Notes and Queries, Number 37, July 13, 1850 | Page 3

Shaftesbury.
Some years ago a discovery was made in Holland of MSS. of Le Clerc,
and some notice of the MSS., and extracts from them, are to be found
in the following work:--
"De Joanne Clerico et Philippo A. Limborch Dissertationes Duæ.
Adhibitis Epistolis aliisque Scriptis ineditis scripsit atque eruditorum
virorum epistolis nunc primum editis auxit Abr. Des Amorie Van Der
Hoeven, &c. Amstelodami: apud Fredericum Muller, 1843."
Two letters of Locke are among the MSS. Now it is mentioned by Mr.
Martyn, the biographer of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, in a MS. letter
in the British Museum, that some of this earl's papers were sent by the
family to Le Clerc, and were supposed not to have been returned. I
mention this, as I perceive you have readers and correspondents in
Holland, in the hope that I may possibly learn whether any papers
relating to the first Earl of Shaftesbury have been found among the
lately discovered Le Clerc MSS.; and it is not unlikely that the same
MSS. might contain letters of the third earl, the author of the
_Characteristics_, who was a friend and correspondent of Le Clerc.
W.D. CHRISTIE.
[Footnote 1: Two of these--one a letter asking the earl to stand
godfather to his son, and the other a short note, forwarding a book (Qy.
of Toland's)--are printed by Sir Henry Ellis in his Camden volume,
Letters of Eminent Literary Men.--ED.]
* * * * * {99}
CAXTON'S PRINTING-OFFICE.
The particular spot where Caxton exercised his business, or the place
where his press was fixed, cannot now, perhaps, be exactly ascertained.
Dr. Dibdin, after a careful examination of existing testimonies, thinks it
most probable that he erected his press in one of the chapels attached to
the aisles of Westminster Abbey; and as no remains of this interesting
place can now be discovered, there is a strong presumption that it was
pulled down in making alterations for the building of Henry VII.'s
splendid chapel.
It has been frequently asserted that all Caxton's books were printed in a
part of Westminster Abbey; this must be mere conjecture, because we

find no statement of it from himself: he first mentions the place of his
printing in 1477, so that he must have printed some time without
informing us where.
With all possible respect for the opinions of Dr. Dibdin, and the
numerous writers on our early typography, I have very considerable
doubts as to whether Caxton really printed within the walls of the
Abbey at all. I am aware that he himself says, in some of his colophons,
"Emprinted in th' Abbey of Westmynstre," but query whether the
precincts of the Abbey are not intended? Stow, in his Annals (edit 1560,
p. 686.), says,--"William Caxton of London, mercer, brought it
(printing) into England about the year 1471, and first practised the
same in the Abbie of St. Peter at Westminster;" but in his _Survey of
London_, 1603 (edit. Thoms, p. 176.), the same writer gives us a more
full and particular account; it is as follows:--
"Near unto this house [i.e. Henry VII.'s alms-house], westward, was an
old chapel of St. Anne; over against the which, the Lady Margaret,
mother to King Henry VII., erected an alms-house for poor women,
which is now turned into lodgings for the singing men of the college.
The place wherein this chapel and alms-house standeth was called the
Elemosinary, or almonry, now corruptly the ambry, for that the alms of
the Abbey were there distributed to the poor; and therein Islip, abbot of
Westminster, erected the first press of book-printing that ever was in
England, about the year of Christ 1471. William Caxton, citizen of
London, mercer, brought it into England, and was the first that
practised it _in the said abbey_; after which time the like was practised
in the abbeys of St. Augustine at Canterbury, St. Albans, and other
monasteries."
Again, in the curious hand-bill preserved in the Bodleian Library, it
will be remembered that Caxton invites his customers to "come to
Westmonester _into the Almonestrye_," where they may purchase his
books "good chepe."
From these extracts it is pretty clear that Caxton's printing-office was in
the Almonry, which was within the precincts of the Abbey, and not in
the Abbey itself. The "old chapel of St. Anne" was doubtless the place
where the first printing-office was erected in England. Abbot Milling
(not Islip, as stated by Stow) was the generous friend and patron of
Caxton and the art of printing; and it was by permission of this learned

monk that our printer was allowed the use of the building in question.
The old chapel of St. Anne stood in the New-way, near the back of the
workhouse, at the bottom of the almonry leading to what is now called
Stratton