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The solitary English letter in this volume is as follows:

LORD GREY DE RUTHYN TO GRIFFITH AP DAVID AP GRIFFITH.

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We send the greting welle, but no thyng with goode hert.

And we have welle understande thy lettre to us sent by Deykus Vaghan, our tenaunt, which maken mention and seist that the fals John Weele hath disseyved the. And seist that alle men knowne welle that thu was under the protectioun of Mered ap Owyn, and sent to the as thu seist by trete of thy cousynes, Maester Edward, and Edwarde ap David, and asked the if thu woldest come inne, and he wolde gette the thy chartere of the Kyng, and that thu sholdest be Keyshate in Chirklond; and other thyngis he beheght the, which he fullfylled noght, as thu seiste; and after warde asked the whether thu woldest go over the see with him, and he wolde gette the thy chartere of the King, and bryng the to hym sounde and saufe, and thu sholdest have wages as moche as any gentelle man that went with hym. And overe thus thu seideist that John Welle seide befor the Bishope of Seint Assaph, and befor thy cousynes, that, rather than thu sholdest faile, he wolde spenne of his oun goode xx marcis.

Heer up on thu trusted, as thu seiste, and duddest gete the two men, and boght the armoure for alle peces, horsen, and other araie, and comest to Oswaldestree a nyght befor that thei went; and on the morowe after thu sendest Piers Cambr, the receyvour of Chirklonde, thries to hym, to telle hym that thu was redy, and he seide that thu sholdest speke no worde with him. And at the last he saide he hadde no wages for the, as thu seiste, and he hadde fully his retenue, and bade the goo to Sir Richarde Laken to loke whether he hadde nede of the other noo, with the which thu, as thu seiste, haddest nevere ado, ne nevere madest covenaunt with. For thu woldest, as thu seiste, have goon for no wages with hym over see, but for to have thy chartere of the Kyng, and sume lyvyng that thu myghtest dwelle in pees.

And, as thu seist, Sir Richard Laken and Straunge wolle berre wittenesse that thu was redy and wylly for to goon with hym giffe he hadde be trewe. And also thu seiste he cam to Laken and to Straunge and wolde have made hem to take the, and thu haddest wittyng ther of, as thu seiste, and trussed the fro thennes, and knowelechest that thy men cam and brecke our parke by nyght, and tooke out of hyt two of our horses, and of our menis.

And, as hit is tolde the, thu seiste, that we ben in pourpose to make our men brenne and slee in what so ever cuntree thu be inne, and wilt

withouten doute, as thu seiste, as many men as we slee and as many housen that we brenne for thy sake, as many brenne and slee for our sake. And, as thu seiste, thu wilt have bothe breede and ale of the best that is in our lordshipe; and heer of thu biddest us have no doute, the whiche is agayn our wylle, gife any thu have breede other ale so, and ther as thu berrest up on us that we sholde ben in pourpose to brenne and sleen men and housen for thy sake, or for any of thyn enclinant to the, or any of hem that ben the Kinges trewe liege men, we was nevere so mys avised to worch agayn the Kyng no his lawes, whiche giffe we dudde, were heigh tresoun; but thu hast hadde fals messageres and fals reportoures of us touchyng this matere; and that shalle be welle knowen un to the King and alle his Counsaile.

Ferthermore, ther as thu knowlechest by thyn oun lettre that thy men hath stolle our horsen out of our parke, and thu recettour of hem, we hoope that thu and thy men shalle have that ye have deserved. For us thynketh, thegh John Welle hath doon as thu aboven has certefied, us thynketh that that sholde noght be wroken towarde us. But we hoope we shalle do the a pryve thyng; a roope, a ladder, and a ring, heigh on gallowes for to henge. And thus shalle be your endyng. And he that made the be ther to helpyng, and we on our behalfe shalle be welle willyng. For thy lettre is knowlechyng.

Written, etc.

482

LECTURE XI.

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE FROM CAXTON TO THE ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH.

THE importance of the invention of printing, startling and mysterious as it seemed, was very imperfectly appreciated by contemporary Europe. It was at first regarded only as an economical improvement, and in England it was slow in producing effects which were much more speedily realized on the Continent. In England, for a whole generation, its influence was scarcely perceptible in the increase of literary productivity, and it gave no sudden impulse to the study of the ancient tongues, though the printing-offices of Germany and Italy, and, less abundantly, of France, were teeming with editions of the Greek and Latin classics, as well as of the works of Gothic and Romance writers, new and old.

