woddys, woods
wylis, while
yche, each
yghes, eyes
yolow, yellow
yowre, your
yowris, yours
We have now traced the various aspects in which this curious work may be viewed. There is not one of them that would not repay much deeper study, and the reader will, doubtless, sympathise with the writer in the wish that more could be discovered concerning the schoolmaster-printer. That his pioneer attempts to establish a printing press met with many discouragements was a matter of course; and, doubtless, he had many technical, business, and even social difficulties to overcome; for a reading public had to be created and patronage was scantily afforded. Nevertheless he struggled on for at least seven years, as we learn from the dates on his books, and whatever may have been his shortcomings, either as author or as printer, the fact of his having been one of the earliest promoters in this country of the grandest discovery which the mind of man has yet made, will unite all of us in honouring the memory and respecting the name, shadowy though it be, of the “Scole mayster of St. Albon.”
William Blades.
