The Mercer's Apprentice—His Book-knowledge—Commerce in Books—Schools in London—City Apprentices—City Pageants—Spread of English Language—English Writers—Chaucer—Gower—Lydgate—The Minstrels—National Literature.
In a book which Caxton printed in 1483, 'The Booke callyd Cathon,' he says in his prologue or preface, "Unto the noble, ancient, and renowned city, the city of London in England, I, William Caxton, citizen and conjury [sworn fellow] of the same, and of the fraternity and fellowship of the Mercery, owe of right my service and good will; and of very duty am bounden naturally to assist, aid, and counsel, as farforth as I can to my power, as to my mother of whom I have received my nurture and living; and shall pray for the good prosperity and policy of the same during my life. For as me seemeth it is of great need, by cause I have known it in my young age much more wealthy, prosperous, and richer than it is at this day; and the cause is, that there is almost none that intendeth to the common weal, but only every man for his singular profit." It is the usual habit of the aged to look back upon the days of their youth as a period of higher prosperity and more exalted virtue, public and private, than they witness in their declining years. This is in most cases merely the mind's own colouring of the picture. But it is very possible that London, in the first year of Richard III., when Caxton wrote this preface, was really less prosperous, and its citizens less devoted to the public good, than half a century earlier, when Caxton was a blithe apprentice within its walls. The country had passed through the terrible convulsion of the wars of the Roses; and it is the nature of civil wars, especially, not only to waste the substance and destroy the means of existence of every man, but to render all men selfish, grasping at temporary good, suspicious, faithless. The master of Caxton was Robert Large, a member of the Mercers' Company, who was one of the Sheriffs in 1430, and Lord Mayor in 1439-40. The date of Caxton's apprenticeship has not been ascertained; but it is considered by several of his biographers to have commenced about 1428. At this period, the sixth of Henry VI., a law was on the statute-book, and rigorously enforced, whose object was to prevent the sons of labourers in husbandry, and indeed of the poorer classes of the yeomanry, from rising out of the condition in which they were born, by participating in the higher gains of trade and handicraft. A law of the seventh of Henry IV., about two-and-twenty years before this conjectural period of Caxton's apprenticeship, recites that, according to ancient statutes, those who labour at the plough or cart, or other service of husbandry, till at the age of twelve years, should continue to abide at such labour, and not to be put to any mystery or handicraft;—notwithstanding which statutes, says the law of Henry IV., country people whose fathers and mothers have no land or rent are put apprentices to divers crafts within the cities and boroughs, so that there is great scarcity of labourers and other servants of husbandry. The law then declares, "That no man nor woman, of what estate or condition they be, shall put their son or daughtor, of whatsoever age he or she be, to serve as apprentice to no craft or other labour within any city or borough in the realm, except he have land or rent to the value of twenty shillings by the year at least, but they shall be put to other labours as their estates doth require, upon pain of one year's imprisonment." This iniquitous law was necessarily as demoralizing and as injurious to the national prosperity as the institution of castes in India. Yet, by a most extraordinary blindness to cause and consequence, the makers of the law provided in the most direct way for its overthrow; for the statute goes on to say, that, although the husbandry labourer is always to be a labourer, "every man or woman, of what estate or condition they be, shall be free to set their son or daughter to take learning at any manner school that pleaseth them within the realm." The citizens of London, much to their honour, procured a repeal of this act in the eighth of Henry VI., about the period when Caxton was apprenticed. The probability is, that he would not have been affected by the exclusive character of this law; for his master was a rich and distinguished mercer—a member of that association which has always had pre-eminence amongst the livery companies of London. The dignified gravity, the prudence, and the prosperity of the citizens of that day have been well described by Chaucer:—
"A Merchant was there with a forkéd beard;
In motley, and high on horse he sat,
And on his head a Flaundrish beaver hat.
His bootes claspéd fair and fetisly;[1]
His reasons spake he full solemnély,
Sounding alway the increase of his winning:
He would the sea were kept[2] for any thing,
Betwixen Middleburgh and Orewell.