Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/156

 FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

147

ftfet-mh." Whence, now, had Sbakspeare tliis iccasation against lord Say ? We are told in the Political Begitler, toI. ii. p. 331, ed. Lond. 1734, that it was from Fabian, Pol. Vir- lil. Hall, Hollingshed, Grafton, Stow, Speed, &c. But not one of these ascribes printing to the rdgn of Henry VI. On the contrary. Stow, io his Aanalt, printed at London, ld60, p. 686, gires it expressly to William Caxton, 1471. " The noble science of printing was about this time found in Germany at Magunce, by one John Guthumburgus, a knight. One Connidus an Almaine brought it into Rome. William CaxtoBof London, mercer, brought it into En ji- lted about 1471, and first practised the same m the abbie of St. Peter at Westminster; after which time it was likewise practised in the ab- Ues of St. Augustine at Canterburie, Saint Alhus, and other monasteries of England." What then shall we say, that the above is an anachronism arbitrarily put into the mouth of an ignorant fellow out of Shakspeare's head ? We might believe so, but that we hare the re- cord of iit. Atkyns confirming the same in king Charles IL's time. Shall we say, that Mr. Atkjns borrowed the story from Shakspeare and published it, with some improvements of money laid out by Henry VI., from whence it migfat be revived by Charles II. as a prerogative of the crown ? But this is improbable, since Shtkqieaie makes lord treasurer Say the in- nnuneot of importing it, of whom Mr. Atkyns nentions not a word. Another difference there wiO still be between Shakspeare and the Lambeth nuuscript; the poet placing it before 1449, in which year lord Say was beheaded; the manu- script between 1454 and 1469, when Bouichier was aichbbhop. We must say then, that lord Saj first laid the scheme, and sent some one to Haetlem, though without success ; but after some years it was attempted happily by Bour- chier. And we must conclude, that as the geneiality of writers have overlooked the inven- tion of printing at Haerlem with wooden types, md have ascribed it to Mentz, where metal ^peswere first made use of; so in England uej have passed bv Corsellis (or the first Oxford printer, whoever he was), who printed with wooden types at Oxford, and only mentioned Caxton as the original artist, who printed with ■etal types at Westminster. — Meerman, vol. 2.

The fact is laid quite wrong as to time — near ihc end of Henry vlth's reign, in the very heat (>( the civil wars ; when it is n^t credible that a prince, strugeling for his life as well as his □own, shomd have leisure or disposition to nend to a project that could hardly he thought of, much less executed, in times of such ctua- ■ity. The printer, it is said, was graciously ncdved by the king, made one of nis sworn servants, and sent down to Oxford with a guard, ^c., all which must have passed before the year 1^; for Edward IV. was proclaimed in Lon- don, in the end of it, according to our computa- tioD, on the 4th of March, and crowned about the midsummer following; and yet we have no

fruits of all this labour and expense until near ten years after, when the little book, before de- scribed, is supposed to have been published from that press.

Secondly ; the silence of Caxton, concerning a fact in which he is said to be a principu actor, is a sufficient confutation of it : for it was a constant custom with him, in the prefaces or conclusions of his works, to give an historical account of all his labours and transactions, as far as they concerned the publishing and print- ing of books. And, what is still stronger, m the continuation of the Polychronicon, compiled by himself, and carried down to the end of Henry Vlth's reign, he makes no mention of the expe- dition in quest of a printer; which he could not have omitted had it been true: whilst in the same book he takes notice of the invention and beginning of printing in the city of Mentz.

There is a further circumstance in Caxton's history, that seems inconsistent with the record ; for we find him still beyond sea, about twelve years after the supposed transaction, learning with great charge and trouble the art of print- ing: which he might have done with ease at home, if he had got Corsellis into his hands, as the recorder imports, so many years before ; but he probably learnt it at Cologne, where he re- sided in 1471, and where books had been first printed with a date the year before.

It is strange, that the learned commentators on our great dramatic poet, who are so minutely particular upon less important occasions, 'should every one of them, Dr. Johnson excepted, pass by this curious passage, leaving it entirely un- noticed. And how has Dr. Johnson trifled, by slightly remarking, " that Shakspeare is a little too early with this accusation ! " The great cri- tic had undertaken to decipher obsolete words, and investigate unintelligible phrases ; but ne- ver, perhaps, bestowed a thought on Caxton or Corsellis, on Mr. Atkyns, or the authenticity of the Lambeth Record. But, independent of the record altogether, the book stands firm as a monument of the exercise of printing in Ox- ford, six years older than any book of Caxton's with a date.

Our first printers, in those days of ignorance, met with but small encouragement; they printed but few books, and but few copies ot those books. In after-times, when the same books were reprinted more correctly, those first edi- tions, which were not as yet become curiosities, were put to common uses. This is the reason that we have so few remains of our first printers. We have only four books of Theodoric Rood, who seems by his own verses to have been a very celebrated printer. Of John Lettou-Wil- liam de Machlinia, and the schoolmaster of St. Alban's, we have scarce any remains. If this be considered, it will not appear impossible that our printer should have followed his business from 1468 to 1479, and yet time have destroyed his intermediate works. But, secondly, we may account still another way for this distance of time, without altering the date. The civil wars

VjOOQ IC