He had begun his translation of the popular medieval romance of Troy, The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, from the French of Raoul le Fèvre, early in 1469; and, after laying it aside for some time, he resumed it at the wish of the duchess Margaret, to whom the MS. was presented in September 1471. During his thirty-three years’ residence in Bruges Caxton would have access to the rich libraries of the duke of Burgundy and other nobles, and about this time he learned the art of printing. His disciple, Wynkyn de Worde, says that he was taught at Cologne, probably during a visit there in 1471, recorded in the preface to the Recuyell; Blades suggests that he learnt from Colard Mansion, but there is no evidence that Mansion set up his press at Bruges before 1474. He ceased to be a member of the gild of St John (a gild of illuminators) in 1473, and the first dated book he is known to have printed is dated 1476. Mansion and Caxton were partners or associates at Bruges, where Caxton printed his Recuyell in 1474 or 1475. His second book, The Game and Playe of Chesse, from the Liber de ludo scacchorum of Jacobus de Cessolis through the French of Jehan de Vignay, was finished in 1474, and printed soon after; the last book printed by Mansion and Caxton at Bruges was the Quatre derrenieres choses, an anonymous treatise usually known as De quattuor novissimis. Other books in the same type were printed by Mansion at Bruges after Caxton’s departure.
By September 1476 Caxton had established himself in the almonry at Westminster at the sign of the Red Pale. Robert Copland the printer, who was afterwards one of Caxton’s assistants, states that Caxton began by printing small pamphlets. The first dated book printed in England was Lord Rivers’s translation (revised by Caxton) of The Dictes or sayengis of the philosophres (1477). From this time until his death in 1401 Caxton was busy writing and printing. His services to English literature, apart from his work as a printer (see [Typography]), are very considerable. His most important original work is an eighth book added to the Polychronicon (vol. viii. in the Rolls Series edition) of Ralph Higden. Caxton revised and printed John of Trevisa’s work, and brought down the narrative himself from 1358 to 1460, using as his authorities Fasciculus temporum, a popular work in the 15th century, and an unknown Aureus de universo. In the year before his death he complained in the preface to his Eneydos of the changing state of the English language, a condition of things which he did as much as any man to remedy. He printed Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1478? and 1483), Troilus and Creseide (1483?), the House of Fame (1483?), and the translation of Boethius (1478?); Gower’s Confessio Amantis (1483), and many poems of Lydgate. His press was, however, not worked for purely literary ends, but was a commercial speculation. For the many service-books which he printed there was no doubt a sure sale, and he met the taste of the upper classes by the tales of chivalry which issued regularly from his press. He printed Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, and himself translated from the French the Boke of Histories of Jason (1477?), The Historye of Reynart the Foxe (from the Dutch, 1481 and 1489?), Godfrey of Boloyne or The Siege and Conqueste of Jherusalem (1481), The Lyf of Charles the Grete (1485), The Knyght Parys and the Fayr Vyenne (1485), Blanchardyn and Eglantine (1489?), The Foure Sonnes of Aymon (1489?); also the Morale Proverbs (1478), and the Fayttes of Armes and of Chyualrye (1489) of Christine de Pisan. The most ambitious production of his press was perhaps his version of the Golden Legend, the translation of which he finished in November 1483. It is based on the lives of the saints as given in the 13th century Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, but Caxton chiefly used existing French and English versions for his compilation. The book is illustrated by seventy woodcuts, and Caxton says he was only encouraged to persevere in his laborious and expensive task by the liberality of William, earl of Arundel. The idleness which he so often deprecates in his prefaces was no vice of his, for in addition to his voluminous translations his output as a printer was over 18,000 pages, and he published ninety-six separate works or editions of works, with apparently little skilled assistance, though later printers, Wynkyn de Worde, Robert Copland and possibly Richard Pynson, were trained under him.
The different founts of type used by Caxton are illustrated by Blades and Duff, and there is an excellent selection of Caxtons in the British Museum, in the University library at Cambridge, besides those in private hands. A record price for a Caxton was reached in 1902 when Mr Bernard Quaritch paid £2225 for The Royal Book (1487?), a translation of the popular Somme des vices et des vertus. His books have no title-pages, and from 1487 onwards are usually adorned with a curious device, consisting of the letters W.C. separated by a trade mark, with an elaborate border above and below. The flourishes on the trade mark have been fancifully interpreted as S.C. for Sancta Colonia, implying that Caxton learnt his art at Cologne, and the whole mark has been read as 74, for 1474, the date of his first printed book. This device was first used in an edition of the Sarum missal, printed for Caxton by George Maynial in Paris, and was subsequently adopted with small alterations by his successor at the Westminster press, Wynkyn de Worde. The first of his books containing woodcut illustrations was his Myrrour of the World (1481), translated from Vincent de Beauvais, which has diagrams and pictures for the assistance of young students. He had used a woodcut initial letter in his broadside Indulgence printed in 1480.
No record of Caxton’s marriage or of the birth of his children has been found, but Gerard Croppe was separated from his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Caxton, before 1496, when Croppe made certain claims in connexion with his father-in-law’s will.
