"Then to the Cheap I began me drawn,Where much people I saw for to stand;One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn,Another he taketh me by the hand,'Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land.'"
"Then to the Cheap I began me drawn,Where much people I saw for to stand;One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn,Another he taketh me by the hand,'Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land.'"
"Then to the Cheap I began me drawn,Where much people I saw for to stand;One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn,Another he taketh me by the hand,'Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land.'"
"Then to the Cheap I began me drawn,
Where much people I saw for to stand;
One offered me velvet, silk, and lawn,
Another he taketh me by the hand,
'Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land.'"
The city apprentice in the days of Caxton was a staid sober youth, who, although of gentle blood (as the regulations for the admittance of freemen required him to be), was meanly clothed, and subjected to the performance of even household drudgery. We learn from a tract called the 'City's Advocate,' printed in 1628, that the ancient habit of the apprentices was a flat round cap, hair close cut, narrow falling bands, coarse side-coats (long coats), close hose, close stockings, and other such severe apparel. They walked before their masters and mistresses at night, bearing a lantern, and wearing a long club on their necks. But the mercer's apprentice had some exceptions which set him above his fellows: "Anciently it was the general use and custom of all apprentices in London (mercersonly excepted, being commonly merchants and a better rank as it seems) to carry water-tankards to serve their masters' houses with water fetched either from the Thames or the common conduits." But, with all his restraints, the city apprentice was ever prone to frolic, and too often to mischief. The apprentices were a formidable body in the days of the Tudors, sometimes defying the laws, and raising tumults which have more than once ended in the prison and the halter. Chaucer, writing some few years before the term of Caxton's service, describes the love of sight-seeing which was characteristic of the London apprentice:—
"When there any ridings were in Cheap,Out of the shop thither would he leap;And till that he had all the sight yseen,And danced well, he would not come again."
"When there any ridings were in Cheap,Out of the shop thither would he leap;And till that he had all the sight yseen,And danced well, he would not come again."
"When there any ridings were in Cheap,Out of the shop thither would he leap;And till that he had all the sight yseen,And danced well, he would not come again."
"When there any ridings were in Cheap,
Out of the shop thither would he leap;
And till that he had all the sight yseen,
And danced well, he would not come again."
Cheap was the great highway of processions; and London was the constant theatre of triumphs and pageants, by which the wealthy citizens expressed their devotion to their ruling authorities. In the fifteenth century, when the very insecurity of the tenure of the crown demanded a more ardent display of public opinion, the London apprentice had "ridings" enough to look upon, where the pageantry was a real expression of power and magnificence, and not a tawdry mockery, as that which now disgraces the city of London once a year. Froissart describes the riding of Henry IV. to his coronation. The entry of his illustrious son into London after the battle of Agincourt wasanother of these remarkable ridings. This, which was an occasion of real enthusiasm, took place in Caxton's childhood. But in 1432, when he is held to have been an apprentice, the boy king, Henry VI., upon his return from being crowned King of France, entered London with a magnificence which chroniclers and poets have vied in recording. Robert Fabyan, an alderman of London, who wrote in the reign of Henry VII., describes this ceremonial with such an admiration of the pomp, as only one could be supposed to feel who was born, as Chaucer says,
"To sitten in a guildhall on the dais."
"To sitten in a guildhall on the dais."
"To sitten in a guildhall on the dais."
"To sitten in a guildhall on the dais."
To look forward to such occasions of pomp was a satisfaction to the people, who knew nothing of the real workings of public affairs, and saw only the outward indications of success or misfortune. The reign of Henry VI. was an unhappy one for the citizens of London. Violent contests for authority, insurrections, battles for the crown, left their fearful traces upon the course of the next thirty years. But during Caxton's boyhood the evil days seemed distant.
In the books of the Brewers' Company, which, like all other records, were for the most part in Norman French, there is a curious entry in the reign of Henry V., which records a great change in the habits of the people. The entry is in Latin, and is thus translated: "Whereas our mother-tongue, to wit, the English language, hath in modern daysbegun to be honourably enlarged and adorned, for that our most excellent lord King Henry the Fifth hath in his letters missive, and divers affairs touching his own person, more willingly chosen to declare the secrets of his will; and for the better understanding of his people hath, with a diligent mind, procured the common idiom (setting aside others) to be commended by the exercise of writing; and there are many of our craft of brewers who have the knowledge of writing and reading in the said English idiom, but in others, to wit, the Latin and French, before these times used, they do not in any wise understand; for which causes, with many others, it being considered how that the greater part of the lords and trusty commons have begun to make their matters to be noted down in our mother-tongue, so we also in our craft, following in some manner their steps, have decreed in future to commit to memory the needful things which concern us, as appeareth in the following."
