That every well disposed man may thereon look."
As Wynkyn de Worde was for long associated with Caxton in business and became after his death his successor, it seems impossible to put aside his very plain statement as entirely inaccurate. William Blades, in his Life of Caxton, utterly denies the whole story. "Are we to understand," he writes, "that the editio princeps of Bartholomaeus proceeded from Caxton's press, or that he only printed the first Cologne edition? that he issued a translation of his own, which is the only way in which the production of the work could advance him in the Latin tongue? or that he printed in Latin to advance his own interests? The last seems the most probable reading. But though the words will bear many constructions, they are evidently intended to mean that Caxton printed Bartholomaeus at Cologne. Now, this seems to be merely a careless statement of Wynkyn de Worde; for if Caxton did really print Bartholomaeus in that city, it must have been with his own types and presses, as the workmanship of his early volumes proves that he had no connexion with the Cologne printers, whose practices were entirely different."
PROLOGUE FROM THE BARTHOLOMAEUS
(see page [22])]
The meaning which Mr. Blades has read into the lines seems hardly a reasonable one. Surely, the expression "hymself to avaunce" cannot apply to the advancement of his own interests, but rather to knowledge; nor can we imagine a sensible person who wished to learn Latin entering a printing-office for that purpose. It must rather apply to the printing itself, and point to the fact that when at Cologne he printed or assisted to print an edition of the Bartholomaeus in Latin in order to learn the practical details of the art.
It must also be borne in mind that in 1471, when Caxton paid his visit to Cologne, printing had been introduced into few towns. Printed books were spread far and wide, and some of Schoeffer's editions have inscriptions showing that they had been bought at an early date, within a year of their issue, at Bruges; but Cologne was the nearest town where the press was actually at work, and where already a number of printers were settled.
Blades adds as another argument the fact that no edition of a Bartholomaeus has been found printed in Caxton's type, but when starting as a mere learner in another person's office he could hardly be expected to have type of his own. But there is an edition of the Bartholomaeus, which, though without date or name of place or printer, was certainly printed at Cologne about the time of Caxton's visit. It is a large folio of 248 leaves, with two columns to the page and 55 lines to a column. It is described by Dibdin in his Bibliotheca Spenceriana (Vol. III., p. 180), though with his usual inaccuracy he gives the number of leaves as 238. There is little doubt that the words of Wynkyn de Worde refer to this edition.