The first dated book printed in England was the Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, translated from the French by Earl Rivers, a friend and patron of Caxton, and edited by Caxton himself, who added the chapter “concernyng wymmen,” a chapter which, with its prologue, exhibits a considerable amount of humour.
It is interesting to notice that, as the book is in English, we alone of European nations started our press with a book in the vernacular.
The ordinary copies of the Dictes are without colophon, though the printer and year are in the epilogue, but a copy formerly in the Althorp Library and now at Manchester has an imprint which states that the book was finished on the 18th November, 1477. Although we count the Dictes or Sayengis as the first book printed in England on account of its being the first dated book, it is quite possible that some may have preceded it. Between the time of Caxton’s arrival in 1476 and the end of 1478 about twenty-one books were printed, and only two have imprints, so that the rest are merely ranged conjecturally by the evidence of type or other details. Now in 1510 W. de Worde issued an edition of King Apolyn of Tyre, translated from the French by one of his assistants, Robert Copland, who in his preface writes as follows: “My worshipful master Wynken de Worde, having a little book of an ancient history of a kyng, sometyme reigning in the countree of Thyre called Appolyn, concernynge his malfortunes and peryllous aduentures right espouuentables, bryefly compyled and pyteous for to here, the which boke I Robert Coplande have me applyed for to translate out of the Frensshe language into our maternal Englysshe tongue at the exhortacion of my forsayd mayster, accordynge dyrectly to myn auctor, gladly followynge the trace of my mayster Caxton, begynnynge with small storyes and pamfletes and so to other.” Now this Robert Copland was spoken of a little later as the oldest printer in England, so that he may well have known a good deal about the beginning of Caxton’s career. We find a very similar case in Scotland. Printing was introduced there mainly for the purpose of printing the Aberdeen Breviary, but the first thing the printers did was to issue a series of small poetical pieces by Dunbar, Chaucer, and others, an exactly similar kind of set to the small Caxton pieces in the Cambridge University Library.
In connexion with these Caxton pieces I noticed the other day a strange statement. The writer was speaking of Henry Bradshaw’s knowledge of Caxton, and went on to say that “to his bibliographical genius the Cambridge University Library owes the possession of its many unique Caxtons and unique Caxton fragments.” The library, however, owes them mainly to the much-maligned John Bagford, who collected the early English books which came to the University with Bishop Moore’s library. The monstrous collection of title-pages in the British Museum, generally associated with Bagford’s name, was made by the venerated founder of English bibliography, Joseph Ames.
Before the end of 1478 Caxton had printed about twenty-one books. Of these sixteen were small works, all containing less than fifty leaves; of the others the most important is the first edition of the Canterbury Tales, of which there is, I think, no perfect copy. Blades speaks of a fine perfect copy in the library of Merton College, Oxford, and remarks also that Dibdin ignorantly spoke of it as imperfect. In Dibdin’s time, however, it certainly was imperfect, for I have seen some notes of Lord Spencer’s referring to his having sent some leaves from an imperfect copy to the college to assist them in perfecting their own, a courtesy which they repaid by presenting to the library at Althorp their duplicate and only other known copy of Wednesday’s Fast printed by W. de Worde in 1532.
Among the other books of the period of special interest is the Propositio Johannis Russell, which has often been ascribed to the Bruges press, as the speech of which it consists was delivered in the Low Countries. Lord Spencer’s copy had a curious history. It is bound up in a volume of English and Latin MSS., and in the Brand sale in 1807 the volume appeared among the MSS., with a note, “A work on Theology and Religion with five leaves at the end, a very great curiosity, very early printed on wooden blocks, or type.” It was bought by the Marquis of Blandford for forty-five shillings, and at his sale ten years after cost Lord Spencer £126.
Another interesting book is the Infancia Salvatoris, of which the only known copy is at Göttingen, being one of the two unique Caxtons which are in foreign libraries. It was originally in the Harleian Library, which was sold entire to Osborne the bookseller, and was bought with many other books for the Göttingen University. It is in its old red Harleian binding, with Osborne’s price, fifteen shillings marked inside, and the note of the Göttingen librarian: “aus dem Katalogen Thomas Osborne in London 12 Maii 1749 (No. 4179) erkauft.”
In the first group of books comes also the only printed edition of the Sarum Ordinale or Pica, which was superseded by Clement Maydeston’s Directorium Sacerdotum. Unfortunately the book is only known from some fragments rescued from a binding and now in the British Museum. To it refers the curious little advertisement put out by Caxton, the only example of a printer’s advertisement in England in the fifteenth century, though we know of many foreign specimens: “If it plese ony man spirituel or temporel to bye ony pyes of two and thre comemoracions of salisburi use, enpryntid after the forme of this present lettre whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come to westmonester in to the almonesrye at the reed pale and he shal haue them good chepe.” So far the advertisement; below it is the appeal to the public, “Supplico stet cedula.” It seems curious that this should be in Latin, for one would naturally suppose that the ones most likely to tear down the advertisement would be the persons ignorant of that language.
Two copies of this advertisement are known, one in the Bodleian, and another, formerly in the Althorp collection, at Manchester. It has been suggested that both copies may have been at one time extracted from some old binding in the Cambridge University Library. The example at Manchester certainly belonged at one time to Richard Farmer, who was University Librarian, but the Bodleian example was found by Francis Douce in a binding in his own collection.
The group of eight small books in the University Library which I spoke of as perhaps printed earlier than the Dictes or Sayengis were originally all bound together in one volume in old calf, and lettered “Old poetry printed by Caxton.” This precious volume contained the Stans Puer ad Mensam, the Parvus Catho, The Chorle and the Bird, The Horse the Shepe and the Goose, The Temple of Glas, The Temple of Brass, The Book of Courtesy, and Anelida and Arcyte, and of five of these no other copies are known.