Authorities.—Earlier biographies of Caxton were superseded by the work of William Blades, whose Life and Typography of William Caxton (2 vols., 1861-1863) remains the standard authority. It contains a bibliography of each of the works issued from Caxton’s press. For later discoveries see George Bullen’s Catalogue of the Caxton celebration loan collection exhibited at South Kensington in 1877; articles by E.J.L. Scott in the Athenaeum (Feb. 10, 1900; May 21 and June 8, 1892); articles in Notes and Queries (April 21, 1900; Feb. 24, 1906), and the publications of the Caxton Club, Chicago, notably William Caxton, by E. Gordon Duff (1905). See also Census of Caxtons, by Seymour de Ricci, No. xv. of the illustrated monographs of the Bibliographical Society, 1909. Many of Caxton’s translations are available in modern reprints; the Golden Legend, the Recuyell and Godeffroy of Boloyne, were printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press in 1892-1893; the Boke of Curtesye (1868), the Lyf of Charles the Crete (1880), Alain Chartier’s Curial (1888), Foure Sonnes of Aymon (1884), Eneydos (1890), Blanchardyn and Eglantine (1890), and others, by the Early English Text Society. For modern editions of Reynart see [Reynard the Fox]. No authentic portrait of Caxton is known, but a MS. at Magdalene College, Cambridge, of the last six books of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, translated by Caxton, is probably in his handwriting.
CAYENNE, a seaport and the capital of French Guiana, on the N.W. extremity of the island of Cayenne, and near the mouth of the river of that name, in 4° 56′ 28″ N., and 52° 20′ 36″ W. Pop. about 12,600. The town forms an almost perfect square, and has clean and well-macadamized streets. The houses, mostly of two storeys, are of wood, strengthened on the first and ground floors by brickwork. In the old town, which contains the government-house and Jesuits’ College, the streets are not so regularly and well built as in the new. The Place d’Armes, a fine quadrangular space, lies between them. To the right of the governor’s house is Mount Cépéron, on which stand Fort St Michel, the marine barracks, the signal station and the lighthouse. Here, too, are the capacious reservoirs for the water-supply of the town, the source of which is a lake to the south of the island. The harbour is shallow at its entrance, and craft drawing more than 14 ft. are obliged to anchor 6 m. from the town. There is no dock for the repair of vessels; but there are two quays at the town. The principal exports of Cayenne are gold, cocoa, phosphates, hides, woods and spices. The imports are French wines, spirits and liqueurs; silk and cotton stuffs, tobacco, hardware, glass, earthenware, clothing, preserved meat, fish, and vegetables, maize, flour, hay, bran, oils and cattle. There is a regular mail service between Cayenne and Martinique once a month. Cayenne is the seat of the government of French Guiana, and was formerly a penal settlement for political offenders. Food as well as clothing is exorbitantly dear, the only cheap articles of consumption being bread and French wines. The temperature of Cayenne is between 76° and 88° Fahr. throughout the year; but the heat is tempered by easterly winds. Between December and March a north wind blows, unfavourable to weak constitutions. Yellow and other fevers often attack the inhabitants of the town, but the climate, though moist, is as a whole healthy. (See [Guiana].)
CAYENNE PEPPER (Guinea Pepper, Spanish Pepper, Chilly), a preparation from the dried fruit of various species of Capsicum, a genus of the natural order Solanaceae. The true peppers are members of a totally distinct order, Piperaceae. The fruits of plants of the genus Capsicum have all a strong, pungent flavour. The capsicums bear a greenish-white flower, with a star-shaped corolla and five anthers standing up in the centre of the flower like a tube, through which projects the slender style. The pod-like fruit consists of an envelope at first fleshy and afterwards leathery, within which are the spongy pulp and several seeds. The plants are herbaceous or shrubby; the leaves are entire, and alternate, or in pairs near one another; the flowers are solitary and do not arise in the leaf-axils. There are about thirty species, natives of Central and South America. They are now grown in various parts of the world, both for the sake of the fruit and for ornament. In England the annual sorts are sown from March to the middle of April under a frame. They can be planted out when 2 or 3 in. high, and in June may be transferred to a light rich soil in the open garden. They flower in July or August, and produce pods from August till the end of September. The perennial and shrubby kinds may be wintered in a conservatory. Several species or varieties are used to make cayenne pepper. The annual or common capsicum (C. annuum), the Guinea pepper plant, was brought to Europe by the Spaniards, and was grown in England in 1548. It is indigenous to South America, but is now cultivated in India, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Turkey, with the other species of capsicum. It is a hardy herbaceous plant, which attains a height of 2 or 3 ft. There are numerous cultivated forms, differing in the shape and colour of the pod, which varies from more or less roundish to narrow-conical, with a smooth or wrinkled coat, and white, yellow, red or black in colour. The principal source of cayenne pepper is C. frutescens, the spur or goat pepper, a dwarf shrub, a native of South America, but commonly cultivated in the East Indies. It produces a small, narrow, bright red pod, having very pungent properties. C. tetragonum, or bonnet pepper, is a species much esteemed in Jamaica; it bears very fleshy fruits. Other well-known kinds of capsicum are the cherry pepper (C. cerasiforme), with small berries; bell pepper (C. grossum), which has thick and pulpy fruit, well adapted for pickling; and berry or bird pepper (C. baccatum). The last mentioned has been grown in England since 1731; its fruit is globular, and about the size of a cherry. The West Indian stomachic man-dram is prepared by mashing a few pods of bird pepper and mixing them with sliced cucumber and shallots, to which have been added a little lime-juice and Madeira wine. Chillies, the dried ripe or unripe fruit of capsicums, especially C. annuum and C. frutescens, are used to make chilly-vinegar, as well as for pickles. Cayenne pepper is manufactured from the ripe fruits, which are dried, ground, mixed with wheat flour, and made into cakes with yeast; the cakes are baked till hard like biscuit, and then ground and sifted. The pepper is sometimes prepared by simply drying the pods and pounding them fine in a mortar. Cayenne pepper is occasionally adulterated with red lead, vermilion, ochre, salt, ground-rice and turmeric. The taste of the pepper is impaired by exposure to damp and the heat of the sun. Chillies have been in use from time immemorial; they are eaten in great quantity by the people of Guiana and other warm countries, and in Europe are largely consumed both as a spice and as medicine.