knowledge or the power of inventing new machines.

A man

called Faust went to Paris with Bibles for sale, in which certain letters were red. He asked only a fraction of the usual price, and had at command in a little while new copies to replace those he sold. The legend of the devil and Dr. Faustus and the writing in blood grew as a matter of course from these things.

There were, however, a few men in Europe who penetrated the secret of these magical books. Caxton was one of them. He seems to have begun authorship before he knew anything of printing. Joining the household of the English bride who went over to Bruges in 1468 to share the coronet of Burgundy with Duke Charles, he resumed at the request of this lady a translation of a French History of Troy, which a touch of ennui had led him to begin. At Cologne he probably learned to print; and then in 1471 he brought out the book, which added a purer lustre to the year of Barnet Heath. It was the book he had written at Bruges-a translation into English of Recueil des Histoires de Troye, the work of Raoul le Fevre, Duke Philip's chaplain.

Six years afterwards he removed to Westminster, where he lived in a three-storied house called the Rede Pale, on the north side of the Almonry. There was published The Dictes and Notable Wise Sayinges of the Philosophers, translated from the French by Lord Rivers, his patron, and believed to have been the first-fruits of the transplanted press. Customers and sight-seers, no doubt, soon flocked to the workshop of the first English printer. Indeed, a placard in his largest type, inviting buyers to the Rede Pale, is still preserved in Brasenose College, Oxford. There his press clanked and his sheets were sent forth with the impress of the types for fourteen years. Edward died. The princes perished in the Tower, and Crookback fell on Bosworth Field. Still the hoary tradesman plied his useful task, little dreaming that the day would come when his name

would shine among those of the most illustrious of the land. Six years of the Tudor dynasty passed by, and then he died. His pen had seldom ceased to write for three-and-twenty years; his press had seldom ceased to print for fourteen. Sixty-eight works, translated and original, evidenced the ripening power of his setting sun.

After Caxton's death in 1491, Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson, both foreigners, and both assistants of our countryman in the Almonry, conducted the printing business in the English metropolis. Books became commoner, and the English people learned to read. With knowledge came light, and light led to freedom. Two things of which Britain is justly proud can be traced, in the main at least, to the old Scriptorium where Caxton erected his clumsy press; and these are British Literature and British Liberty-both civil and religious. If, then, we measure Englishmen by the good they have done their land, what meed of praise shall be deemed enough for the mercer of the Kentish Weald?

Gloucester's early life-When Edward died-Earl Rivers-Stony Stratford -Perils-Hastings killed-A sermon and a speech-The great charge— Buckingham's revolt-Dressed alike-The Benevolence-Milford Haven -Redmore Field-Not so very black.

R

ICHARD, Duke of Gloucester, whom his enemies surnamed Crookback, because one of his shoulders happened to rise a little higher than the other, was twenty-nine years of age when his brother Edward died. He was born in 1452, at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire. He had gone to Utrecht after his father's death at Wakefield, and had received his education there under the eye of the Duke of Burgundy. He shared in the honours and profits of his brother's elevation to the throne, and he took part also in the reverses of that brother when the Kingmaker drove him in sudden flight to Flanders. At Barnet he led a division of the White Roses. At Tewkesbury he aided his brother Clarence, according to the popular story, in stabbing to death the young son of the beaten Henry; and, a year later, he married the Lady Anne Neville, whom his dagger had made a widow there.

This man, upon whose memory unmeasured vials of abuse and wrath have been poured out by dramatist and historian, seems, after all, to have been no worse than his neighbours. He lies under the sore disadvantage of having had his portrait drawn by those who hated his line and triumphed in his fall.

He was undoubtedly ambitious, selfish, and unscrupulous; but he was an able ruler, and he was wisely inclined to promote popular freedom.

When King Edward died, Gloucester was guarding the Scottish border, sword in hand. He certainly cannot then have been attracted by the glitter of the crown; for his earliest act, after hearing the sad news, was to perform at York a funeral service for the dead king, exacting at the same time from all the nobility of the north an oath of allegiance to the boysuccessor. This oath he was himself the first to take. The Duke of Buckingham, a nobleman of the first rank and influence in England, then began to act the part of tempter, by plying Richard with secret messages and promises of aid.

Young Edward, a boy of thirteen years, was living at Ludlow Castle, under the guardianship of his uncle Earl Rivers and his half-brother the Earl of Dorset. Rivers we have already met with as the patron of Caxton. He was the young king's natural guardian, and deserved the royal trust committed to his care; but unhappily he fixed his heart on that which really was the right of Gloucester-the direction of affairs while the king remained a minor. This ambitious desire led the earl to send Edward off toward London before Gloucester could arrive at Northampton. Such a move alarmed Gloucester, who penetrated its purpose, and at once arrested Rivers and Dorset. Then advancing to Stony Stratford,* Gloucester and Buckingham took possession of the young king, who was attended by Sir Richard Grey and old Sir Thomas Vaughan. The royal boy wept bitterly when he saw strange faces around his table and his bed; but tears had no power to melt the resolve of his captors. This occurred on the last day of April; on the 4th of May a crowd of citizens welcomed him to the capital.

Gloucester then received the protectorship, not the higher step for which he had ventured and hoped-the regency of

*Stony Stratford on the Ouse in Bucks, seven miles north-east of Buckingham.

England. He stood in a difficult and perilous position. Although Lord Hastings had gladly seen Rivers imprisoned, for he bore him many grudges, he now made himself the champion of the boyish king, and boldly confronted Gloucester at the council table. Gradually a gulf grew between the protector and Hastings. A quarrel was evidently imminent. The day was fixed for the king's coronation; and as that would in all likelihood strip him of power as protector, he resolved not to await the attack, but to strike the first blow.

Having attached to him, by grants and promises and hopes, four great noblemen-the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Howard, and Lord Lovel―he proceeded to decided action. The death of Hastings was the first stroke. When Gloucester went to the council chamber in the Tower on the morning of the 13th of June, he seemed in the best 1483 of temper, and asked the Bishop of Ely to send him some strawberries from that prelate's garden at Holborn. But an hour later, between ten and eleven, he came in with a changed face, frowning and biting his lips fiercely. Baring his withered arm, he charged the queen and Jane Shore with having wasted his body by means of witchcraft. "If they have done so," said Hastings, "they be worthy of punishment." The if stung the protector to fury. As he smote the table with his hand, a cry of treason arose outside the door, and men in armour poured in and arrested Hastings, Lord Stanley, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Ely. Hastings was carried out to the green in front of St. Peter's Chapel, and was there beheaded on a plank of wood lying by chance on the spot. The others were locked up in separate rooms. There was then no drawing back. More crimes must follow. The little Duke of York, taken from his mother, joined his brother in the Tower. About the 24th of June, Rivers, Dorset, and Vaughan perished by the axe at Pontefract Castle.

A sermon at St. Paul's Cross by Dr. Shaw, brother to the