The press of Caxton, the first English printer, was in activity from 1474 to 1490. In these sixteen years, it gave to the world sixty-three* editions, among which there is not the text of a

The whole number of productions issued by Caxton is stated, in the Appendix to the late reprint of The Game of the Chesse, by Mr. Vincent Figgins, at sixtyseven, three of which were printed before Caxton's return to England. Several of these were but pamphlets, or perhaps single sheets. They may be classed as follows: In French, two; in Latin, seven; two or three with Latin titles, but language of text not indicated in the list; the remainder in English. The only original works of native English authors are: The Chronicles of Englond, The Descripcioun of Britayne, The Polycronycon, Gower's Confessio Amantis, Chaucer's Tayles of Cantyrburye, Chaucer's and Lydgate's Minor Poems, Chaucer's Book of Fame, Troylus and Creseide, Lydgate's Court of Sapience, Lydgate's Lyf of our Ladye, and possibly one or two others. These, with the exception of the poems of Lydgate, and of Caxton's own additions to the works he published, all belong to the preceding century.

single work of classic antiquity, though there are a few translations of Greek and Latin authors, chiefly taken, however, at second hand from the French. Caxton printed a few ecclesiastical manuals, and a volume of parliamentary statutes, in Latin, and one or two works in French; but it does not satisfactorily appear that his press issued a single original work by a contemporary English author, if we except his own continuations of older works published by him. He rendered good service to his own generation, indeed, by printing editions of Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate, and thus disseminating the works of those authors through England; but it is very doubtful whether, in the end, the publication of those editions was not an injury, rather than a benefit, to the cause of later English literature.

It was Caxton's general practice, as appears from his own repeated avowals, to reduce the orthography and grammar, and sometimes even the vocabulary, of the authors he printed, to the usage of his own time, or rather to an arbitrary and not very uniform standard set up by himself. He had spent a large part of his life in Flanders and in France, where he established presses, and where he printed both in French and in Latin before undertaking any English work. His own style is full of Gallicisms in vocabulary and phrase, and there is very little doubt that his changes of his copy were much oftener corruptions than improvements.* In the preface to his second edition of the Canterbury Tales, he professes to have conformed to an approved manuscript; but this declaration evidently only negatives the addition or omission of verses, or, as he expresses it:

The number of French words in Caxton's translations is large. In the second edition of the Game of the Chesse - believed to be the first book he printed in England - they are nearly three times as numerous, proportionately, as in the Morte d' Arthur printed by him, but translated by Malorye; and yet Malorye whose general diction is perhaps more purely Anglo-Saxon than that of any English writer, except the Wycliffite translators, for at least a century before his age adopted from his original many words which appear for the first time in English in his pages.

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'setting in somme thynges that he [Chaucer] never sayd ne made, and leving out many thynges that he made, whyche ben requysite to be sette in it;' and we have no reason to doubt that in what he held to be minor matters, he practised in this case something of the same license as with other authors.*

The printing of a manuscript generally involves the destruction of the original; and there is little probability that any of those employed by Caxton escaped the usual fate of authors' copies. Besides this, the printing of a work greatly diminishes the current value of existing manuscripts of the same text, just as a new edition of a modern book often makes earlier impressions worthless. In Caxton's age, English scholars possessed no such critical acquaintance with their mother tongue, as to have the slightest notion of the great importance of scrupulously preserving the original texts of earlier writers; and hence Caxton's editions undoubtedly caused, not only the sacrifice of the manuscripts on which they were founded, but the neglect and destruction of many others, which might otherwise have

*The whole passage is as follows: 'Whiche book I have dylygently oversen, and duly examyned to the ende that it be made accordyng unto his owen makyng; for I fynde many of the sayd bookes, whiche wryters have abrydgyd it, and many thynges left out, and in some places have sette certayn versys that he never made ne sette in hys booke; of whyche bookes so incorrecte was one brought to me vi. yere passyd, whiche I supposed had ben veray true and correcte, and accordyng to the same I dyde do enprynte a certayn nomber of them, whyche anon were solde to many and dyverse gentyl men, of whom one gentylman cam to me, and sayd that this book was not according in many places unto the book that Gefferey Chaucer had made. To whom I answered, that I had made it accordyng to my copye, and by me was nothing added ne mynushyd. Thenne he sayd, he knewe a book whyche hys fader had and moche lovyd, that was very trewe, and accordyng unto hys owen first book by hym made; and sayd more, yf I wold enprynte it agayn, he wold gete me the same book for a copye. How be it he wyst well that hys fader wold not gladly departe fro it. To whom I said, in caas that he coude gete me suche a book, trewe and correcte, yet I wold ones endevoyre me to enprynte it agayn, for to satisfy the auctour, where as tofore by ygnoraunce I erryd in hurtyng and dyffamyng his book in dyverce places, in setting in somme thynges that he never sayd ne made, and leving out many thynges that he made whyche ben requysite to be sette in it. And thus we fyll at accord, and he full gentylly gate of hys fader the said book, and delyvered it to me, by whiche I have corrected my book, as heere after alle alonge by the ayde of almighty God shal folowe, whom I humbly bescche &c.'

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