PROTOTYPOGRAPHY. 591 



Clarence, and sent off at once to London. (About the same time 

 Colard Mansion put forth an edition of the French work, on his own 

 account, using — whether his own or ducal property — the identical 

 founts employed in the English version.) 



The work next taken up for translation, with a view to publication, 

 seems to have been, The History of Jason, another of Raoul le 

 Fevre's productions. But this was not printed until after the 

 removal to Westminstei-, as is said to be proved by the type. An 

 edition of the original French was, in this case also, subsequently 

 printed by Colard Mansion. (The idea that Caxton leaiiied and 

 practised printing at Cologne, arose from a casual expression in the 

 Recueil, taken wrongly by Wynkyn de Worde to mean that the book 

 was printed there, whereas Caxton simply says that the translation 

 into English was finished there.) It is entitled The Book of the 

 Whole Life of Jason. It was from the pen of the same Eaoul le 

 Fevre, who wrote the Recueil, and in some sort it celebrates the 

 institution of the Order of the Golden Fleece by his first patron, 

 Duke Philip. The translation had pi-obably been some years in 

 hand. With his usual policy, Caxton dedicates the book to the eldest 

 son of the King of England, the Prince of Wales, " our to-coming 

 sovereign lord," as he speaks, then only four years old. He does not 

 presume, he says, to dedicate the volume to the king, inasmuch as 

 he doubts not that he who had permitted himself to be enrolled in 

 the said Order of the Golden Fleece, was already in possession of the 

 work in French; but he presents it to the prince that he may "begin 

 therein to learn to read English." In Halliwell's Letters of the 

 Kings of England are preserved the instructions given by Edward 

 IV. to Earl Rivers, as tutor of his son, the Prince of Wales, in 

 1475; and amongst them it is directed that there should be "read 

 unto him such noble stories as behoveth to a prince to iinderstand 

 and know." The Book of Jason may have been one of the noble 

 stories used in this way in the education of the prince. In the pre- 

 faces to several of his publications, Caxton indulges in some personal 

 gossip. In the prologue to the Jason he falls, consciously or uncon_ 

 sciously, into the vein of Froissart, and describes some arras hangings 

 which he remembers seeing in the hall of Hesdin Castle in Artois, 

 executed and placed there by order of Philip the Good, on which 

 were depicted the exploits of Jason when in quest of the Golden 

 Fleece. 



