourteen. When working by himself he printed in addition to law books some works of a more popular character, a Book of Hours, the _Revelation to a Monk of Evesham_,[49]

_Speculum Christiani_ (a devotional work interspersed with English verse), the _Chronicles of England_, and several editions of "A little treatise against the Pestilence" by a certain Bishop Canutus of Aarhus.

One of these editions was the first English book which has a t.i.tlepage.

It is printed in two lines, and reads:--

"A pa.s.sing G.o.de lityll boke necessarye & behouefull agenst the Pestilens."

The exact date at which Machlinia died, or gave up work, is not known.

He was printing in 1486, but his books after that are undated. We may take 1490 or a little earlier as the year of his disappearance, and it is practically certain that his stock of books was taken over by Richard Pynson from Normandy, who probably began printing in 1491 or 1492 (his first dated book was finished in November of the latter year), and while he was getting his workshop ready commissioned Guillaume Le Talleur of Rouen to print two law books for him for sale in England.

Up to the death of Caxton the only native English printer besides himself was the unidentified schoolmaster-printer at St. Albans, Thomas Hunte, who joined Theodoricus Rood at Oxford, being only a stationer.

After his death, for over twenty years there was no native Englishman at work as a master printer[50] at all. Two of the three presses at work were in the hands of Wynkyn de Worde of Lorraine and Richard Pynson of Normandy, and the third was worked for some time with two French partners by Julyan Notary, who was probably a Frenchman himself, since in 1498 he spells his name as Notaire.

By far the most prolific of these three firms was that of Wynkyn de Worde, who was born, as his name implies, at Worth, now in Alsace, but formerly part of the Duchy of Lorraine. He probably came to England with Caxton in 1476, since we hear of him as early as 1480 in a legal doc.u.ment about a house. After Caxton's death De Worde made a cautious start, only issuing five books in the first two years and not putting his own name in an imprint until 1494. By the end of the century, however, he had printed 110 books of which copies or fragments survive, and by the time of his death in 1534 the number had risen to 800, an extraordinarily high total, more especially when it is remembered that the small quarto editions of romances and popular works of devotion, of which he printed a great many, were peculiarly likely to be thumbed to pieces, so that his actual output was probably much greater. As far as his choice of books was concerned he showed himself a mere tradesman, seldom printing an expensive book unless Caxton's experience had shown it to be saleable. For two apparent exceptions to this lack of enterprise there were special reasons. The first, a translation of the _Lives of the Fathers_, he was almost bound in honour to take up, since Caxton had completed it on his death-bed. The second book, a really fine edition (issued about 1495) of Trevisa's version of the _De Proprietatibus Rerum_, was also, as we have seen, connected with Caxton, who, De Worde tells us, had acted as "the fyrst prynter of this boke In latin tongue at Coleyn himself to avaunce." De Worde's edition is itself notable as being the first book printed on English paper, the manufacturer being John Tate of Hertford.

In 1500 De Worde moved from Caxton's house at Westminster to the sign of the Sun in Fleet Street, perhaps for the greater protection offered by the city against attacks by anti-alien mobs. In 1508 he was appointed printer to the Countess of Richmond and Derby, mother of Henry VII, a very old lady, who died the following year. De Worde himself must have been a very old man at his death towards the end of 1534 or early in January, 1535, as he had by that time been at work in England for between fifty and sixty years. Towards the end of his life he seems to have had some of his books printed for him by John Skot, and Robert Copland was also employed in his business.

