A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 | Page 5

for some years before he left. In 1480 he brought the new type 4 into use. This was modelled on type 2, but was much smaller, the body being most akin to modern English. Although its appearance was not so striking as that of the earlier fount, it was a much neater letter and more adapted to the printing of Indulgences, and it has been suggested that it was the arrival of John Lettou in London, and the neat look of his work, that induced Caxton to cut the fount in question. The most noticeable feature about it is the absence of the loop to the lowercase 'd,' so conspicuous a feature of the No. 2 type. With this type No. 4 he printed Kendale's indulgence and the first edition of The Chronicles of England, dated the 10th June 1480, a folio of 152 leaves. In the same year he printed with type 3 three service-books. Of one of these, the Hor?, William Blades found a few leaves, all that are known to exist, in the covers of a copy of Boethius, printed also by Caxton, which he discovered in a deplorable state from damp, in a cupboard of the St. Albans Grammar School. This was an uncut copy, in the original binding, and the covers yielded as many as fifty-six half sheets of printed matter, fragments of other books printed by Caxton. These proved the existence of three hitherto unknown examples of his press, the Hor? above noted, the Ordinale, and the Indulgence of Pope Sixtus IV., the remaining fragments yielding leaves from the History of Jason, printed in type 2, the first edition of the Chronicles, the Description of Britain; the second edition of the Dictes and Sayinges, the De Curia Sapienti?, Cicero's De Senectute, and the Nativity of Our Lady, printed in the recast of type 4, known as type 4*.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Caxton's earliest Woodcut. Headline in Type 3.]
The first book printed by Caxton with illustrations was the third edition of Parvus and Magnus Chato, printed without date, but probably in 1481. It contained two woodcuts, one showing five pupils kneeling before their tutor. These illustrations were very poor specimens of the wood-cutter's art.
To this period also belongs The History of Reynard the Fox and the second edition of The Game and Play of Chess, printed with type 2*, and distinguished from the earlier edition by the eight woodcuts, some of which, according to the economical fashion of the day, were used more than once.
In type 4, Caxton printed (finishing it on the 20th November 1481) The History of Godfrey of Bologne; or, the Conquest of Jerusalem, a folio of 144 leaves. In the following year (1482) appeared the second edition of the Chronicles, and another work of the same kind, the compilation of Roger of Chester and Ralph Higden, called Polychronicon. This work John of Trevisa had translated into English prose, bringing it down to the year 1387. Caxton now added a further continuation to the year 1460, the only original work ever undertaken by him. Another English author whom Caxton printed at this time was John Gower, an edition in small folio (222 leaves in double columns) of whose Confessio Amantis was finished on the 2nd September 1483. In this we see the first use of type 4*, the two founts being found in one instance on the same page. The first edition of the Golden Legend also belongs to 1483, being finished at Westminster on the 20th November. This was the largest book that Caxton printed, there being no less than 449 leaves in double columns, illustrated with as many as eighteen large and fifty-two small woodcuts. The text was in type 4*, the headlines, etc., in type 3. For the performance of this work Caxton received from the Earl of Arundel, to whom the book was dedicated, the gift of a buck in summer and a doe in winter, gifts probably exchanged for an annuity in money. Several copies of this book are still in existence, its large size serving as a safeguard against complete destruction, but none are perfect, most of them being made up from copies of the second edition. The insertions may be recognised by the type of the headlines, those in the second edition being in type 5. Other books printed in type 4* were Chaucer's Book of Fame, Chaucer's Troylus, the Lyf of Our Ladye, the Life of Saint Winifred, and the History of King Arthur, this last, finished on July 31, 1485, being almost as large a book as the Golden Legend.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--From Caxton's 'Golden Legend.' (Types 4* and 5.)]
No work dated 1486 has been traced to Caxton's press, but in 1487 he brought into use type 5, a smaller form of the black letter fount