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as the small letter, indicating what initial is to be inserted, is called. Caxton printed for the many, and we do not find the expensive services of the illuminator called in for any of his books. The numerous logotypes, incorrectly so-called, can be easily recognized. The punctuation consists, with the exception of one colon, of full stops in the form of crosses. This is merely incidental to the short sentences on this page. The use of short commas (/) is frequent further on.

In cutting the punches for a fount of type the artist would undoubtedly copy the usual caligraphy of the time, as literally as the separation of the letters would admit. In confirmation of this M. Bernard finds the peculiar type (generally known as No. 1†) in which The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, and The Game and Playe of the Chesse Moralised were printed, at Bruges, to exactly correspond with the manuscript of Colard Mansion. So close, indeed, is the resemblance between the earliest printed books and contemporaneous manuscripts, that the former have been occasionally mistaken for the latter.

Of these

With the "gros-bâtarde "type before us (No. 2), Caxton is known to have printed some twenty works, large and small, in about three years, and then, with a re-casting of it (No. 2*) about half as many more. The History of Jason may have preceded the Dictes. It was followed by the first edition of The Canterbury Tales, The Morale Proverbes of Cristyne, and Chaucer's translation of Boecius de Consolacione Philosophie. It was a copy of the last-named, discovered by Mr. Blades, whose binding yielded fifty-six leaves from Caxton's press, including fragments of three works previously unknown. The Dictes and Chess Book both reached a second edition about 1480-1.

Wood-cuts now appear for the first time, Paruus et Magnus Chato being the earliest illustrated book from

We follow Mr. Blades' arrangement of these types as the only satisfactory one.

the Reed Pale extant. Mr. Blades has very courteously placed at our disposal several fac-simile blocks of the early wood-cuts. The first is from the second edition

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of The Game and Playe of the Chesse Moralised, and represents Evilmerodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, a jolly man without justice, who did do hew his father his body into three hundred pieces." The trunk of the unfortunate deceased has already disappeared, and birds, whose species we know not, are carrying away the limbs. The scenery is of an extremely simple character, the solitary tree being represented by precisely the same lines as the ground on which it stands. Another is from The Fables of Esope (1484). The conspicuous array of boots therein is very suggestive of a Flemish origin. The Wife of Bath is from the second edition of The Canterbury Tales, issued about the same time. It will be noticed she is riding on the off side of the horse. The artist probably forgot that he must reverse his design when cutting the block. There is no proof whether these cuts were executed abroad or in England. In either case they were probably not original, but copied from the manuscripts. We entirely agree with Mr. Blades' view that they must all be from the hand of one artist. The identity in style of execution is complete. They are very inferior to the later specimens, such as we shall have to describe, in The Fifteen Oes, but in common with them they have one marked characteristic. Considering the very faulty drawing, they are exceedingly-in some cases ludicrously-life-like. Look, for instance, in the cut of Evilmerodach, at the two birds with black beaks, and the various expressions of the participators in the ghastly scene.

Type No. 3 demands only a passing mention. It was little used by Caxton (circa 1479-83), and was intended especially for Latin works. The advertisement is in this type.

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