590 PROTOTYPOGRAPHY. 



skill the punches and matrices required in type founding, and put them 

 successfully to their proper uses. It is conjectured that the fine 

 founts of his office were in the first instance cut and cast at the com- 

 mand and cost of the late munificent literary duke. Caxton put him- 

 self under the tuition of Colard Mansion, handsomely recompensing 

 him for his pains, learning the new art and mystery by setting up 

 with his own hands the type of the English Recueil, and partaking 

 in the manual labour of its actual imprinting at Colard Mansion's 

 press. "I have practised and learned," he says, " at my great charge 

 and dispense, to ordain the said book in print, after the manner and 

 form as you may here see." A further memorandum informs us that 

 the printing was completed "on the last day of March, 1474." A 

 monogram or cipher is seen in several of the books afterwards printed 

 by Caxton in England, consisting of the Arabic numerals 7 and 4 

 revelled and interlaced, placed between the initials of his name. Qn 

 either side, in some instances, certain marks are to be seen which 

 have been thought to be respectively an s and a c / but they are more 

 probably only flourishes in the ornamentation of the border. If, 

 however, the s and the c be insisted on, their interpretation may more 

 plausibly be sine calamo than Sancta Colonia. The whole device 

 will then be a cryptic commemoration of the time when Caxton first 

 embarked in the novel avocation of issuing books to his friends and 

 .the public, sine calamo, " without the aid of the pen." Thus the first 

 old printers were wont to boast in their colophons ; and Caxton also 

 himself thoii:ght good to remark at the close of the Recueil, that the 

 work in the reader's hands was " not written with pen and ink as 

 other books be :" an observation not altogether needless for the super- 

 ficial observer, as the types used ia the impression are the closest 

 possible imitation of a local style of hand-writing. 



The bulk of the printed edition of the EngKsh Recueil would no 

 doubt be shipped off to an agent in London. Persuaded that he had 

 struck a profitable vein, Caxton now completes another ti-anslation 

 from the French, The Game and Playe of the Ghesse, a work chiefly 

 compiled by one Jehan de Vigny from the Latin work of J. de 

 Cessolis, Liher de ludo Scachorum. This translation was committed 

 to type as speedily as possible in the office of Colard Mansion, Caxton 

 himself taking some part as before in the manual work. The book 

 was dedicated to the King of England's brother, the Duke of 