The assertion of the Brewers' Company, in the reign of Henry V., that "the English language hath in modern days begun to be honourably enlarged and adorned," rested, we apprehend, upon broader foundations than the "letters missive" of the king in the common idiom. Great writers had arisen in our native tongue, with whose productions the nobler and wealthier classes at any rate were familiar. The very greatest of these,—the greatest name even now in our literature, with one exception,—must have furnished employment to hundredsof transcribers. The poems of Geoffrey Chaucer were familiar to all well-educated men, however scanty was the supply of copies and dear their cost. That Caxton himself was acquainted in his youth with these great works we cannot have a doubt. When it became his fortunate lot to multiply editions of the Canterbury Tales, and to render them accessible to a much larger class of the people than in the days when he himself first knew the solace and the delight of literature, he applied himself to the task with all the earnestness of an early love. In his preface to the second edition of the Canterbury Tales he thus delivers himself, with more than common enthusiasm: "Great thanks, laud, and honour ought to be given unto the clerks, poets, and historiographs that have written many noble books of wisdom of the lives, passions, and miracles of holy saints, of histories, of noble and famous acts and faits [deeds], and of the chronicles sith [since] the beginning of the creation of the world unto this present time; by which we are daily informed and have knowledge of many things, of whom we should not have known if they had not left to us their monuments written. Amongst whom, and in especial before all other, we ought to give a singular laud unto that noble and great philosopher Geoffrey Chaucer, the which, for his ornate writing in our tongue, may well have the name of a laureat poet. For before that he, by his labour, embellished, ornated, and made fair our English, in this royaume [kingdom], washad rude speech and incongrue [incongruous], as yet it appeareth by old books, which at this day ought not to have place nor be compared among nor to his beauteous volumes and ornate writings, of whom he made many books and treatises of many a noble history, as well in metre as in rhyme and prose; and them so craftily made, that he comprehended his matters in short, quick, and high sentences; eschewing prolixity, casting away the chaff of superfluity, and shewing the picked grain of sentence, uttered by crafty and sugared eloquence." Again, in his edition of Chaucer's 'Book of Fame' he says, "Which work, as me seemeth, is craftily made, and worthy to be written and known: for he toucheth in it right great wisdom and subtle understanding; and so in all his works he excelleth in mine opinion all other writers in our English; for he writeth no void words, but all his matter is full of high and quick sentence, to whom ought to be given laud and praising for his noble making and writing. For of him all other have borrowed sith, and taken in all their well saying and writing." There is another passage in the second edition of the Canterbury Tales which we quote here, not for the purpose of showing Caxton's honourable character as a printer, for that belongs to a subsequent period, but to point out that manuscripts of Chaucer were in private hands, varying indeed in their text, as books must have varied that were produced by different transcribers, but still keeping up the fame of the poet, andhighly valued by their possessors: "Of which book so incorrect was one brought to me six year passed, which I supposed had been very true and correct, and according to the same I did imprint a certain number of them, which anon were sold to many and divers gentlemen: of whom one gentleman came to me, and said that this book was not according in many places unto the book that Geoffrey Chaucer had made. To whom I answered, that I had made it according to my copy, and by me was nothing added nor diminished. Then he said he knew a book which his father had and much loved, that was very true, and according unto his own first book by him made; and said more, if I would imprint it again, he would get me the same book for a copy. How be it, he wist well his father would not gladly part from it; to whom I said, in case that he could get me such a book true and correct, that I would once endeavour me to imprint it again, for to satisfy the author: whereas before by ignorance I erred in hurting and defaming his book in divers places, in setting in some things that he never said nor made, and leaving out many things that he made which are requisite to be set in. And thus we fell at accord; and he full gently got me of his father the said book, and delivered it to me, by which I have corrected my book."
There was another poet of considerable popularity who was contemporary with Chaucer. With the works of Gower, Caxton must have been familiar.His principal poem, 'Confessio Amantis,' was printed by Caxton in 1483, and is said to have been the most extensively circulated of all the books that came from his press. The poem is full of stories that were probably common to all Europe, running on through thousands of lines with wonderful fluency, but little force. He was called the "moral Gower" by Chaucer. The play of Pericles, ascribed to Shakspere, is founded upon one of these stories. Gower himself shows us what was the general course of reading in those days:—
"Full oft time it falleth so,Mine ear with a good pittanceIs fed of reading of romance,Of Idoyne, and of Amadas,That whilom[6]weren[7]in my case,And eke of other many a score,That loveden[8]long ere I was bore."[9]
"Full oft time it falleth so,Mine ear with a good pittanceIs fed of reading of romance,Of Idoyne, and of Amadas,That whilom[6]weren[7]in my case,And eke of other many a score,That loveden[8]long ere I was bore."[9]
"Full oft time it falleth so,Mine ear with a good pittanceIs fed of reading of romance,Of Idoyne, and of Amadas,That whilom[6]weren[7]in my case,And eke of other many a score,That loveden[8]long ere I was bore."[9]
"Full oft time it falleth so,
Mine ear with a good pittance
Is fed of reading of romance,
Of Idoyne, and of Amadas,
That whilom[6]weren[7]in my case,
And eke of other many a score,
That loveden[8]long ere I was bore."[9]
The romances of chivalry, the stories of "fierce wars and faithful loves," were especially the delight of the great and powerful. When the noble was in camp, he solaced his hours of leisure with the marvellous histories of King Arthur or Launcelot of the Lake; and when at home, he listened to or read the same stories in the intervals of the chace or the feast. Froissart tells in his own simple and graphic manner how he presented a book to King Richard the Second, and how the king delighted in the subject of the book: "Then the king desired to see my book that I had brought for him; so he saw it in his chamber, for I had laid it there readyon his bed. When the king opened it, it pleased him well, for it was fair illumined and written, and covered with crimson velvet, with ten buttons of silver and gilt, and roses of gold in the midst, with two great clasps, gilt, richly wrought. Then the king demanded me whereof it treated, and I showed him how it treated matters of love, whereof the king was glad, and looked in it, and read it in many places, for he could speak and read French very well." Froissart was a Frenchman and wrote in French; but even Englishmen wrote in French at that period, and some of Gower's early poems are in French. According to his own account, the long poem of the 'Confessio Amantis,' which was written in English, was executed at the command of the same King Richard:—
"He hath this charge upon me laid,And bad me do my business,That to his high worthinessSome new thing I should book,That he himself it might look,After the form of my writing."