The output of Richard Pynson was only about half that of Wynkyn de Worde, and his taxable property amounted to only 60 against over __200 at which De Worde was a.s.sessed. Nevertheless the fact that for the last twenty-two years of his life (1508-30) he was the King's Printer helped to procure him a few important books, and also kept his workmans.h.i.+p at a considerably higher standard. As already mentioned, he probably came to England about 1490 and took over Machlinia's stock, employing Guillaume Le Talleur of Rouen to print two law books for him while his own type was being made. He probably began work with a fine edition of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, but his first dated book is an ugly little edition of the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander Gallus, issued in November, 1492. A copy of this was unearthed a few years ago in the library of Appleby Grammar School, and to secure the first dated book printed by Pynson the British Museum had to pay over 300 for it. In 1494 Pynson brought out Lydgate's poem on the _Falles of Princes_, translated from the Latin of Boccaccio, ill.u.s.trating it with woodcuts borrowed from Jean Du Pre's French edition of the same book.[51] In 1495 he printed a _Terence_. Up to the close of the fifteenth century he had printed about eighty-eight books known to Mr. Gordon Duff, against the 110 printed by Wynkyn de Worde. In 1500 he moved from the parish of S. Clement Dane's, outside Temple Bar, to the sign of S. George, at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, the change bringing him inside the city walls. Among the best of the books printed by him after this are Alexander Barclay's _s.h.i.+p of Fools_ (1509), a translation of Sebastian Brant's _Narrenschiff_; Fabyan's _Chronicle_ (1516), Barclay's translation of Sall.u.s.t (about 1520), Henry VIII's _a.s.sertio Septem Sacramentorum_ (1521), and Lord Berners' translation of Froissart's _Chronicles_ (1522-5). He also printed some fine service-books, notably a Sarum Missal, called after Cardinal Morton who favoured it the Morton Missal (1500). Mr. Duff conjectures that in the Latin books he printed from 1518 onwards Pynson was aided by Thomas Berthelet.[52]

Julian Notary's business was on a far smaller scale than those of Wynkyn de Worde and Pynson, for less than fifty books are known to have been printed by him. He began work in London about 1496 in partners.h.i.+p with Jean Barbier and another printer or bookseller whose initials were I.

H., probably Jean Huvin of Rouen. In 1498 I. H. had left the firm and Notary and Barbier were at Westminster. In 1500, like De Worde and Pynson, he changed houses, moving to just outside Temple Bar, possibly to Pynson's old house, giving his new premises the sign of the Three Kings. At a later date he had also a bookstall in S. Paul's Churchyard, and ultimately moved his printing office into the city. Notary's books were of much the same kind as De Worde's--the Golden Legend, the Chronicles of England, the Shepherds' Calendar, Sermons, Lives of the Saints, etc. He has the distinction of having printed the smallest English incunable of which any trace has come down to us, an edition of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, finished in April, 1500, measuring only an inch by an inch and a half. He seems to have ceased printing about 1520, but was alive in 1523.

Summing up the work of these printers who were active before 1500, we may note that Caxton printed 100 books and editions that have come down to us; De Worde 110 before 1500, about 800 altogether; Pynson 88 before 1500, nearly 400 altogether; Notary about 8 before 1500, and 48 altogether; Lettou and Machlinia about 30, Oxford 17, St. Albans 8. Thus the total number of English incunabula at present known is about 360, but Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde were both large printers in the sixteenth century.

As we have seen, Pynson became King's Printer in 1508. He had been preceded in that office by William Faques, who like himself was a Norman, and was the first to hold the t.i.tle. He was worthy of the distinction, for though he only printed eight books and doc.u.ments that have come down to us, his work was very good. His dated books belong to the year 1504, when he printed a proclamation against clipped money, with a fine initial H and some neat woodcuts of coins; also a beautiful little Latin Psalter. His business was in the heart of the city, in Abchurch Lane. After his death it pa.s.sed to Richard Faques, who made his name more English by spelling it first Fakes, then Fawkes. Richard worked in S. Paul's Churchyard, and among his publications were the _Salus corporis salus anime_ of Gulielmus de Saliceto, a Sarum Horae, Skelton's _Goodly Ballad of the Scottish King_ (1509), and _Garland of Laurell_ (1523), and lastly, _The Myrroure of Our Lady_ (1530).

With Robert Copland we come to the first native English printer after Caxton and the schoolmaster of St. Albans. Copland is rather an interesting person, who made translations and wrote prefaces and addresses to the reader in verse, besides printing books. His name occurs in the imprints of only twelve books, spread over twenty-two years, 1514-35, the explanation being that he was probably working for De Worde during this time, and only occasionally indulged in a private venture. After a long interval he printed two books for Andrew Borde in 1547-8, and appears to have died while the second was in progress. He was succeeded by William Copland, probably his son, who printed numerous romances and other entertaining books, and died in 1568 or 1569.

