e obscure
mechanics, at Harlem, at Mayence, and at Strasbourg, were at work upon a
machine which, if perfected, should at once extend letters a hundred-fold,
and by that process revolutionize literature. The writers before, few as
they were, had been almost as numerous as the readers; hereafter the
readers were to increase in a geometrical proportion, and each great
writer should address millions. Movable types, first of wood and then of
metal, were made, the latter as early as 1441. Schoeffer, Guttenberg, and
Faust brought them to such perfection that books were soon printed and
issued in large numbers. But so slowly did the art travel, partly on
account of want of communication, and partly because it was believed to
partake of necromancy, and partly, too, from the phlegmatic character of
the English people, that thirty years elapsed before it was brought into
England. The art of printing came in response to the demand of an age of
progress: it was needed before; it was called for by the increasing number
of readers, and when it came it multiplied that number largely.

WILLIAM CAXTON.--That it did at last come to England was due to William
Caxton, a native of Kent, and by vocation a mercer, who imported costly
continental fabrics into England, and with them some of the new books now
being printed in Holland. That he was a man of some eminence is shown by
his having been engaged by Edward IV. on a mission to the Duke of
Burgundy, with power to negotiate a treaty of commerce; that he was a
person of skill and courtesy is evinced by his being retained in the
service of Margaret, Duchess of York, when she married Charles, Duke of
Burgundy. While in her train, he studied printing on the Continent, and is
said to have printed some books there. At length, when he was more than
sixty years old, he returned to England; and, in 1474, he printed what is
supposed to be the first book printed in England, "The Game and Playe of
the Chesse." Thus it was a century after Chaucer wrote the Canterbury
Tales that printing was introduced into England. Caxton died in 1491, but
his workmen continued to print, and among them Wynken de Worde stands
conspicuous. Among the earlier works printed by Caxton were the Canterbury
Tales, the Book of Fame, and the Troilus and Creseide of Chaucer.

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.--It will be remembered that this was the stormy
period of the Wars of the Roses. The long and troubled reign of Henry VI.
closed in