"He hath this charge upon me laid,And bad me do my business,That to his high worthinessSome new thing I should book,That he himself it might look,After the form of my writing."
"He hath this charge upon me laid,And bad me do my business,That to his high worthinessSome new thing I should book,That he himself it might look,After the form of my writing."
"He hath this charge upon me laid,
And bad me do my business,
That to his high worthiness
Some new thing I should book,
That he himself it might look,
After the form of my writing."
Chaucer and Gower lived some time before the period of Caxton's youth in London, But there was a poet very popular in his day, whom he can scarcely have avoided having seen playing a conspicuous part in the high city festivals. This was John Lydgate, monk of Bury, who thus describes himself—
"I am a monk by my profession,Of Bury, called John Lydgate by my name,And wear a habit of perfection,Although my life agree not with the same."
"I am a monk by my profession,Of Bury, called John Lydgate by my name,And wear a habit of perfection,Although my life agree not with the same."
"I am a monk by my profession,Of Bury, called John Lydgate by my name,And wear a habit of perfection,Although my life agree not with the same."
"I am a monk by my profession,
Of Bury, called John Lydgate by my name,
And wear a habit of perfection,
Although my life agree not with the same."
lydgateLydgate presenting a book to the Earl of Salisbury.
Lydgate presenting a book to the Earl of Salisbury.
Lydgate presenting a book to the Earl of Salisbury.
Thomas Warton has thus exhibited the nature of his genius: "No poet seems to have possessed a greater versatility of talents. He moves with equal ease in every mode of composition. His hymns and his ballads have the same degree of merit: and whether his subject be the life of a hermit or a hero, of Saint Austin or Guy Earl of Warwick, ludicrous or legendary, religious or romantic, a history or an allegory, he writes with facility. His transitions were rapid from works of the most serious and laborious kind to sallies of levity and pieces of popular entertainment. His muse was of universal access, and he was not only the poet of his monastery, but of the world in general. If a disguising was intended by the company of goldsmiths, a mask before his majesty at Eltham, a May game for the sheriffs and aldermen of London, a mumming before the lord mayor, a procession of pageants from the creation for the festival of Corpus Christi, or a carol for a coronation, Lydgate was consulted and gave the poetry." A fine illuminated drawing in one of Lydgate's manuscripts, now in the British Museum, represents him presenting a book to the Earl of Salisbury. Such a presentation may be regarded as the first publication of a new work. The royal or noble person at whose command it was written bestowed some rich gift upon the author, which would be his sole pecuniary recompence, unless he received some advantage from the transcribers, for the copies which they multiplied. Doubtful as therewards of authorship may be when the multiplication of copies by the press enables each reader to contribute a small acknowledgment of the benefit which he receives, the literary condition must have been far worse when the poet, humbly kneeling before some mighty man, as Lydgate does in the picture, might have been dismissed with contumely, or his present received with a low appreciation of the labour and the knowledge required to produce it. The fame, however, of a popular writer reachedhis ears in a far more direct and flattering manner than belongs to the literary honours of modern days. There can be little doubt that the narrative poems of Chaucer and Gower and Lydgate were familiar to the people through the recitations of the minstrels. An agreeable writer on the Rise and Progress of English Poetry, Mr. George Ellis, says, "Chaucer, in his address to his Troilus and Cressida, tells us it was intended to be read 'or elles sung,' which must relate to the chanting recitation of the minstrels, and a considerable part of our old poetry is simply addressed to an audience, without any mention of readers. That our English minstrels at any time united all the talents of the profession, and were at once poets and reciters and musicians, is extremely doubtful; but that they excited and directed the efforts of their contemporary poets to a particular species of composition, is as evident as that a body of actors must influence the exertions of theatrical writers. They were, at a time when reading and writing were rare accomplishments, the principal medium of communication between authors and the public; and their memory in some measure supplied the deficiency of manuscripts, and probably preserved much of our early literature till the invention of printing." We may thus learn, that, although the number of those was very few whose minds by reading could be lifted out of the grovelling thoughts and petty cares of every-day life, yet that the compositions of learned and accomplished men, who still hold ahigh rank in our literature, might be familiar to the people through the agency of a numerous body of singers or reciters. There has been a good deal of controversy about the exact definition of the minstrel character—whether the minstrels were themselves poets and romance-writers, or the depositaries of the writings of others and of the traditional literature of past generations. Ritson, a writer upon this subject, says, "that there were individuals formerly who made