PROTOTYPOGRAPHY. * 595 



constantly was in mind and body. But his times, as we have seen, 

 were full of perturbations. What with popular risings, war with 

 France, contests for the throne between the houses of York and 

 Lancaster ; and, on the Continent, the French determination to expel 

 the English, the struggles of the Kings of France against their nobles, 

 the rivalries and feuds between Lo\iis XI. and Charles the Bold, and 

 the German Emperor, no one of any class was sure of dying peace- 

 fully in his bed. Caxton, in the case of many of those with whom 

 he was brought into close relations, must have been impressed with 

 the miseries and perils attendant on high position, and the mutability 

 of human affairs generally. It is sad to recall the fates of several of 

 the personages whose names are associated with the books which he 

 printed. The Duke of Clarence, to whom the first edition of The 

 Game and Playe of the Chesse was dedicated, was secretly put to 

 death in the Tower, plunged, it was currently reported, into a butt 

 of Malmesey wine. The Prince of Wales, addressed in the Book of 

 Jason, was suffocated along with his young brother, also in the 

 Tower ; and the Earl of Rivers was ruthlessly beheaded at Pomfret. 

 For Richard III., slain on the field of Bosworth, we feel less com- 

 passion. The other young Prince of Wales, Arthur, son of Henry 

 YII., to whom the JEneid was presented, never ascended the throne. 

 Caxton is one of the few characters in the history of England who 

 have moulded themselves into shape with some distinctness in the 

 imagination of most Englishmen. He lives and moves, a real person 

 in their minds, individually recognisable, like Alfred, like Chaucer, 

 like Shakespeare himself. And this in spite of meagre data. A few 

 autobiographical facts casually supplied to us in addresses to the 

 reader, scattered about in certain of his publications, a few allusions 

 in contemporary annals, an occasional mention in legal and other 

 documents of the time accidentally preserved, these are the only 

 materials out of which to construct a biogi'aphy of Caxton. And 

 then we have the portrait which has come down to us as his, which, 

 when once we have seen, we do not forget : a peaceful unmilitary 

 face ; large inquiring eyes looking out from under a slightly per- 

 plexed brow, a well-formed nose, plentiful hair and beard, grey and 

 curling ; lips making inquiry along with the eyes ; the whole sur- 

 mounted by quaint, almost oriental head-gear, the incipient modern 

 hat nevertheless, with narrow brim turned up all round, retaining, 

 however, still a portion of the hood d, la Henxy IV., with lii'ipipe 



