CHAPTER II.
Typography and Bibliography.
Old books must be loved, and their idiosyncrasies carefully studied, before they will yield up all their treasures; that done, the observant lover will obtain possession of both soul and body; he may revel in the intellectual feast provided by the author, or he may study the material and mechanical features of the books as represented by the peculiarities of paper and the habits and customs of the various printers. Then, by grouping these as a botanist does his flowers, according to their organisation into classes, orders, genera, and species, he may extract from his volumes true replies to questions which otherwise would remain hidden for ever. So true is the dictum, “The Mind it is which sees, and not the Eye alone.”
Many bibliophiles, however, of education and taste have been positively blind when outside the circle of their own particular studies. So it was with the Rev. Dr. M‘Neille, a well-known critic and book-collector of sixty years ago. When addressing Dr. Dibdin he wrote thus of “The Book of St. Albans”—“This book is itself useless, and only a bon morceau for the quizzical collector.” With such feelings towards one of the most curious works which this country produced during the infancy of the printing press, it was simply impossible that the interest of its pages should be revealed to him; and however rich in divinity and editiones principes of the classics the library of the worthy doctor may have been, it is evident that our Book of St. Albans could never have been aught but an alien on his book-shelves.
The works printed by William Caxton were almost without exception in the English tongue, while the contemporary presses of Oxford, St. Albans, and Machlinia were nearly all in Latin. Of the eight books at present known to have been printed at St. Albans, the only two in English were the “Fructus Temporum” and the work under review. The “Fructus” or St. Albans’ Chronicle is the same as that printed two years previously by Caxton, with the addition of certain ecclesiastical events and Papal chronology, probably added by the printer himself to please the monks.
The Book of St. Albans’ and the St. Albans’ Chronicle make a class of themselves; but as it is impossible to understand their position without a glance at the other works from the same press, we will give a tabulated description of the whole eight.
| BOOKS PRINTED AT ST. ALBANS IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY. | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title of Book. | Language. | Size. | Date of Printing. | No. of Printed Leaves. | Type. | Size of Printed Page. | Signatures. | Printed Initials. | Ink. | Device. | Woodcuts. | Lines in Page. | |
| 1 | Augustini Dacti elegancie | Latin | 4to | n. d. | 18 | 1 | 5¾ × 3½ | none | none | black | none | none | 36 |
| 2 | Laur: de Saona Rhetorica nova | Latin | 4to | 1480 | 81 | 2–1 | 5¾ × 3½ | signed | none | black | none | none | 24 |
| 3 | Alberti quest. de modo Significandi | Latin | 4to | 1480 | 46 | 3–1 | 5¾ × 3½ | signed | none | black | none | none | 32 |
| 4 | Joan: Canonici Quest. sup. Phys. Arist. | Latin | fol. | 1481 | 174 | 3 | 8 × 5 | signed | none | black | none | none | 44 |
| 5 | Exempla sacre scripture | Latin | 4to | 1481 | 83 | 3 | 5¾ × 3½ | signed | none | black | none | none | 32 |
| 6 | Ant. Andreæ super Logica Aristotelis | Latin | 4to | 1482 | 335 | 3 | 5¾ × 3½ | signed | none | black | none | none | 32 |
| 7 | Chronicles of England | Engl. | fol. | 1483? | 295 | 2 | 8 × 5 | every leaf signed | yes | black & red | with | yes | 32 |
| 8 | The Book of St. Albans | Engl. | fol. | 1486 | 88 | 2–4 | 8 × 5 | signed | yes | black & red | with | yes | 32 |
But who was the printer? What was his name? Was he associated with the great Abbey? and is there any internal or external evidence in his works to connect him with any other printer or any other town?
The only notice we have of the printer is an accidental one by Wynken de Worde, who, in reprinting the St. Albans’ Chronicle, says in the colophon, “Here endith this present Chronicle ... compiled in a book and also enprinted by our sometime Schoolmaster of St. Alban.” He was a schoolmaster, then, and this will account for the nature of his early works, all scholastic and all in Latin. Not till the end of his typographical career did he realise the fact that the printing press, instead of being the hobby of a few learned men, was the educator of the people, the whole nation; and then he gave his countrymen what they wanted—a history of their own country and a book upon the whole (secular) duty of the gentleman, as then understood.