In 1494 two important books were issued, the Scala perfeccionis of Walter Hylton, a Carthusian monk, and a reprint of the Speculum Vitæ Christi, both being in the late French type of Caxton. The Scala perfeccionis is a rare book when it contains the last part, which is only found in two or three copies. It has on the title-page a woodcut of the Virgin and Child under a canopy, and below this the sentence beginning “Sit dulce nomen domini nostri Jesu Christi benedictum,” but the engraver in cutting the block has not attempted to cut the words properly, but merely to give their general appearance, so that the result though decorative is almost impossible to decipher.
The Speculum of this year has many points of interest, the chief perhaps being that Caxton’s small type No. 7 is found in it, the only time it is used in a printed book, though it had been used before in 1489 for printing indulgences. The text of the book is in Caxton’s French type, but the sidenotes are in this small Caxton type up to about the middle of the book, whence the notes are continued in the same type as the text. Up till a year or two ago only one copy of this book was known, in Lord Leicester’s library at Holkham, but lately another copy, imperfect and in bad condition, turned up amongst some rubbish in the offices of a solicitor at Birkenhead, and is now in the Rylands Library at Manchester. Three editions of the Horae ad usum Sarum, two in quarto and one in octavo, printed in the same type as the other two books, may also be ascribed to 1494. The two in quarto are evidently reprinted from the last edition of Caxton’s of which the little treatise called the Fifteen Oes formed part, for they have the same borders, and the woodcuts are clearly of sets which belonged to Caxton. The octavo edition is quite different, having no borders, and the woodcuts so far as is known, for the book is only known from a fragment, belong to a set which do not appear to have been used again.
The most famous of the cuts used at this time is one of the Crucifixion formerly used by Caxton in the Fifteen Oes, of which a facsimile is given by Dibdin in the second volume of his Typographical Antiquities, page 79. He erroneously remarks about it in another place, “The woodcut of the Crucifixion was never introduced by Caxton, it is too spirited and elegant to harmonise with anything that he ever published.” It was used frequently after this time by De Worde, and affords us towards the end of the century one of the most useful date-tests for undated books. Between May, 1497, and January, 1498, part of the cap of the soldier who stands on the right of the cross was broken away, so that any book containing this cut with the cap entire must be before 1498. In 1499 the cut began to split, and in 1500 it split right across. Towards the end of 1500 one of the two border lines at top and bottom was cut away. Of course there are for De Worde’s books many date-tests, and when they can be worked in various ways and in conjunction, the result may be taken as very fairly accurate. If it were only possible to get once together all the scattered undated books for comparison, they could easily be arranged in their exact order.
In 1495 appeared the Vitas Patrum, “the moste vertuouse hystorye of the deuoute and right renowned lyves of holy faders lyvynge in deserte, worthy of remembraunce to all wel dysposed persones, whiche hath be translated out of Frenche into Englisshe by Wylliam Caxton of Westmynstre, late deed, and fynysshed at the laste daye of his lyff.” The delay in the bringing out of this work may be due to the large number of illustrations, for it is profusely illustrated; the cuts, however, are very rudely designed and engraved.
In the Pepysian Library at Cambridge is a unique edition of the Introductorium linguæ latinæ, edited very likely by Horman, which has the words in the preface, “Nos sumus in anno salutis Millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo quinto (1495),” which I certainly take to be the year of printing, especially as another edition of the same book in the Bodleian, also unique, has the last word of the date, quinto, altered to nono, and must have been printed before July, 1499. The small tracts printed from 1495 to 1497 are very difficult to date with any precision, but there are a few of particular interest which may be ascribed to that period, such books, for instance, as the Information for Pilgrims to the Holy Land, a work well worth reading for amusement, which cannot be said of many of these books; Fitzjames’s Sermo die lune in ebdomada Pasche, the Sermo pro episcopo puerorum, the Mirror of Consolation, and the Three Kings of Cologne.
1496 is the year usually ascribed to the edition of Trevisa’s translation of the De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomæus Anglicus, and I quoted earlier four lines of verse saying that Caxton had printed the book in Latin at Cologne. The three last lines of the same stanza referring to another matter are also very interesting. Having spoken of Caxton it continues:—
And John Tate the yonger joye mote he broke
Whiche late hathe in Englond doo make this paper thynne
That now in our englyssh this boke is prynted inne.
The watermark of this paper is an eight-pointed star in a circle. The supply of this paper does not appear to have been kept up for long, for I have only found it in two other English books. The Bartholomæus contains some very good woodcuts, finer than others of the period, and the press-work seems rather more regular than usual, so that perhaps we may accept the statement of Dibdin that “Of all the books printed in this country in the fifteenth century, the present one is the most curious and elaborate, and probably the most beautiful for its typographical execution.” It is only fair to say, however, that the copy described by Dibdin was a very exceptional one. In 1496 also came out a reprint of the well-known Book of St Alban’s, as it is generally called, a treatise on hunting, hawking, and heraldry, with the addition in this issue of the delightful chapter on fishing with an angle, our earliest printed treatise on the art. There is a woodcut of the angler at the beginning, and we see him busily at work with a large tub beside him, just like the German fisher of to-day, into which he may put his fish and keep them alive.