Earl Rivers presenting William Caxton to Edward IV. (From a MS. in the Library of Lambeth Palace.)
That is the Dutch story, but the Germans insist on Gutenberg being the originator of printing. They contend that Coster's were only the wooden blocks which had long been in use for the printing of playing-cards, and manuals of devotion. They even insinuate that all that the Dutch claim, had probably been brought from China by Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, who had seen the paper-money thus printed there in letters of vermilion, and that Holland had no share in the invention at all. But we know that the Germans have a vast capacity for claiming; they are on the point of claiming Shakespeare, and they claim England as really German, calling it Die Deutsche Insel. It is notorious that all the earliest block-printing, the Bibliæ Pauperum, the Bibles of the Poor, the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis with its fifty pictures, and other block-works, were all done in the Low Countries in the century we are reviewing.
Enough, then, for the Germans, that Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer, were the men, let them come at their types as they might, who first printed any known works in movable types, and from Mayence, in 1445, diffused very soon the knowledge of the present art of printing over the whole world. The first work which they are supposed to have printed was the Bible, an edition of the Latin Vulgate, known by the name of the Mazarin Bible, of which various copies remain, though without date or printer's name.
Fac-simile of the Bible printed at Mayence in 1450, by Gutenberg. Commencement of the 19th Chapter of the First Book of Samuel.
Printing was introduced into England in 1472, according to all the chief authorities of or near that time, by William Caxton, though there have not been wanting attempts since to attribute this to one Corsellis. The story of Corsellis, however, is by no means well authenticated: it wants both proof and probability. Caxton was a native of the Weald of Kent. He served his apprenticeship to a mercer of London, became a member of the Mercer's Company, and was so much esteemed for his business talents, that in 1464 he was sent with others by Edward IV. into the Low Countries, to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Duke of Burgundy. There he was greatly regarded by Margaret, the Duchess of Burgundy, Edward IV.'s sister, who retained him as long as she could at her court. Caxton was now upwards of fifty years of age, but his inquisitive and active temperament led him to learn, amongst other things, the whole art of printing. He saw its immense importance, and he translated Raoul le Feure's "Recueil des Histoires de Troyes," and printed it in folio. This great work he says himself that he began in Bruges, and finished in Cologne in 1471. The first work which he printed in England was "The Game and Playe of Chesse," which was published in 1474. From this time till 1490, or till nearly the date of his death in 1491 or 1492, a period of sixteen years, the list of the works which Caxton passed through his press is quite wonderful. Thomas Milling, the Abbot of Westminster, was his most zealous patron; and at Westminster, in the Almonry, he commenced his business. The Earl Rivers, brother to the queen of Edward IV.,