it their business to wander up and down the country chanting romances, and singing songs and ballads to the harp, fiddle, or more humble and less artificial instruments, cannot be doubted." They were a very numerous body a century before Chaucer; and most indefatigable in the prosecution of their trade. There is a writ or declaration of Edward the Second, which recites the evil of idle persons, under colour of minstrelsy, being received in other men's houses to meat and drink; and then goes on to direct that to the houses of great people no more than three or four minstrels of honour should come at the most in one day, "and to the houses of meaner men that none come unless he be desired, and such as shall come to hold themselves contented with meat and drink, and with such courtesy as the master of the house will show unto them of his own goodwill, without their asking of anything." Nothing can more clearly exhibit the general demand for the services of this body of men; for the very regulation as to the nature of their reward shows clearlythat they were accustomed to require liberal payment, approaching perhaps to extortion; and then comes in the State to say that they shall not have a free market for their labour. They struggled on, sometimes prosperous and sometimes depressed, according to the condition of the country, till the invention of printing came to make popular literature always present in a man's house. Thebookof ballads or romances, which was then to be bought, was contented to abide there without any "meat and drink." In the words of Richard de Bury, whom we quoted in the first chapter, books "are the masters who instruct us without rods, without hard words and anger, without clothes and money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them, they never grumble; if you are ignorant, they cannot laugh at you." One of the later ministrels, to whom is ascribed the preservation, and by some the composition, of the old ballad of Chevy Chase, thus humbles himself in a most unpoetical and undignified manner to those who fed him for his services:—
"Now for the good cheer that I have had hereI give you hearty thanks with bowing of my shanks,Desiring you by petition to grant me such commission—Because my name is Sheale—that both for meat and mealTo you I may resort some time for my comfort.For I perceive here at all times is good cheer,Both ale, wine, and beer, as it doth now appear;I perceive, without fable, ye keep a good table.I can be content, if it be out of Lent,A piece of beef to take, my hunger to aslake;Both mutton and veal is good for Richard Sheale.Though I look so grave, I were a very knaveIf I would think scorn, either evening or morn,Being in hunger, of fresh salmon or congar.I can find in my heart with my friends to take a partOf such as God shall send; and thus I make an end.Now, farewell, good mine host; I thank you for your cost,Until another time, and thus do I end my rhyme."
"Now for the good cheer that I have had hereI give you hearty thanks with bowing of my shanks,Desiring you by petition to grant me such commission—Because my name is Sheale—that both for meat and mealTo you I may resort some time for my comfort.For I perceive here at all times is good cheer,Both ale, wine, and beer, as it doth now appear;I perceive, without fable, ye keep a good table.I can be content, if it be out of Lent,A piece of beef to take, my hunger to aslake;Both mutton and veal is good for Richard Sheale.Though I look so grave, I were a very knaveIf I would think scorn, either evening or morn,Being in hunger, of fresh salmon or congar.I can find in my heart with my friends to take a partOf such as God shall send; and thus I make an end.Now, farewell, good mine host; I thank you for your cost,Until another time, and thus do I end my rhyme."
"Now for the good cheer that I have had hereI give you hearty thanks with bowing of my shanks,Desiring you by petition to grant me such commission—Because my name is Sheale—that both for meat and mealTo you I may resort some time for my comfort.For I perceive here at all times is good cheer,Both ale, wine, and beer, as it doth now appear;I perceive, without fable, ye keep a good table.I can be content, if it be out of Lent,A piece of beef to take, my hunger to aslake;Both mutton and veal is good for Richard Sheale.Though I look so grave, I were a very knaveIf I would think scorn, either evening or morn,Being in hunger, of fresh salmon or congar.I can find in my heart with my friends to take a partOf such as God shall send; and thus I make an end.Now, farewell, good mine host; I thank you for your cost,Until another time, and thus do I end my rhyme."
"Now for the good cheer that I have had here
I give you hearty thanks with bowing of my shanks,
Desiring you by petition to grant me such commission—
Because my name is Sheale—that both for meat and meal
To you I may resort some time for my comfort.
For I perceive here at all times is good cheer,
Both ale, wine, and beer, as it doth now appear;
I perceive, without fable, ye keep a good table.
I can be content, if it be out of Lent,
A piece of beef to take, my hunger to aslake;
Both mutton and veal is good for Richard Sheale.
Though I look so grave, I were a very knave
If I would think scorn, either evening or morn,
Being in hunger, of fresh salmon or congar.
I can find in my heart with my friends to take a part
Of such as God shall send; and thus I make an end.
Now, farewell, good mine host; I thank you for your cost,
Until another time, and thus do I end my rhyme."
