they arch thickly over head, and produce a chequered shade' on the footpath, which is lined on each side by a row of tombs, some bearing foreign names, probably of persons who were domesticated at Brandenburgh House during the residence there of the Margrave and his widow. Within are the tombs of many remarkable men. Among them may be mentioned Worlidge, the painter, whose unrivalled etchings are choice gems of the English School of Art; and Murphy the dramatic poet, whose works on the stage have afforded amusement to thousands.

The church windows, originally filled with fine painted glass representing the Jewish prophets and the arms of benefactors, existed but a few years, and were ruthlessly demolished by the Puritans. There are,

however, some fragments remaining, which evidence their former art and beauty. They consist of arms of benefactors, and include those of Bishop Laud, impaling the see of London, and of Sir Nicholas Crispe, the principal friend to a building which enshrines so touching a mark of his loyalty and his love for its walls.

THE PRINTING-OFFICE OF WILLIAM CAXTON.

ONSIDER how many hours of our existence are spent in reveries! in that waking sleep, that dream-like condition, apart from present life, yet recalling lives and scenes over which we may have just closed some venerable volume. How we envy those old worms! small atoms full of wisdom, wriggling their way through black-lettered tomes, unable to endure any light but that of other days; full of what they can neither impart nor comprehend. For aught we can tell they have their own literary cliques, which like other cliques can see no good beyond their own narrow circle-the circle, which, no larger than might be covered by a silver twopence, forms their world! Roll away, little fellow, we cannot replace you in your nest; you have eaten a good round hole out of old Caxton's book upon chess-that combination of brown and faded leaves which our old housekeeper calls rubbish.' Rubbish! how precious in our eyes are those mouldering pages; how carefully we turn them over and mend them here and there with soft smooth paper, tending them as mothers do their children, and laying sheets of foolscap between each page, close the volume carefully, and then sink into a reverie, in which things and scenes of old, float, and pass, and dimly crowd around us. Man may philosophise and, closing his eyes upon the material world, dream on, and by the magic

and strength of imagination, that refining essence of immortality, which stirs within us, active, ennobling, and invigorating-by that mighty power— he may create new wonders and new worlds; but the wonders of the future will hardly surpass the wonders of the past. If we had but the power to open afresh the bowels of the earth, to call upon the sea to give up its treasures and its mysteries, to command that lost ART may be restored, how should we be shorn of our self-sufficiency and pride! Every moment of our lives we are enjoying the benefits of past improvements, and yet suffering ourselves to be carried away by anticipations of those that are to come. Yet surely, we may be too prone to overvalue the past. We have arrived at that period of life when memory is stronger than sympathy, and a habit of wandering amongst old places, and pondering over old works, and thinking about the people of old-the olden world-may, perhaps, render us not so alive, as an immortal spirit should be, to the future. The past is more tranquil and pleasant to dwell with than the present; we do not perceive those blemishes through the mist of years which offend us now. The people themselves, the great and mighty ones, do not come before us with their palpable faults to undeceive our conceptions, and we can comfort ourselves with the belief, that their errors, when recorded, have been exaggerated by the harshness of the historian.

This train of thought has been encouraged as we have been pondering over the eventful and not unromantic life of one of whom we know littleyet nothing that is not honourable to human nature; one to whose memory we owe much more than we can pay, or are even disposed to pay; for who, upon opening a book, thinks upon blessing the memory of WILLIAM CAXTON, the first English printer? Of a truth, his cypher should be inscribed. in every English school-room, and scholars should doff their caps as they pass it by; while such as feel bound to honour the first who introduced, practised, and communicated this most useful art into our country, should

* This cypher is given in the next page from one used in his books: it consists merely of his own initials, with the Arabic numerals 74, to note that year in the fifteenth century, when he first introduced printing into this country. His friend and successor, Wynkyn de Worde, used the same device, with the addition of his name at the conclusion of the books which issued from his own press.

not forget that it was a WOMAN, the Lady Margaret of York, King Edward the IVth's sister, who, passing as a bride to the Duke's court at Bruges, entertained William Caxton in her retinue,* and encouraged him in the

practice of an art, of which he had

learned, according to his own simple account, a good deal at considerable expense.'