At intervals during the years 1516-28, John Rastell, an Oxford graduate, barrister of Lincoln's Inn and brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More, issued nine dated law books. In 1526 he printed two jest books, in 1529 he became involved in religious controversy on the Protestant side, and died in poverty and prison in 1536. Altogether some forty books are attributed to him, including some plays, which may perhaps rather have been printed by his son William. William Rastell was also a lawyer, and not sharing his father's Protestantism, became a Judge of the Queen's Bench under Mary, on whose death he fled to Louvain. As a printer he worked only from 1530 to 1534, printing over thirty books, including several works by his uncle, Sir Thomas More, and five plays by John Heywood.

Between 1518 and 1524 Henry Pepwell printed a few popular books at the sign of the Trinity in S. Paul's Churchyard; for the rest of his life he appears to have been only a stationer. John Skot, who printed at four different addresses in the city of London between 1521 and 1537, worked partly for De Worde, partly on his own account, printing upwards of thirty books for himself, a few of them legal, the rest popular English books.

Two printers began to issue books in 1523. Robert Bankes, who turned out a few popular books in his first six years, was then silent for a time, and reappears in the religious controversies of 1539-42, and Robert Redman, who seems to have followed in Pynson's footsteps both in S.

Clement's Without Temple Bar and at the sign of the George. In his office of Royal Printer Pynson was succeeded by Thomas Berthelet, or Bartlet, who had probably worked with him for upwards of ten years before starting on his own account in Fleet Street at the sign of Lucrece in 1528. We know of altogether about 400 pieces of printing from his press, but a large proportion of these consists of editions of the Statutes and Proclamations. For the Proclamations some of Berthelet's bills survive, and we learn that he charged a penny a piece for them, and imported his paper from Genoa. With his official printing must be reckoned his editions of the _Necessary Doctrine of a Christian Man_, issued with the royal sanction on 29 May, 1543. In order to produce sufficient copies of this he printed it simultaneously eight times over, all eight editions bearing the same date. Of the books which he printed on his own account the place of honour must be given to his handsome edition of Gower's _Confessio Amantis_ in an excellent black-letter type in 1532, and the various works of Sir John Eliot, all of which came from his press.

On the accession of Edward VI Berthelet ceased to be Royal Printer, the post being given to Grafton. Berthelet died in September, 1555, leaving considerable property. He was buried as an Esquire with pennon and coat armour and four dozen scutcheons, and all the craft of printers, stationers, and booksellers followed him to his grave.

Richard Grafton, who succeeded Berthelet as Royal Printer, had a very chequered career. He was originally a member of the Grocers' Company, and, in conjunction with Edward Whitchurch and Anthony Marler of the Haberdashers' Company, superintended the printing of the English Bible of 1537, probably at Antwerp, and that of 1539 by Francois Regnault at Paris. When Bible-printing was permitted in England Grafton and Whitchurch shared between them the printing of the six editions of the Great Bible during 1540 and 1541. But when Cromwell, Earl of Ess.e.x, the chief promoter of Bible-printing, was beheaded, Grafton was himself imprisoned. In 1544, on the other hand, he and Whitchurch obtained an exclusive patent for printing Primers, and before Henry VIII's death Grafton was appointed printer to the Prince of Wales. Thus when Edward became king Grafton displaced Berthelet as Royal Printer, and henceforth had time for little save official work. Five editions of the Homilies and seven of Injunctions, all dated 31 July, 1547, were issued from his presses; in 1548 he published Halle's _Union of Lancaster and York_ and several editions of the Order of Communion and Statutes; in 1549 came two Bibles and five editions of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI; in 1550 a reprint of Halle and an edition of Marbeck's Book of Common Prayer noted; in 1551 Wilson's _Rule of Reason_; in 1552 six editions of the second Prayer Book of Edward VI, and more Statutes.