But even such a humiliated ballad-maker, or ballad-singer, as poor old Richard Sheale, was the depositary of treasures of popular fiction, many of which have utterly perished, but of which a great portion of those which are still preserved are delightful even to the most refined reader. For, corrupted as they are by transmission from mouth to mouth through several centuries, they are full of high and generous sentiments, of deep pathos, of quiet humour; they carry us back into a state of society wholly different from our own, when knowledge was indeed scanty, and riches not very plentiful, but when the feelings and affections were not so wholly under the direction of worldly wisdom, and men were brave and loving, and women tender and confiding, with something more of earnestness than belongs to the discreeter arrangements of modern social life. The minstrels had indeed something to call up the tear or the smile in every class of auditor. For the earls and barons, the knights and squires, there were romances and songs of chivalrous daring, such as moved the noble heart of Sir Philip Sidney, even in the days when the minstrel was a poor despised wanderer: "Is it the Lyric that most displeaseth, who, with his tuned lyre and well-accorded voice, giveth praise, the reward of virtue,to virtuous acts? who giveth moral precepts and natural problems? who sometimes raiseth up his voice to the height of the heavens, in singing the lauds of the immortal God? Certainly I must confess mine own barbarousness, I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet, and yet it is sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style." For those of meaner sort there were the ballads of Robin Hood, "of whom the foolish vulgar make lewd entertainment, and are delighted to hear the jesters and minstrels sing them above all other ballads." So wrote a Scottish historian in the middle of the fourteenth century.
We have thus briefly recapitulated the popular modes of acquiring something of a literary taste in the early days of William Caxton. Books were rare, and difficult to be obtained except by the wealthy. The drama did not exist. The preachers, indeed, were not afraid to address an indiscriminate audience with the conviction that, although the majority were unlettered, they had vigorous understandings, and did not require the great truths of religion and of private and of social duty to be adapted to any intellectual weakness or infirmity. The national poetry, which was heard at the high festivals of the city traders, and even descended to as lowly a popularity as that of the village circle upon the ale-bench under the spreading elm on a summer's eve, had no essentials of vulgarity orchildishness, such as in later days have been thought necessary for general comprehension. We were ever a thoughtful people, a reasoning people, and yet a people of strong passions and unconquerable energy. A popular literature was kept alive and preserved, however imperfectly, before the press came to make those who had learnt to read self-dependent in their intellectual gratifications; and what has come down to us of the old minstrelsy, with all its inaccuracy and occasional feebleness, shows us that the people of England, four or five centuries ago, had a common fund of high thought upon which a great literature might in time be reared. The very existence of a poet like Chaucer is the best proof of the vigour, and to a certain extent of the cultivation, of the national mind, even in an age when books were rarities.
[1]Neatly.[2]Guarded.[3]French crowns, which were stamped with a shield.[4]Employed.[5]An agreement for borrowing money.[6]Formerly.[7]Were.[8]Loved.[9]Born.
[1]Neatly.
[2]Guarded.
[3]French crowns, which were stamped with a shield.
[4]Employed.
[5]An agreement for borrowing money.
[6]Formerly.
[7]Were.
[8]Loved.
[9]Born.
Caxton abroad—Caxton's mercantile pursuits—Restrictions on Trade—Caxton's Commission—Merchants' Marks—Beginnings of Printing—Playing Cards—Wood-engraving—Block-books—Moveable Types—Guttenberg—Guttenberg's Statue—Festival at Mentz.
Robert Large, the master of Caxton, became Lord Mayor of London in 1439-40. He died in 1441. That he was a man of considerable substance appears by the record of his bequests, in Stow's Survey of London: "Robert Large, mercer, mayor 1440, gave to his parish church of St. Olave, in Surrey, two hundred pounds; to St. Margaret's, in Lothbury, twenty-five pounds; to the poor, twenty pounds; to London-bridge, one hundred marks; towards the vaulting over the watercourse of Walbrook, two hundred marks; to poor maids' marriages, one hundred marks; to poor householders, one hundred pounds."[10]By his last will he bequeathed to his servant, William Caxton, twenty marks, a considerable sum in those days. From this period it would seem that Caxton resided abroad. In the first book he translated, the "Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye," which bears upon the title to have been "ended andfinished in the holy city of Cologne, the 19th day of September, the year of our Lord one thousand, four hundred, sixty, and eleven," he says, "I have continued by the space of thirty year for the most part in the countries of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand." The Rev. John Lewis, who wrote the Life of Master William Caxton, about a century ago, says, "It has been guessed that he was abroad as a travelling agent or factor for the Company of Mercers, and employed by them in the business of merchandise." Oldys adds, but certainly without any authority, "It is agreed on by those writers who have best acquainted themselves with his story, he was deputed and intrusted by the Mercers' Company to be their agent or factor in Holland, Zealand, Flanders, &c., to establish and enlarge their correspondents, negociate the consumption of our own, and importation of foreign manufactures, and otherwise promote the advantage of the said corporation in their respective merchandise." This, indeed, was a goodly commission, if we can make out that he ever received such,—an employment which seems to speak of free and liberal intercourse between two countries, each requiring the commodities of the other, and conducting their interchange upon the sound principles of encouraging mutual consumption, and thus producing mutual profit. Doubtless, we may believe, upon a superficial view of the matter, that the agent of the Mercers' Company was conducting his operations with the full authority of the governmentat home, and with the hearty support of the rulers of the land in which he so long lived. The real fact is, that for twenty of those years in which Caxton describes himself as residing in the countries of Brabant, Holland, and Zealand, there was an absolute prohibition on both sides of all commercial intercourse between England and the Duchy of Burgundy, to which those countries were subject; and for nearly the whole period, no English goods were suffered to pass to the continent, except through the town of Calais; and "in France," says Caxton, "I was never." If Caxton had any mercantile employment at all from his Company, it was, in all probability, for the purpose of finding channels in trade that were closed up by the blind policy of the respective governments. He could not have conducted any mercantile operation in those countries, except in violation of the absurd commercial laws which would not allow the people to seek their own interest in their own way. It is by no means improbable, however, that by the connivance of the royal personages who wanted for themselves rich commodities which they could only obtain by that exchange which they denied their subjects, William Caxton was in truth an accredited smuggler for law-makers who attempted to limit the wants, and the means of satisfying the wants, of the people they governed, in deference to the prejudices of those who thought that trade could only exist under a system of the most stringent prohibition.
