Venice was the next city of Italy to take up the new art. There, in 1469, Joannes de Spira, or John of Spires, executed Cicero's Epistolæ ad Familiares. He obtained a privilege from the Venetian Senate with regard to his productions, and, more than that, a monopoly of book-printing in Venice for five years. He died, however, less than a year later, and his monopoly with him. His brother Vindelinus carried on his work, and was succeeded by Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, who, from a technical point of view, was perhaps the most skilful and artistic of early typographers.

The most famous printer of Venice, however, and the most famous printer of Italy, and perhaps of the world, is Aldus Manutius, born in 1450, but his fame rests less on his actual printing, which, though good, is not unequalled, than upon the efforts he made for popularising literature, and bringing cheap, yet well-produced books within the reach of the many. He saw that the works printed in such numbers by the Venetian printers, who paid attention to quantity and cheapness and altogether ignored the quality of their productions, were faulty and corrupt, and that textually as well as typographically there was room for improvement. He applied himself to the study of the classics, above all to the Greek, hitherto neglected or published through Latin translations, and secured the assistance of many eminent scholars, and then, having obtained good texts, turned his thoughts to type and format. The types he cast for his first book, Lascaris' Greek Grammar, were superior to the Greek types then in use. Next he designed a new Roman type, modelled, so it is said, upon the handwriting of Petrarch. It called forth admiration, and won fame under the name of the “Aldino” type. Its use has continued to the present day, and it is known to almost everyone as Italic. It was cut by Francesco de Bologna, who was probably identical with Francesco Raibolini, that painter-goldsmith who signed himself on his pictures as Aurifex, and on his gold-work as Pictor.

The advantage of the Aldino type, at the time of its invention, when type was large and required a comparatively great deal of space, was that its size and form permitted the printed matter to be much compressed, while losing nothing in clearness. The book for which it was used could be made smaller, and printed more cheaply. In 1501 Aldus inaugurated his new type by issuing a Virgil printed throughout in “Aldino.” It occupied two hundred and twenty-eight leaves, and was of a neat and novel shape, measuring just six by three and a half inches. This book, which was sold for about two shillings of our money, marks Aldus as the pioneer of cheap literature—literature not for the wealthy alone, but for all who loved books. A proof of the popularity of the new departure is afforded by the fact that the Virgil was immediately forged, that is to say, reproduced in a number of exceedingly inferior copies, by an unknown printer of Lyons.

The first work printed in the French language, however, is believed to have been executed, chiefly, at any rate, by an Englishman, probably at Bruges, five years later, that is, about 1476. The book was Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes, the Englishman was William Caxton. Caxton also printed at the same place, and about the year 1475, the first book in the English language—a translation of Le Recueil. In both these works he may have been assisted by Colard Mansion, believed by some to have been his typographical tutor, though so eminent an authority as Mr Blades holds that Le Recueil was printed by Mansion alone, and that Caxton had no hand in it. As with so many other questions concerning early typography, there seems to be no means of deciding the point.

The first work in French which was issued in Paris was the Grands Chroniques de France, printed by Pasquier Bonhomme in 1477.

Holland and the Low Countries can show no printed book with a date earlier than 1473, while the celebrated city of Haarlem's first dated book was produced ten years later. But printing was very possibly practised in these countries at an earlier period, and some undated books exist which those who ascribe the invention of typography to Holland consider to have been executed by Dutch printers before any German books had been given to the world. Those who stand by Germany of course think otherwise.

In the year just named—1473—Nycolaum Ketelaer and Gerard de Leempt produced Peter Comestor's Historia Scholastica at Utrecht, and Alost and Louvain also started printing. The types of John Veldener, the first Louvain printer, have a great resemblance to those used by Caxton, and have led some to believe that Veldener supplied Caxton with the types he first used at Westminster. About the same time, Colard Mansion, noted for his association either as teacher or assistant with Caxton, is supposed to have introduced printing into Bruges. His first dated book was a Boccaccio of 1476, and he continued to print until 1484, when he issued a fine edition, in French, of Ovid's Metamorphoses. After this nothing more is known of him. Blades thinks that his printing brought him financial ruin, and suggests that he may have joined his old friend Caxton at Westminster, and helped him in his work, but this is only conjecture. We have already seen that it was from Colard Mansion's press that the first printed books in the English and French languages were produced.

The first Brussels press was established by the Brethren of the Common Life, a community who had hitherto made a speciality of the production of manuscript books. At what date they began to print in Brussels is uncertain, but their first dated book, the Gnotosolitos sive speculum conscientiae, is of the year 1476. The Brethren also had an earlier press at Marienthal, near Mentz, and subsequently set up others at Rostock, Nuremberg, and Gouda.

