The house was known by the sign of the Red Pale. It was a common sign among printers in Holland, some of whom, however, had a Black Pale.
It is not necessary to enumerate the books which Caxton printed; and the questions of type, process, binding, and illustrating must be left for the biographer. But about the trade of printer and publisher? On this point hear Caxton himself. He speaks in a Prologue (hitherto undiscovered).
“When,” he says, “I resolved upon setting up a press in Westminster, I knew full well that it was an enterprise full of danger. For I had seen my friend Colard, printer of Bruges, fain to fly from the city in poverty and debt; and I had seen Melchior of Augsburg dying a bankrupt; and I had heard how Sweynheim and Pannarts in Rome had petitioned the Pope for help. Yet I hoped, by the favour and countenance of His Highness the King, to succeed. This have I done: yet not as I hoped to do. For I thought that the quick production and the cheapness of books would cause many to buy them who hitherto had been content to live without the solace of poetry and romance, and without the instruction of Cato and Boethius. Again, I thought that there are schools and colleges where books must be studied, and I hoped that they would find it better to print than to copy. And there are Religious Houses where they are forever engaged in copying Psalters and Service Books. Surely, I thought, it will be better for the good Monks to print than to copy. I forgot, moreover, that there was a great stock in hand of written books; in every Monastery a store which must first be used up, and in every College there were written books for the student which must first be worn out before there
FACSIMILE OF THE “DICTES OR SAYINGS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS.’”
would be question of replacing them with printed books. Also I forgot the great company of copyists, illuminators, limners, and those who make and sell vellum and fine parchment for the copyists. And I found, moreover, to my surprise, that there were many, great lords to wit, who cared nothing for cheapness, and who scoffed at my woodcuts compared with the illuminations in red and blue and gold which adorned their written books. He who would embark upon a new trade must reckon with those who make their livelihood in the old trade. Wherefore my Art of Printing had many enemies at the outset, and few friends. So that the demand for my books has not yet been found equal to the number which I have put forth, and I should have been ruined like Colard and bankrupt like Melchior were it not for the help of my Lord of Arundel and others, who protected me against the certain loss which threatened.”
There are many points connected with the first English printing press on which one would like to dwell: the mechanism of it, the forms of type, the paper used, the binding, the price. These things belong to a biography, and not to a chapter. It must suffice here to say that the form of the press was simple, being little more than such a screw press as is used now for copying letters.
As to the books themselves, Caxton, in the true spirit of trade, gave the world not what he himself may have wanted, but what the world wanted. Books of romance, chivalry, and great achievements were demanded by the knights and nobles. Books of service were wanted by the Church. Caxton provided these. These things illustrate the character of the man—cautious, businesslike, anxious to run his press at a profit, so that he tried no experiments, and was content to be a servant rather than a teacher.
Those who will take the trouble to visit the British Museum and there examine for themselves the treasures which the nation possesses of early printing—the case full of Caxtons in the King’s Library, the shelf filled with Caxtons in the vast Library, which the general visitor is not allowed to see—will be astonished to observe the rapid advances already made in the Art of Printing when Caxton undertook its practice. Printing was first invented some time in the first half of the fifteenth century.[6] The type is clear and strong—clearer type we have never made since; the