revisa's English should have been
in his hands, as the proem states, "a lytel embelysshed fro tholde
makyng." In what these embellishments consisted is partially explained
in the epilogue: "Therfore I William Caxton a symple persone haue
endeuoyred me to wryte fyrst ouer all the sayd book of proloconycon, and
somewhat haue chaunged the rude and old Englyssh, that is to wete
certayn wordes, which in these dayes [1482] be neyther usyd ne
understanden". He went however further than this and so changed the
inflections and orthography that the language is no longer of the
fourteenth but rather of the fifteenth century. But in no other way
could it have been made to harmonize with his proposed continuation,
concerning which he proceeds to say: "and also am auysed to make another
booke after this sayd werke whiche shal be sett here after the same, And
shal haue his chapytres and his table a parte. For I dar not presume to
sette my book ne ioyne hit to his, for dyuerse causes". Accordingly he
begins his "Liber ultimus" with a new signature, preceded by a blank
page. His "table" nevertheless is combined with that of the preceding
seven books in one alphabet. Wynkyn de Worde's edition has a more
elaborate index of ninety pages in which each of the eight books is
indexed in a separate alphabet.

Apart from the interest attaching to this "Liber ultimus" as the only
original work of any length from Caxton's pen, the Polychronicon is next
to the Golden Legend his largest book, and in the Prohemye they are
grouped together as the "twoo bookes notable" which treat of history. It
happens also, probably because of larger editions printed, that of these
two books many more copies have survived than of any of his other books,
about one-fourth of which are now represented only by single copies. Of
the Polychronicon, Seymour de Ricci's "Census of Caxtons" (1909)
enumerates forty known copies (very few of them entirely complete),
evenly divided between public and private libraries. To this list he
adds, under the heading "Present owners untraced," forty-eight copies
(nos. 41-88) which appeared at sales between 1698 and 1901, some of them
possibly identical with copies already described as "known." In this
second division is found the present copy (no. 79), purchased by the
donor of this collection at the Smets sale, New York, May, 1868, in calf
binding, with the name of the owner "A.A. Smets, Savannah, May 28, 1836"
on the fly-leaf. It was at