While Edward the Fourth, and Charles the Good, Duke of Burgundy, were launching against each other ordinance and enactment to prevent their subjects becoming exchangers for the better supply of their respective wants, some politic understanding between these princes led them eventually to adopt a wiser system. It is pretty clear that William Caxton was one of the agents, and a principal one, in putting an end to a policy which the Duke of Burgundy said was "evermore to endure." In 1464 Edward the Fourth issued a commission to his trusty and well-beloved Richard Whitehill and William Caxton, to be his especial ambassadors, procurators, nuncios, and deputies to his most dear cousin the Duke of Burgundy for the purpose of confirming an existing treaty of commerce, or, if necessary, for making a new one. In 1466, this commission being dated in October, 1464, a treaty was concluded with the Duke of Burgundy, by which the commerce between his dominions and England, which had been interrupted for twenty years, was restored; and a port of Flanders was subsequently appointed to be a port of the English staple, as well as Calais. It is pleasant to us to believe that this extension of a principle which must eventually bind all nations in a common brotherhood was effected by the good sense of a mercer of London; who was afterwards to bestow upon his country the blessings of an art which has been the great instrument of that country's progress in real greatness and prosperity, and before which allimpediments to the continued course of that prosperity—all prejudices amongst her own children, or amongst other peoples, that make the great family of mankind aliens and enemies, and keep them from the enjoyment of the advantages which each might bestow upon the other—will utterly perish. It is pleasant to us to believe that William Caxton, the first English printer, in his day opened the ports of one great trading community to another great trading community. When he, the mercer's apprentice, stamped the merchant's mark upon his master's bales, he knew not, he could not have divined, that by this process of stamping, carried forward by the ingenuity of many men into a new art, there would arise consequences which would change the face of the world. He could not imagine that he, whose education had consisted in learning to buy wool and measure cloth, should, by the natural course of his commercial life, be thrown into a society where a great wonder was to fill the minds of all men with astonishment—the multiplication of manuscripts by some new and secret process, as if by magic; and which some men, and he probably amongst the number, must have regarded with ahigher feeling than wonder,—with something like that prophetic view of its consequences which have been described by the novelist, who, perhaps more than any man, has employed that art to the delight of all classes in every country. We refer to the passage in Sir Walter Scott's Quentin Durward, where Louis the Eleventh of France, and Martivalle Galeotti the astrologer, speak of the invention of printing, and the sage predicts "the lot of a succeeding generation, on whom knowledge will descend like the first and second rain, uninterrupted, unabated, unbounded, fertilizing some grounds, and overflowing others; changing the whole form of social life."
marksMerchants' Marks.
Merchants' Marks.
Merchants' Marks.
blocksBlocks and Stencil Instruments.
Blocks and Stencil Instruments.
Blocks and Stencil Instruments.
In a list of foreign goods forbidden to be imported into this country by statute of 1464, the reader might be surprised to find that playing-cards were of sufficient importance, from their general use, to require that the native manufactories should be protected in the production of them. Playing-cards were known in France for more than a hundred years before this statute of Edward IV.; so that the common notion that they were invented to furnish amusement to an insane king, Charles VI. of France, about 1393, is a popular error. It is clear that both in France and Spain at that period cards were the amusement not only of the royal and noble inmates of palaces, but of the burghers and the working people. The King of Castile, in 1387, prohibited cards altogether; and they appear, with othergames of skill and chance, to have interfered so much with the regular labour of the artificers of Paris, that the provost of that city, in 1397, forbade all working people to play at tennis, bowls, nine-pins, dice, or cards, on working-days. The earliest cards were probably painted by means of a stencil, by which name we call a piece of pasteboard or plate of thin metal pierced with apertures, by which a figure is formed upon paper or other substance beneath it when fluid colour is smeared over its surface with a brush. But it has also been conjectured, from their being in the hands of the working-people, that their cheapness must have been produced by some rude application of a wood-engraving to form the outline which the stencilling process filled up with colour. There can be no doubt that cards wereprintedbefore the middle of the fifteenth century; for there is a petition extant from the Venetianpaintersto their magistracy, dated 1441, setting forth that the art andmystery of card-making and ofprintingfigures, which were practised in Venice, had fallen into total decay, through the great quantity of foreign playing-cards and coloured printed figures which were brought into the city. The Germans were the great card-makers of this period; and the name by which a wood-engraver is still called in Germany,Formschneider, meaning figure-cutter, occurs in the town books of Nuremburg as early as 1441. Some of the early cards were very rude. Here is the Knave of Bells—for spades, diamonds,hearts, and clubs were not then the universal symbols. Others called forth the skill of very clever artists, such as he who is known as "the Master of 1466," whose knave is a much more human knave than the traditionary worthy whom we look upon to this hour. When Caxton, therefore, was abroad for thirty years, he would unquestionably have seen every variety of these painted bits of paper; some rich with crimson and purple, oftentimes painted on a golden ground, and calling forth, like the missals, the highest art of the limner; others impressed with a rude outline, and daubed by the stenciller. It appears that the impressions of the engraved cards, as well as of most of the earlierblock-prints, were taken off by friction. This is the mode by which, even at the present day, wood-engravers take off the specimen impressions of their works called proofs. The Chinese produce their block-books in a similar manner, without the aid of a press.