Proclamation-work, of course, went on steadily throughout the reign, and on Edward's death Grafton printed the enormously long doc.u.ment by which the adherents of Lady Jane Grey tried to justify her claim to the Crown.

He did his work very handsomely, but on the triumph of Mary, though he impartially printed a proclamation for her nine days after "Queen Jane's," he naturally lost his post and might easily have lost his head also. For the rest of his life he was mainly occupied in writing his chronicle. But he printed a Book of Common Prayer in 1559, and (according to Herbert) a Bible in 1566. He died in 1573.

While Grafton was the King's printer for English books, the post of Royal Printer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew had been conferred in 1547 on Reginald or Reyner Wolfe. Wolfe, who had come to England from Gelderland, was at first a bookseller, and was employed by various distinguished persons as a letter-carrier between England and Germany.

When he set up as a printer in 1542, with type which he seems to have obtained from a relative at Frankfort, he was employed by the great antiquary, John Leland, and by John Cheke, Professor of Greek at Cambridge, for whom he printed in 1543 two Homilies of S. Chrysostom in Greek and Latin, this being the first Greek work printed in England.

During Edward VI's reign he does not seem to have been given much to do in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, but printed Cranmer's _Defence of the Sacrament_ and _Answer unto a Crafty Cavillation_. After keeping quiet during Mary's reign he enjoyed the patronage of Elizabeth and Archbishop Parker, and lived, like Grafton, till 1573.

Though he never worked on a large scale, Wolfe certainly raised the standard of printing in England. In John Day it is pleasant to come to a native Englishman who did equally good work, and that in a larger way of business. Day was a Suffolk man, born in 1522 at Dunwich, a town over which the sea now rolls. He began printing in partners.h.i.+p with William Seres as early as 1546, but, save some fairly good editions of the Bible, produced nothing of importance during this period. His first fine book, published in 1559, is _The Cosmographicall Gla.s.se_, a work on surveying, by William Cunningham. This has a woodcut allegorical border to the t.i.tlepage, a fine portrait of Cunningham, a map of Norwich, and some good heraldic and pictorial capitals. Its text is printed throughout in large italics. The book thus broke away entirely from the old black-letter traditions of English printing, and could compare favourably with the best foreign work. Day printed other folios in this style, and in some of them instead of a device placed a large and striking portrait of himself. In 1563 he printed the first edition of _Acts and Monumentes of these latter and perillous days touching matters of the Church_, better known as _Foxe's Book of Martyrs_. This is a book of over two thousand pages, and is plentifully ill.u.s.trated with woodcuts of varying degrees of merit. Day by this time had attracted the patronage of Archbishop Parker, and in 1566 printed for him a book called _A Testimony of Antiquitie, showing the auncient fayth of the Church of England touching the sacrament of the body and bloude of the Lord here publikely preached and also receaved in the Saxons tyme, above 600 yeares agoe_. For this sermon, attributed to Archbishop Aelfric, some Anglo-Saxon type, the first used in England, was specially cut.

Later on Day printed at Lambeth Palace Parker's _De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae_. He also printed Ascham's _Scholemaster_ and other important works. He appears, moreover, to have possessed a bookbinding business, or at least to have had binders in his employment who invented a very striking and dignified style of binding. Altogether, Day is a man of whom English bookmen may well be proud. He died in 1584.

Richard Tottell was another printer of some importance. The son of an Exeter man, he began printing about 1553, and early in his career received a patent which gave him a monopoly of the publication of law books. These, to do him justice, he printed very well, and he also published a number of works of literary interest. Chief among these, and always a.s.sociated with his name, is the famous _Songs and Sonnets_ of Wyatt and Surrey and other Tudor poets, edited by Nicholas Grimald, but often quoted, for no very good reason, as _Tottell's Miscellany_. To his credit must also be placed editions of Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_, Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_, Tusser's _Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandry_, the works of Sir Thomas More in 1458 folio pages, Gerard Legh's _Accedens of Armoury_, numerous editions of Guevara's _Diall of Princes_, as translated by Sir Thomas North, and a version of Cicero's _De Officiis_, by Nicholas Grimald. In 1573 Tottell pet.i.tioned unsuccessfully for a monopoly of paper-making in England for thirty years, in order to encourage him to start a paper-mill. He lived till 1593.