He was born in the weald or woody part of Kent, during the latter part of the reign of Henry IV., and apprenticed to one of London's worthy citizens, by trade a mercer; and thus laid the foundation of his commercial knowledge. ‡ His taste led to the acquirement of considerable proficiency in penmanship and the knowledge of languages,§ which doubtless forwarded his interest in obtaining the situation he held in the Lady Margaret's 'retinue.' We are informed that he 'stuck

* Caxton notes that he received a yearly fee and other many goode and grete benefets,' which proves that he stood high in her favour, though in what rank or quality he served the Duchess is not known with certainty. Dr. Dibdin says, he should suppose him to have held no regular employment, or rather that he was a gentleman of her household, in a sinecure situation, receiving an annual salary.' That he was entrusted by King Edward IV. on important missions is proved by his being connected with one Richard Whetehill, in concluding a treaty of trade and commerce between that Sovereign and the Duke of Burgundy, whose son afterwards married King Edward's sister, the Lady Margaret named above.

+ So he informs us in his 'Prologue to the History of Troy,' not, however, specifying the exact spot in that portion of the county so called, where he first drew breath, nor has the place been ascertained. The small town of Caxton, in Cambridgeshire, has been asserted to be his birthplace by some authors, solely because of its similarity of name. The precise period of his birth is also a matter of conjecture, his early history being involved in obscurity, only slightly cleared away by his own incidental notices.

His master was Robert Large, a mercer of considerable eminence, who officiated as High Sheriff, and ultimately became Lord Mayor in 1439. At his death, in 1441, he remembered Caxton in his will (which still exists in the Prerogative Office) by a legacy of twenty marks.

§ Dr. Dibdin informs us that the Mercers of these days, being general merchants, frequently had commissions for books; a cargo of Indian spices and Greek manuscripts sometimes came together to the Medici, their great fellow traders. The original French composition of "The Book of Good Manners" was delivered to Caxton by a special friend of his, a mercer of London, named William Pratt; and Roger Thornye, also a mercer, at a later period induced Caxton's successor, Wynkyn de Worde, to print the 'Polychronicon.'

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painfully' to the task she gave him, bringing forth the work under the title of The Recuyell of the Historye of Troye, &c.,' which is the first book at least in being, or which we know of, ever printed in the English tongue. Its title-page is quaint and curious :-'Here begyneth the volume intituled the Recuyell of the Historye of Troye: composed and drawen out of dyverse bookes of Latyn into Frensshe, by the right venerable persone and worshippful man Raoul le Fevre,* preest and chapelayn unto the right noble, gloryous and myghty prince in his tyme, Philip Duc of Bourgoyne of Braband, &c., in the yeare of the incarnation of our Lord God a thousand four hundred sixty and four, and translated and drawen out of Frensshe into English by William Caxton, mercer of the cyte of London, at the commandment of the right hye mighty and vertuouse Princesse, his redoughtyd Lady Margarette, by the grace of God Duchesse of Bourgoyne, &c., which sayd translacion and work was begonne in Brugis, in the countre of Flaunders, the fyrst day of Marche in the yeare of the incarnacion of our sayd Lord God, a thousand foure hondred and sixty and eight, and ended fynyshed in the holy cyte of Colon the XIX day of September, the yeare of our sayd Lord God a thousand four hondred sixty and eleven.' The title-page and some other portions of the first edition of this book are printed in red ink; but its most charming portion is the evidence of Caxton's modesty as he apologises for his small knowledge of the French language, and his imperfectness in his own, having lived out of England nearly thirty years. It is impossible also not to sympathise with our first printer when he concludes with this gentle appeal to our sympathies: Thus,' he says, ' end I this booke, and for as moche as in wrytynge the same my penne is worne, myne hande wery, and my eyen dymmed with overmoch lookyng on the whyte paper, and that age creepeth on me daily and feebleth all the body.' And he goes on to say how he had promised this book to divers gentlemen, adding, 'It is not wretton with penne and ynke as

* His passion for romance he very probably derived from his intimacy with Raoul le Fevre, when he resided in the Duke of Burgundy's court, and with Henry Boulanger, Canon of Lausanne. The former was the author of the 'Romance of Jason,' and the 'History of Troy,' both of which were afterwards translated and printed by Caxton, and at the instance of the latter he did the same for the History and Lyf of Charles the Great, Kyng of Vienna and Emperor of Rome.'