knave-bellsKnave of Bells.
Knave of Bells.
Knave of Bells.
knave-masterKnave, of Master of 1466.
Knave, of Master of 1466.
Knave, of Master of 1466.
But there was another application of engraved blocks, about the same period, which was approaching still nearer to the art of printing. The representations of saints and of scriptural histories, which the limners in the monasteries had for several centuries been painting in their missals and bibles, were copied in outline; and being divested of their brilliant colours and rich gilding, presented figures exceedingly rude in their want of proportion, and grotesque in their constrained and violent attitudes. But they were nevertheless highly popular; and as the pictures were accompanied with a few sentences from Scripture, they probably supplied the first inducement to the laity to learn to read, and thus prepared the way for that diffusion of knowledge which was to accompany the invention of printing from moveable types. In the collection of Earl Spencer there is a very curious print from a woodblock, representing St. Christopher carrying the infant Saviour. This print bears the date 1423. It is probably not the earliest specimen of the art; but it is the earliest undoubted document which determines with precision the period when wood-engraving was generally applied to objects of devotion. In a very few years from the date of thisprint the art was carried onward to a more important object,—that of producing abook.
Several of such books are now in existence, and are known as block-books. One of them is commonly called 'Biblia Pauperum,' the Bible of the Poor. But an ingenious writer on the progress of woodcutting, in the valuable book on that subject published by Mr. John Jackson, has shown very clearly that this was not the original title of the book; and he adds that it was rather a book for the use of preachers than the laity:—"A series of skeleton sermons ornamented with woodcuts to warm the preacher's imagination, and stored with texts to assist his memory." This very rare book consists of forty leaves of small folio, each of which contains a cut in wood, with extracts from the Scriptures, and other illustrative sentences. Of other block-books the most remarkable is called 'Speculum Salutis,'—the Mirror of Salvation. In this performance the explanations of the text are much fuller than in the 'Biblia Pauperum.' In addition to these works, wooden blocks were also used to print small manuals of grammar, called Donatuses, which were used in schools. We present a fac-simile of a woodcut from one of the early block-books.
wise-menThe Wise Men's Offering.
The Wise Men's Offering.
The Wise Men's Offering.
The use of carved blocks for the multiplication of copies of playing-cards and devotional pictures gave birth to a principle which has effected, and is still effecting, the most important changes in the world. These devotional pictures had shortlegends or texts attached to them; and when a text had to be printed, it was engraved in a solid piece, as well as the picture. The first person who seized upon the idea that the text or legend might be composed of separate letters capable of rearrangement after the impressions were taken off, so as to be applied, without new cutting, to other texts and legends, had secured the principle upon which the printing art was to depend. It was easy to extend the principle from a few lines to a whole page, and from one page to many, so as to form a book; but then were seen the great labour and expense of cutting so many separate letters upon small pieces of wood or metal, and another step was required to be made before the principle was thoroughly worked out. This step consisted in the ready multiplication of the separate letters by casting metal in moulds. Lastly, instead of using the old Chinese mode of friction to produce impressions, apresswas to be perfected. All these gradations were undoubtedly the result of long and patient experiments carried on by several individuals, who each saw the importance of the notion they were labouring to work out. It is this circumstance which has given rise to interminable controversies as to the inventors of printing, some claiming the honour for Coster of Haarlem, and some for Guttenberg of Mentz; and, as is usual in all such disputes, it was represented that the man to whom public opinion had assigned the credit of the invention had stolen it from another, who, as isalso usual in these cases, thought of it in a dream, or received it by some other mysterious revelation. The general consent of Europe now assigns the chief honour to Guttenberg.[11]
During the summer of 1837 a statue of John Guttenberg, by Thorwaldsen, was erected at Mentz (or Mayence), and on the 14th of August and the following days a festival was held there, upon the occasion of the inauguration of the monument. Abundant evidence has been brought forward of late years to show that Guttenberg deserves all the honours of having conceived, and in great part perfected, an art which has produced the most signal effects upon the destinies of mankind. At that festival of Mentz, at which many hundred persons were assembled, from all parts of Europe, to do honour to the inventor of printing, no rival pretensions were put forward; although many of the compatriots of Coster of Haarlem were present. The fine statue of Guttenberg was opened amidst an universal burst of enthusiasm. Never were the shouts of a vast multitude raised on a more elevating occasion;—never were the triumphs of intellect celebrated with greater fervour.
