Bibliographic Notes on One Hundred Books Famous in English Literature

by Henry Watson Kent

Imprinted at London by Roberte | Crowley, dwellyng in Elye rentes | in Holburne. The year of | Our Lord M.D.L.

Before appearing with this work as a publisher, Robert Crowley was by no means unknown to the reading world as a writer; nor was it probably a mere printer's venture that led him to select such a work as this for publication, but sympathy with the tendency of the book itself. He had been educated at Oxford, and received early the strong bent toward the doctrines of the Reformation which prompted the writing of his first three books, whose titles indicate something of his leaning in the religious controversies of the day: The Confutation of the miſhapen Aunſwer to the miſnamed, wicked Ballade, called the Abuſe of y^e bleſſed ſacramēt of the aultare ... that Myles Hoggard ... hath wreſted.... Compiled by Robert Crowley. Anno. 1548; The confutation of .xiii Articles, wherunto Nicolas Shaxton ... ſubſcribed and ... recanted ... at the burning of ... Anne Aſkue, in [1548] and An informacion and Peticion agaynſt the oppreſſours of the Pore Commons of this Realme, in [1548]. We may picture to ourselves with what relish so controversial and partisan a soul must have prepared for the press, and then watched through it, what Ellis calls "the keenest ridicule of the vices of all orders of men, and particularly of the religious."

Crowley's career as a printer was only an incident in a life devoted to championing the new doctrines of Protestantism. The three books mentioned were printed by Day and Sere; and Herbert thinks that it may have been in their office that our printer-writer learned the trade which he followed for three years only. Considering the fact that his press was situated in Ely Rents, where William Sere also dated his books in 1548, and thereabouts, this seems very probable. But from Crowley's use of the excellently designed and really charming woodcut border with Edward Whitechurch's cipher at the bottom and his symbol of the sun at the top, we may almost infer that he was on equally familiar relations with that printer, established at The Sun, over against the Conduit. We may add that William Copeland of The Rose Garland also used, at a later date, a similar compartment in several of his books.

One might expect Crowley, serious and scholarly in his tastes, to be a careful editor; and his researches to find his author's name, as revealed in "The Printer to the Reader," prove that he was such an one, even if, for some reason or other, he did not choose to place the name upon the title-page. He says:

"Beynge deſyerous to knowe the name of the Autoure of this moſt worthy worke, (gentle reader) and the tyme of the writynge of the ſame: I did not onely gather togyther ſuche aunciente copies as I could come by, but alſo conſult ſuch mē as I knew to be more exerciſed in the ſtudie of antiquities, than I myselfe haue ben. And by ſome of them I haue learned that the Autour was named Roberte langelande, a Shropshere man borne in Cleybirie, aboute .viii. myles from Maluerne hilles.... So that this I may be bold to reporte, that it was fyrſte made and wrytten after the yeare of our lord .M.iii.C.L. and before the yere ,M,iiiiC, and .ix which meane ſpaſe was .lix yeares. We may iuſtly cōiect therfore, y^t it was firſte written about two hundred yeres paſte, in the tyme of Kynge Edwarde the thyrde...."

The year after The Vision was published our printer was ordained a deacon, and, later, made vicar of St. Giles, Cripplegate, where he preached and wrote until his death. He published no less than twenty-two volumes, eight of which he printed himself, thus taking his place, along with Caxton, at the head of the list of printer-authors which includes such names as Wolfe, Baldwin, Richardson and Morris.

Dibdin calls the vellum copy of The Vision which belonged to Earl Spencer unique, but the copy here collated would deprive it of that distinction, even if there were not another in the British Museum.

A comparison of several copies of the book reveals the fact that in most of them the date on the title-page has been written in to correct the printer's error.

There were three other impressions issued during 1550, two of them said to be "nowe the ſeconde tyme imprinted," and the third with the printer's name spelled "Crowlye" on the title-page. Rev. W. W. Skeat in his edition of The Vision says: