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this one, belonged to the two "boys" as their sisters called them. They were fishing-tackle makers.

Robert Macnamara, who was now looking at Ada's elegant figure as she stood half-turned from him, was the best sportsman in that part of the country. He knew every foot of ground, every fathom of every loch for miles round, and in the childhood days he had been Ada's companion many a time in wild excursions after all sorts of birds, beasts, and fishes.

"Ah! here's Robert," said the elder sister.

"Eh, Robert!" said "the other Miss Macnamara." “He'll be glad enough to hear you've taken to liking great writers, tho' maybe he'll not fall in with you quite about poetry."

Ada turned. She had seen Robert many times since her return home for good, but hitherto she had met him with a half sense of shame at having once on a time clambered and scampered about the country with him, and hence had only bowed and said, "Goodmorrow." Now, however, as the brother of the first person she had met in Glenlow who seemed to understand things, she turned with a smile of recognition, and said

"Robert only knows me as a sort of female Nimrod." "Yes, and now only think, Robert," said "the other Miss Macnamara," "Miss Morse knows all about that poor, ill-used Shelley."

"And I daresay a good many other writers, too," said Robert, in a pleasant manly voice. "Only, I expect my good sister has given you little chance of talking yourself, if you have broached the topic of poetry."

66 I suppose you are so fond of killing animals, and of helping others to kill them, that you care little for reading," said Ada.

Robert's eyes looked with a half-regret at the beautiful face turned towards his. Maggie answered for

him

"Deed, Miss Ada, and you're wrong. He reads as much as any of us, but he won't read poetry."

"Life is so short," said Robert, laughingly, "that I fancy when men have any great and good thing to say, they should say it in the most direct and quickest way. The time used in turning the thought into rhythmical expression, the mental power of the reader devoted to the appreciation of the rhythm, are time and power wasted."

66

Hardly," said Ada, "if the thought comes the more plainly, and is the more easily remembered in that rhythmical form."

66

"Ah, Robert is like me," said Miss Macnamara, still at her parcels, "he's for plain, straightforward things, and wants none of your poetry with its twenty or thirty inner meanings that everybody sees except the original writer. Shall I send the book up for you, Miss Morse?"

66

"No, thank you, I can carry it myself," said Ada. "Not but what Robert understands poetry, you know, Miss Morse," chimed in "the other Miss Macnamara," ," "and reads it to us beautifully of an evening, sometimes."

"When he's not too lazy," laughed her brother, good-humouredly, and then with a "Good-day, Miss Morse," and another glance at the sweet face that had gained for him a new interest in the last few minutes, he took his burly form and pleasant face out of the shop.

Ada turned to go. “You will let me come and talk to you sometimes about books, won't you?" she pleaded. "I am rather lonely. I never knew there was any one near here who cared for things such as I do."

"Come as often as you please, my dear," said "the other Miss Macnamara," "you'll never tire me if books. are uppermost."

"And do you know anything about Spiritualism ?” asked Jane from her desk.

"Ah, there now, that's Jane's fad," cried her sister. "Run away, Miss Ada, or she'll be making you hold a table with her in a minute or two."

"All I want to know," said Jane, tying a knot vigorously, "is this. Are there spirits, or are there not? We must enquire into these things, and, some day, I can tell you, Miss Morse, some very queer things that have happened to myself. But don't stop now, or it'll be dusk before you're home."

So, with promises to come more often into Glenlow, to discuss poetry and spirits, Ada Morse left. Never, until this day, had she known of the existence of any with tastes akin to her own in Glenlow. She had not been into Miss Macnamara's shop half-a-dozen times in the year, and generally her mother had been her companion on those visits. Mrs. Morse was an effectual damper on Ada's power of, or, indeed, inclination for talking. But here, this spring afternoon, she had found, quite by accident, somebody who felt with her, and the air was the brighter and fresher for it, and all things were more beautiful, as they are to us in youth, when some new path opens out before us, and we only see the roses on each side of it, leaning out to us, and hiding all thorns-that are there none the less.

These two old ladies, with their kindly ways-specially Miss Maggie, with her love for, and acquaintance with, poetry that bearded young fellow, with his evident love for literature, so different from all the young fellows round about, whom he could beat at their very sports-she would certainly go and see them often. They were not quite in the same position in life, but what of that? She would only go and talk to them now and again on subjects that affect all who have minds alike. Shakespeare was only the son of a yeoman, and, very likely, the story of his holding horses for a living was true after all.

She should certainly call in at Miss Macnamara's shop frequently.

William Caxton.

BY ARTHUR N. BUTT.

PART I.-MERCER AND COURTIER.

HE recent Caxton Celebration has given every

one an opportunity of seeing for himself the works of our first printer. Those who like ourselves visited the Exhibition repeatedly, without being able to obtain a catalogue, must have felt the opportunity, to a great extent, wasted. The only book that was to be had was unreliable, having been reprinted verbatim from an old edition, containing what have since been proved to be erroneous statements, which the author, had he been alive, would have been the first to correct. Numerous articles have appeared in magazines and elsewhere. Such as we have met with exhibit two defects. They are vague in their statements, and deal much with legends industriously propagated by successive writers, but proved of late years to have little or no foundation in fact, and they almost entirely omit-what is certainly not least important in treating of a printer-to describe his method and style of printing. We have before us, as we write, a trade journal, a casual glance at which detects two gross errors respecting Caxton. There is no lack of works on the subject for the student. Lewis, Oldys, Dibdin, the reckless Bagford, and others have treated it at length with more or less (generally less) success. Lastly, we have the invaluable works of Mr. William Blades, to whom all interested in this subject owe unlimited thanks. They are all that the student can desire, but their very exhaustiveness renders them unlikely to be read by others. Our object in the present papers is to condense into the

very few pages at our disposal the leading facts of Caxton's career brought to light by the careful examination of that most valuable of all sources of history-contemporary records, indicating in passing such inferences as it seems may fairly be drawn from them.

Of Caxton's family history we know literally nothing. The only thing which tends to throw any light on the subject is his own words in the prologue to his Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye :

"I was born & lerned myn englissh in Kent in the weeld where I doubte not is spoken as brode and rude englissh as is in any place in englond."

This is a very vague address, and the only reasonable suggestion which diligent search has produced is that he may have been a member of the family to whom the ancient manor of Caustons, near Hadlow, belonged. They seem to have given up this place, and not improbably migrated to Essex, as there is preserved in Somerset House the will of Johannes Cawston, Hadlow Hall, Essex, dated 1490. The difference of spelling is of no moment, since orthography was in a very unsettled state in the fifteenth century, and Kentish names were frequently made broad, generally by the addition of a "u.” Thus in the Mercers' records "Thomas Cacston" is immediately afterwards repeated as "Cawston."

Edward III. had invited many Flemings to settle in this part of the country, with a view to establishing the woollen manufacture in England. We are reminded of this by the well-known anecdote in the preface to the Eneydos, which we print here as an illustration of Caxton's style:—

"Certayn marchaunts were in a ship in tamyse for to have sayled over the see into zelande, and for lacke of wynde thei taryed atte forlond. and wente to lande for to refresh them And one of theym named sheffelde a mercer cam in to an hows and axed for mete. and

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