Henry Denham (1564-89), Henry Bynneman (1566-83), and Thomas Vautrollier (1566-88), and the latter's successor, Richard Field, were the best printers of the rest of the century. Denham was an old apprentice of Tottell's, who gave him some important books to print for him. Herbert remarks of him: "He was an exceeding neat printer, and the first who used the semicolon with propriety." Among his more notable books were Grafton's _Chronicle_ (for Tottell and Toy, 1569), editions of the Olynthiac orations of Demosthenes in English (1570) and Latin (1571), _An Alvearie or quadruple dictionarie containing foure sundrie tongues, namelie, English, Latine, Greeke, and French_, with a pleasing t.i.tlepage showing the royal arms and a beehive (1580), Thomas Bentley's _The Monument of Matrons: containing seuen seuerall Lamps of Virginitie_, a work in praise of piety and Queen Elizabeth (1582), Hunnis's _Seuen Sobs of a Sorrowfull Soule for Sinne_, a metrical version of the penitential psalms (1585), and the second edition of Holinshed's _Chronicles_ (1587).

Henry Bynneman, though not so high in Archbishop Parker's favour as John Day, was yet recommended by him to Burghley in 1569, and deserved his patronage by much good work. He printed an English version of Epictetus, Dr. Caius's _De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiae_ (1568), a handsome book with the text in italics, according to the fas.h.i.+on of the day, Van der Noodt's _Theatre of Voluptuous Worldlings_ (1569), a Latin text of Virgil believed to be the first printed in England (1570), the _Historia Brevis_ of Thomas Walsingham (1574), a handsome folio, several books by Gascoigne and Turberville, the first edition of Holinshed's _Chronicles_ (1577, published by John Harrison), and a few books in Greek.

Thomas Vautrollier, a French refugee, set up a press at Blackfriars, at which he printed several editions of the Prayer Book in Latin (_Liber Prec.u.m Publicarum in Ecclesia Anglicana_), and of the New Testament in Beza's Latin version, for which latter he was granted a ten years'

privilege in 1574. In 1579 he printed two very notable works, Fenton's translation of the History of Guicciardini and Sir Thomas North's _Plutarch_, the latter being one of the handsomest of Elizabethan books.

In 1580 and again in 1584 he went to Edinburgh, printing several books there in 1584 and 1585. His second visit is said to have been due to trouble which came upon him for printing the _s.p.a.ccio della Bestia Triomphante_ of Giordano Bruno. His press at Blackfriars continued to work during his absence. His daughter Jakin married Richard Field, who succeeded to his house and business in 1588, and continued his excellent traditions.

A company of stationers had existed in London since 1403, and in 1557 this was reconst.i.tuted and granted a Royal Charter. The object of the Crown was to secure greater control over printing, so that no inconvenient criticisms on matters of Church or State might be allowed to appear. The object of the leading printers and booksellers, who formed the court of the company, was to diminish compet.i.tion, both illegitimate and legitimate. Both objects were to a very considerable degree attained. The quarter of a century which followed the grant of a charter witnessed a great improvement in the English standard of book production. Up to this time it seems probable that few English printers, who had not the royal patronage, had found their craft profitable.

Caxton no doubt did very well for himself--as he richly deserved. He enjoyed the favour of successive kings, and received good support from other quarters. We may guess, moreover, that both as translator and publisher he kept his finger on the pulse of well-to-do book-buyers to an extent to which there is no parallel for the next two centuries. No one else in England possessed this skill, and certainly no one else enjoyed Caxton's success. The Act of Richard III permitting unrestricted importation of books quickly killed the presses at Oxford and St.

