OF PRINTING. 40J 



France, in twenty-four languages. This book is in his Majesty's 

 library. 



OF PRINTING IX ENGLAND. 



William Caxton hath been generally allowed to have first intro- 

 duced and practised the Art of Printing in England in the reign of 

 king Edward IV. He was born in the Weald of Kent, and was 

 first a citizen and mercer of London ; at length he became a repu- 

 table merchant, and in 1464 he was one of the persons em. 

 ployed by king Edward IV. in negotiating a treaty of commerce 

 with the duke of Burgundy, and was afterwards patronised by 

 Margaret duchess of Burgundy, sister to that king. Caxton haying 

 received a good education in his youth, had a taste for learning, 

 and made himself master of the Art of Printing. He tells us him. 

 self, that he began to print his translation of " Le Recueil des His. 

 toires de Troyes," at Bruges in 1468, that he continued the work 

 at Ghent, and that he finished it at Cologne in 1471. A fair copy 

 of this book is in his Majesty's library. 



The first book, which Caxton printed in England, was the Game 

 at Chess, which was finished in the Abbey of Westminster the last 

 day of March 1474. In 1475 he printed the Book of Jason. In 

 1477 the Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophers. For an account 

 of the other books printed by Caxton, see Herbert's History of 

 Printing. 



The first letters used by Caxton were of the sort called Secre- 

 tary, and of these he had two founts : afterwards his letters were 

 more like the modern Gothic characters, written by the English 

 Monks in the fifteenth century. Of these he had three founts of 

 Great Primer, the first rude, which he used in 1474 ; another 

 something better ; and a third cut about the year 1488. Besides 

 these he had two founts of English or Pica, the latest and best of 

 which were cut about 1482; one of Double Pica, good, which first 

 appeared in 1490; and one of Long Primer, at least agreeing with 

 the bodies which have since been called by those names ; all these 

 resemble thq written characters of that age, which have been dis- 

 tinguished by the name of Monkish. English. Those characters 

 nearly resemble their prototypes used by the first printers in 

 Germany. 



In the year 1478 printing was first practised in the two Univer. 

 shies of Oxford and Cambridge; and two years afterwards we find 