Passing his life amidst the ceaseless activity that belongs to the commerce of literature in London, the writer of this volume felt no common interest in the enthusiasm which the festival in honour of Guttenberg called forth throughout Germany; and he determined to attend that celebration. The finestatue which was to be opened to public view on the 14th of August had been erected by a general subscription, to which all Europe was invited to contribute. We apprehend that the English, amidst the incessant claims upon their attention for the support of all sorts of undertakings, whether of a national or individual character, had known little of the purpose which the good citizens of Mentz had been advocating with unabated zeal for several years;—and perhaps the object itself was not calculated to call forth any very great liberality on the part of those who are often directed in their bounties as much by fashion as by their own convictions. Thus it is that we have monuments out of number to warriors. Caxton has no monument; neither has Shakspere. Be that as it may, England literally gave nothing towards the statue of a man whose invention has done as much as any other single cause to make England what she is. The remoteness of the cause may also have lessened its importance; and some people, who, without any deserts of their own, are enjoying a more than full share of the blessings which have been shed upon us by the progress of intellect (which determines the progress of national wealth), have a sort of instinctive notion that the spread of knowledge is the spread of something inimical to the pretensions of mere riches. We met with a lady on board the steamboat ascending the Rhine, two days before the festival of Mentz, who, whilst she gave us an elaborate account of the fashionable dulness of thebaths of Baden and Nassau, and all the other German watering-places, told us by all means to avoid Mentz during the following week, as a crowd of low people from all parts would be there, to make a great fuss about a printer who had been dead two or three hundred years. The low people did assemble in great crowds: it was computed that at least fifteen thousand strangers had arrived to do honour to the first printer.
The modes in which a large population displays its enthusiasm are pretty much the same throughout the world. If the sentiment which collects men together be very heart-stirring, all the outward manifestations of the sentiment harmonize with its real truth. Thus, processions, and orations, and public dinners, and pageantries which in themselves are vain and empty, are important when the persons whom they collect together have one common feeling which for the time is all-pervading. We never saw such a popular fervour as prevailed at Mentz at the festival of August, 1837. The statue was to be opened on Monday the 14th; but on the Sunday evening the name of Guttenberg was rife through all the streets. In the morning all Mentz was in motion by six o'clock; and at eight a procession was formed to the Cathedral, which, if it was not much more imposing than some of the processions of trades in London and other cities, was conducted with a quiet precision which evidenced that the people felt they were engaged in a solemn act. The fine old Cathedral wascrowded;—the Bishop of Mentz performed high Mass;—the first Bible printed by Guttenberg was displayed. What a field for reflection was here opened! The first Bible, in connexion with the imposing pageantries of Roman Catholicism—the Bible, in great part a sealed book to the body of the people; the service of God in a tongue unknown to the larger number of worshippers;—but that first Bible the germ of millions of Bibles that have spread the light of Christianity throughout all the habitable globe! The Mass ended, the procession again advanced to the adjacent square, where the statue was to be opened. Here was erected a vast amphitheatre, where, seated under their respective banners, were deputations from all the great cities of Europe. Amidst salvos of artillery the veil was removed from the statue, and a hymn was sung by a thousand voices. Then came orations;—then dinners—balls—oratorios—boat-races—processions by torchlight. For three days the population of Mentz was kept in a state of high excitement; and the echo of the excitement went through Germany,—and Guttenberg! Guttenberg! was toasted in many a bumper of Rhenish wine amidst this cordial and enthusiastic people.
And, indeed, even in one who could not boast of belonging to the land in which printing was invented, the universality of the mighty effects of this art, when rightly considered, would produce almost a corresponding enthusiasm. It is difficult to look upon the great changes that have been effectedduring the last four centuries, and which are still in progress everywhere around us, and not connect them with printing and with its inventor. The castles on the Rhine, under whose ruins we travelled back from Mentz, perished before the powerful combinations of the people of the towns. The petty feudal despots fell, when the burghers had acquired wealth and knowledge. But the progress of despotism upon a larger scale could not have been arrested had the art of Guttenberg not been discovered. The strongholds of military power still frown over the same majestic river. The Rhine has seen its pretty fortresses crumble into decay;—Ehrenbreitstein is more strong than ever. But even Ehrenbreitstein will fall before the power of mind. The Rhine is crowded with steamboats, where the feudal lord once levied tribute upon the frail bark of the fisherman; and the approaches to the Rhine from all Germany, and from France and Belgium, have become a great series of railroads. Such communications will make war a game much more difficult to play; and when mankind are thoroughly civilized, it will never be played again. Seeing, then, what intellect has done and is doing, we may well venerate the memory of Guttenberg of Mentz.