to the abbeys and
cathedral churches, who directed and superintended the education of the
neighboring nobility and gentry. He was, besides, one of the members of
the _scriptorium_, a large establishment within the abbey, where school
and other books used to be written.

The first book Caxton printed, after he returned to England and
established himself at the Almonry, is supposed to be _The Game and Play
of Chesse_, dated 1474. But some have raised doubts whether this was
printed in England, as there is no actual evidence of it. One of the
arguments is that the type is exactly the same as what he had previously
used at Cologne; but this is no evidence at all, as both the type and
paper used in England for many years came from Cologne, and there is no
doubt that Caxton brought some with him. A second edition of the book of
chess, with woodcuts, was printed two or three years later, and this is
generally admitted to have been printed in England.

The first book with an unmistakable imprint was his _Dictes and Sayings
of Philosophers_, which had been translated for him by the gallant but
unfortunate Lord Rivers, who was murdered in Pomfret castle by order of
Richard III. The colophon of this states that it was printed in the Abbey
of Westminster in 1477. He appears to have printed but one single volume
upon vellum, which is _The Doctrynal of Sapience_, 1489, of which a copy,
formerly in the King's Library at Windsor, is now in the British Museum.
This is a very interesting work as connected with Caxton, being entirely
translated by himself into English verse. It is an allegorical fiction,
in which the whole system of literature and science comes under
consideration.

Caxton died in 1491, after having produced, within twenty years of his
active career, more than fifty volumes of mark, including Chaucer, Gower,
Lydgate, and his own _Chronicle_ of England. Before Caxton's time the
youths of England were supplied with their school-books and their
reading, which was necessarily very limited, by the Company of
Stationers, or text-writers, who wrote and sold, by an exclusive royal
privilege, the school-books then in use. These were chiefly the A B Cs,
(called _Absies_), the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the address to the
Virgin Mary, called _Ave Maria_.

The location of these stationers was in the neighborhood of St. Paul's
Cathedral, whence arose the names Paternoster Row, Creed Lane, Amen
Corner, and Ave Maria Lane. Manus