Albans, which could not compete with the publications of the learned printers of Italy, France, and Switzerland. Until more than half-way through the reign of Elizabeth the united output of books from Oxford and Cambridge amounted to less than a couple of score. For more than twenty years after Caxton's death there was no undoubted Englishman as a master printer. Mr. Gordon Duff has lately published[53] the a.s.sessments of some of the chief stationers and printers from the Lay Subsidy Rolls of 1523-4. By far the highest of them is the 307 at which was a.s.sessed John Taverner, a stationer who is only otherwise known as having bound some books for the Royal Chapel, and who was wise enough not to meddle with printing. Wynkyn de Worde, most commercial of printers, was a.s.sessed at 201 11s. 1d.; a practically unknown stationer named Neale at 100; Pynson, who was Royal Printer and did really good work, at 60; three other stationers, one of whom printed (Henry Pepwell), at 40 apiece; Julyan Notary at 36 6s. 8d.; other printers at 10 (Robert Redman), 6 13s. 4d. (John Rastell), and 4 (Robert Wyer). It is tolerably clear that there was absolutely no inducement to an English stationer to take up printing. In 1534 Henry VIII repealed the Act of 1484, on the plea that native printing was now so good that there was less need to import books from abroad, the King's real reason, no doubt, being to make it easier to check the importation of heretical works. Mr.

Duff has written of the King's action:

"The fifty years of freedom from 1484 to 1534 not only brought us the finest specimens of printing we possess, but compelled the native workman in self-protection to learn, and when compet.i.tion was done away with his ambition rapidly died also. Once our English printing was protected, it sank to a level of badness which has lasted, with the exception of a few brilliant experiments, almost down to our own day."[54]

As a rule, whatever Mr. Duff writes about English printing is incontrovertible, but this particular p.r.o.nouncement seems curiously unfounded. Whether we consider what they printed or how they printed it, the work of the English presses from 1535-57 is better, not worse, than the work of the corresponding period, 1512-34. There is nothing in the earlier period to compare with the Great Bibles, and the books of Berthelet and Reyner Wolfe are fairly equal to those of Pynson. If we take 1557 as a fresh point of departure, the books issued from then to about 1580 present a still more remarkable advance. While the work of the rest of Europe deteriorated, that of England, in the hands of such men as Day, Denham, and Bynneman, improved, and alike for their typography, their ill.u.s.trations and decorations and their scholars.h.i.+p, they surpa.s.s those of any previous period since the days of Caxton, and deserve far more attention from collectors than they have yet received.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] For English provincial printing after 1500 see Chapter XIII.

[47] A fourth treatise, that on Fis.h.i.+ng with an Angle, is often included in the attribution with even less reason. This was first printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496, with the following curious explanation of its being tacked on to the _Book of St. Albans_: "And for by cause this present treatyse sholde not come to the hondys of eche ydle persone whyche wolde desire it yf it were enprynted allone by it self & put in a lytyll paunflet, therfore I haue compyled it in a greter volume of dyuerse bokys concernynge to gentyll & n.o.ble men, to the entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde haue but lytyll mesure in the sayd dysporte of fyshynge sholde not by this meane utterly destroye it."

[48] Two points may be noted about Rood: (i) he does not put his name in his earliest books, and as there is a change of type in his signed work, it is possible, though unlikely, that the books in type 1 are from another press; (ii) he is not to be identified, as was once proposed, with a certain Theodoricus of Cologne, lately proved by Dr.

Voullieme to be Theodoricus Molner, a stepson of ther h.o.e.rnen.

[49] The place-name here is an early misreading for "Eynsham."

[50] This statement should perhaps be modified to admit of the possibility that Julian Notary was English rather than French, as is generally a.s.sumed.

[51] This and the _Dives and Pauper_ of 1493 (which, until the discovery of the _Doctrinale_, was reckoned Pynson's first dated book) and several other of his earliest editions were published partly at the expense of a merchant named John Rushe, who took six hundred copies of the _Dives_ and the _Boccaccio_ at 4s. apiece. See _Two Lawsuits of Richard Pynson_, by H. R. Plomer, in _The Library_, second series, Vol. X.