Some time towards the end of 1478 Caxton recast his fount No. 2, in which almost all the books so far mentioned were printed, and added a few extra types. With this new fount he printed the Margarita Eloquentiae of Laurentius de Saona, Saona being the earlier form of Savona, the birthplace of Columbus, a city not far from Genoa. At the end of the book, which contains neither name of printer nor place, is a notice that the work was completed at Cambridge on the 6th of July, 1478.
In an old catalogue of books bequeathed by Archbishop Parker to the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the entry occurs, "Rethorica nova impressa Canteb. fo. 1478." Strype, in writing his life of the Archbishop, came across this notice and communicated it to Bagford, who reported it in his turn to Tanner, the antiquary. Ames, from their information, placed it at the head of Cambridge books in his Typographical Antiquities, and Herbert, in his reprint, merely reproduced the account. Dibdin does not mention it, and it was not until 1861 that Henry Bradshaw, coming across it by accident, discovered that it was a genuine production of Caxton's press.
The book is a folio of 124 leaves, and besides the copy at Cambridge, one other is known, now in the University Library at Upsala.
On the 24th of March, 1479, was issued the Cordyale, a translation from the French Quatre derrenieres choses, by Earl Rivers. The translation, as the colophon tells us, was handed to Caxton on the day of the Purification (February 2d), and the printing was begun "the morn after the saide Purification of our blissid Lady, which was the daye of Seint Blase, Bisshop and Martir: And finisshed on the even of the annunciacion of our said bilissid Lady fallyng on the wednesday the 24 daye of Marche."
The Cordyale contains 78 leaves, with a blank at each end, and is not very uncommon. The second edition of the Dictes or Sayengis was issued this year, and is considerably rarer than the first, only four copies being known. Its collation is exactly the same as the first, and Blades has fallen into the same mistake, and gives it two leaves too few.
CHAPTER IV.
1480-1483.
The year 1480 saw a considerable change in Caxton's methods of printing. Hitherto he had been content to print his books without signatures, although these were generally in use abroad, but their obvious utility appears to have impressed him, and henceforward he always printed them. The earlier books were of course signed, but the signatures were written in by hand, a very laborious process compared with setting them up with the type, and the greater clearness of the printed letter must have been an advantage to the bookbinder. About this time also he began to decorate his books with illustrations, a concession perhaps to popular taste, for his own inclination seems to have led him more to the literary than the artistic side of book production.
Another matter also may have helped to bring about this change, the settlement of a rival printer in London. Two other presses had before this started in England, one at Oxford in 1478, and one at St. Alban's about a year later, but their distance rendered them little dangerous as rivals, while the nature of their productions was mainly scholastic and little suited to the popular taste. But with a press setting up work some two miles away matters were quite different. There was no knowing what it might not print.
John Lettou, this first London printer, came apparently from Rome, bringing with him a small, neat gothic type, which had already been used in that city to print several books. To judge from his name, he was a native of Lithuania, of which Lettou is an old English form. He was certainly a practised workman, and his books are very foreign in appearance, and quite unlike the work of any other early English printer.