He either employed a printer or made some partnerfhip with one, and there are various indications that confirm Mr. Blades' theory that the book came from the press of Colard Mansion.
The second edition is undoubtedly the work of our first English printer. "Explicit per Caxton" is the unambiguous statement of the colophon. It is a much more advanced specimen of typography than the first edition. It has signatures, of which a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, are quaternions, k and l are terternions, making in all eighty-four leaves, of which the first is blank. There is no title-page, and the type used is that which Mr. Blades reckons as No. 2*. The lines are spaced out to an even length. There are twenty-nine lines to a full page, and the full line measures 4-7/8 inches. The prologue begins on a ij., and the table of chapters begins on the next page. The text begins on the recto of a iii. The text ends on the recto of l 6, the last page being blank. There are sixteen woodcuts in the volume, which are used twenty-four times. There has been some diversity of opinion as to the year in which this "Game of the Chesse" came from the press of Caxton. The book is not dated. Dibdin thought it one of the printer's earliest efforts. Figgins regarded it as the earliest issue of the Westminster press, and further believed that it was printed from cut metal types. This is not the view of Mr. Blades, who says: "An examination of the work, however, with a typographical eye does not afford a single evidence of very early workmanship. All Caxton's early books were uneven in the length of their lines--this is quite even. Not one of the early works had any signatures--this is signed throughout. These two features alone are quite sufficient to fix its date of impression at least as late as 1480, when Caxton first began the use of signatures; but when we find that every known copy of this edition of the 'Chess-Book' presents a thicker and more worn appearance than any one copy of any other book, there is good reason for supposing that this may have followed the 'Tulli' of 1481, and have been the last book for which Type No. 2* was used."[6]
Mr. Blades describes nine known copies, so that even fewer exemplars remain of the second edition than of its predecessor. The copy in the King's Library in the British Museum is imperfect, wanting several leaves, and is mended in many places. The copy in the Pepysian Collection at Cambridge wants one-half of the last leaf. Trinity College, Cambridge, has a perfect copy, "but a bad impression." The Bodleian copy is defective in not having the last leaf. St. John's College, Oxford, has a copy, from which one-half of d iii. has been torn away. The Imperial Library at Vienna has an imperfect copy. The Duke of Devonshire's copy is perfect, but it is "a poor impression, and slightly stained." The Earl of Pembroke's copy is very imperfect. Earl Spencer's is only slightly imperfect. The prices fetched by the second edition have a sufficiently wide range. In 1698, at Dr. Bernard's sale, a copy fold for 1s. 6d. Farmer's copy in 1798 fetched £4 4s. Ratcliffe's copy was bought at his sale for £16 by Willett; and when his books came to the hammer in 1813, it was purchased by the Duke of Devonshire for £173 5s.[7] It is interesting to know that the copy of the second edition in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana formerly belonged to Laurence Sterne, who bought it for a few shillings at York![8]
In the present reprint, the text followed is that of the first edition, transcribed from the copy in the British Museum; but the variations, alterations, and additions made in the second issue are all recorded in footnotes. The reader has, therefore, before him the work in all its fulness. The same reasons that have led to the adoption of this course have also decided the publisher to include facsimiles of the curious woodcuts which appeared in the second edition. These, although necessarily reductions in size, reproduce the quaint vigour of the originals.
Caxton, we have seen, translated the "Game of the Chesse" from the French. There were in effect two, if not three, from which he may have taken his version. One of these is by Jean Faron, Perron, or Feron (as the name is variously spelled), a monk of the order of St. Dominic, of whom the notices are exceedingly scanty.[9] La Croix du Maine styles him "de l'Ordre des Frères Prescheurs ou Jacobins du Paris." La Monnaye says that the translation was made from the Latin of Cessoles, and was begun in the year 1347. It has not been printed.[10] The translation is considered a literal version of the Latin of Cessoles.
The prologue of Perron's version is as follows:--"Chy ensuit le geu des Eschas moralisé, ouquel a plusiers exemples bien à noter. A noblehomme, Bertrand de Tarascon, frere Jehan Perron, de l'ordre des Freres precheurs de Paris, son petil et humble chappelain soy tout. Le Sainte Escripture dit que Dieux a fait a chascun commandement de pourchassier à tous nos prochains leur sauvement. Or est-il ainsi que nos prochains ne sont pas tout un, ains sont de diverses condicions, estas et manieres, sy comme il appert. Car les uns sont nobles; les aultres non: les aultres sont de cler engin; les aultres, non: les aultres sont enclins a devocion; les aultres, non. Et pour ce, affin que le commandement de Dieu soit mis à execution bien convenablement, il convient avoir plusiers voyes et baillier à chascun ce qui lui est plus convenable; et ainsi pourroit il le commandement de Dieu accomplir; .... Pour tant je, vostre petit chappelain, à vostre requeste, que je tieng pour commendement, vous ai volu translata de latin en français le Gieu des Eschas moralisé, que fist l'un de nos freres, appelé frere Jaques de Cossoles, maistre en divinité, si que vous l'entendés plus legierrement; et à exemple des nobles hystoires qui y sont notteés, veuillés maintenir, quant à vous, honnestement, et quant aux autres justement.... Or prenés done ce petit present, comencié le 4'e jour de May, l'an 1347."[11]
That Caxton made use of Perron's version is clear. Thus Mr. Blades mentions the description of Evilmerodach as "un homme joly sans justice" as peculiar to Ferron, whose version he regards as the basis of the first and third chapters of Caxton's work.
Dr. Van der Linde mentions a number of MSS.; in some the date is given as 1357, and in one as 1317. This version remains unprinted, but there are MSS. of it in the Bibliotheque Nationale, at Aosta, Cambrai, at Brussels, in the British Museum, Chartres, at Bern, and at Stockholm.[12]