THE CRUCIFIXION
(see page [78])]
A writer in the British Museum speaking of these three books, says that they "are in most of the known copies bound together, and have been usually treated as a single volume under the title, probably dating from the eighteenth century, A Book of Divers Ghostly Matters. There is, however, no reason to suppose the connexion to be due to any other cause than similarity of subject and form, combined with nearly simultaneous publication."
No doubt this idea commends itself to the Museum authorities, since they possess only one of the three portions, ruthlessly abstracted by a thief some years ago from a perfect copy in a private library, but unfortunately it is quite incorrect. The compiler distinctly speaks of the books having been printed together, and on account of their treating different subjects, his wish that the compilation should be called the Book of Divers Ghostly Matters.
When complete the book consisted of 148 leaves in quarto. It contains, at the end of the second tract, a wood-cut which belongs to the series specially cut for the Speculum Vitae Christi, though it was not used in it.
The number of books actually printed by Caxton in England, counting separate editions, is ninety-six, and with the three printed at Bruges and the Missal makes altogether one hundred genuine Caxtons. Blades describes ninety-nine books, but amongst these he includes two which were certainly printed at Bruges after Caxton had left, and three printed by Wynkyn de Worde after Caxton's death, so that the number of genuine books which he describes is ninety-four. The finest collection is now, as is right, in the British Museum, which by judicious purchases in recent years has quite outstripped any possible rival.
Five more books remain to be described, which although not printed by Caxton himself, were printed with his types, and have therefore often been ascribed by different writers to his press. These are the Life of St. Katherine, the Chastising of God's Children, the Treatise of Love, the Book of Courtesy, and the third edition of the Golden Legend.