The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 286, December 8, 1827

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 286, December 8, 1827, by Various
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To expatiate on the advantages of printing, at this time of day, would be wasteful and ridiculous excess. We content ourselves with the comparison of Dryden's
Long trails of light descending down.
With an outline of the life of CAXTON our readers must be already familiar; but we wish them to consider the above accurate representation of the FIRST ENGLISH PRINTER'S RESIDENCE as antecedent to a Memoir of Caxton , in which it will be our aim to concentrate, in addition to biographical details, many important facts from the testimony of antiquarians; for scarcely a volume of the Archaeologia has appeared without some valuable communication on Caxton and his times.
In the meantime we proceed with the locale of Caxton's house, situate on the south-west of Westminster Abbey, where was formerly the eleemosynary, or almonry, where the alms of the abbots were distributed. Howell in his Londinopolis , describes this as the spot where the abbot of Westminster permitted Caxton to set up his press in the Almonry , or Ambry, the former of which names is still retained. This is confirmed by Newcourt, in his Repertorium , who says, St. Anne's, an old chapel, over against which the Lady Margaret, mother to king Henry VII., erected an alms-house for poor women, which is now turned into lodgings for singing-men of the college. The place wherein this chapel and alms-house stood was called the Eleemosinary, or Almonry, now corruptly called the Ambry, (Aumbry,) for that the alms of the abbey were there distributed to the poor; in which the abbot of Westminster erected the first press for book-printing that was in England, about the year of Christ 1471, and where WILLIAM CAXTON, citizen and mercer of London, who first brought it into England, practised it. Here he printed The Game and Play of the Chesse , said to be the first book that issued from the press in this country.