The Elzevirs belong to a somewhat later period than that with which we are concerned in these chapters, but a name so famous in bibliographical annals as theirs cannot well be passed over. The first of the Elzevirs was Louis, a native of Louvain, who in 1580 established a book-shop in Leyden, gained the patronage of the university, and opened an important trade with foreign countries. Certain of his sons and successors became printers as well as booksellers, and produced work of the highest excellence. Some of them opened shops or set up presses at Amsterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht, and also established agencies or branches elsewhere, and extended their trade all over Europe. The history of the partnerships between different members of the family, and of the sixteen hundred and odd publications which they printed or sold, is a complicated subject upon which there is no need to enter here. The last of the Elzevirs, a degenerate great-great-grandson of the first Louis Elzevir, was Abraham Elzevir of Leyden, who died in 1712, leaving no heir, and at whose decease the press and apparatus were sold.

CHAPTER XI

EARLY PRINTING IN ENGLAND

The first name on the list of early English printers, it is hardly necessary to say, is that of Caxton. In his Life and Typography of William Caxton, the late Mr Blades has told all there is to be known of Caxton's life, and a great deal about Caxton's work; and although as regards the latter half of the subject there are authorities who dissent from some of the theories he advances, Mr Blades' monograph remains the standard work on the matter of England's first printer and the recognised source of information concerning him and his books.

But notwithstanding Mr Blades' industry and learning, our knowledge of the early part of Caxton's life is very scanty, and is derived mainly from what Caxton himself tells us in the prologue to his first literary production, the English translation of the French romance by Le Fevre, entitled Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes, or, Anglicised, The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye. Speaking of his boldness in undertaking the work, he refers to the “symplenes and vnperfightness that I had in both langages, that is to wete in frenshe and in englissh, for in france was I neuer, and was born & lerned myn englissh in kente in the weeld where I doubte not is spoken as brode and rude englissh as is in ony place of englond.” He was born probably in 1422 or 1423, and further than this we know nothing of him till his apprenticeship to Robert Large, a London mercer. Large died before Caxton's term of apprenticeship expired, and the next we hear of young Caxton is that he was living on the Continent, probably at Bruges. At the time he wrote the prologue from which quotation has just been made, that is about 1475, he had been for thirty years “for the most parte in the contres of Braband, flanders, holand, and zeland.” Yet notwithstanding so long a residence in the Low Countries, he describes himself as “mercer of y^e cyte of London.”

As a wool merchant in Bruges he prospered, and in time rose to be Governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, or “The English Nation,” and in that capacity probably dwelt at the Domus Angliæ, the Company's headquarters in Bruges. In 1468, and while holding this honourable and important position, he began his translation of Le Recueil, but soon laid it aside, unfinished. Two years later he took it up again, but by this time he had resigned the governorship, and was engaged in the service of the Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV. of England. When or why he took this position, and in what capacity he served the Duchess, is not known, but it was her influence which brought about the completion of his literary work and indirectly caused the subsequent metamorphosis of the mercer into the typographer. In the prologue to The Recuyell he relates that the duchess commanded him to finish the translation which he had begun, and this lady's “dredefull comādement,” he says, “y durste in no wyse disobey because y am a servāt vnto her sayde grace and resseiue of her yerly ffee and other many goode and grete benefetes.”

The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye, when finished, immediately found favour in the eyes of the English dwellers in Bruges, who, rejoiced to have the favourite romance of the day in their own tongue, demanded more copies than one pair of hands could supply. So because of the weariness and labour of writing, and because of his promise to various friends to provide them with the book, “I haue practysed & lerned,” he tells us, “at my grete charge and dispense, to ordeyne this said book in prynte after the maner & forme as ye may here see, and is not wreton with penne and ynke, as other bokes ben, to thende that every man may haue them attones.”

Where Caxton gained his knowledge of printing is a matter of dispute. Mr Blades holds that he was taught by Colard Mansion, the first printer of Bruges, others that he learned at Cologne. Mr Blades adduces in support of his view the similarity of the types of Mansion and Caxton, the reproduction in Caxton's work of various peculiarities to be observed in Mansion's, the improbability that Caxton would have travelled to Cologne to get what was already at hand in the city where he lived, and the absence in his work “of any typographical link between him and the Mentz school.” For the Cologne theory Wynkyn de Worde, who carried on the work of Caxton's printing-office at Westminster after the latter's death, supplies some foundation in his edition of Bartholomæus De Proprietatibus Rerum, where he says:

As usual there is something to be said on both sides, but leaving this debateable ground we will only add that the Recuyell of the Histories of Troye, translated by himself from the French, is generally considered to be the first book printed by Caxton, perhaps with Mansion's help, and probably at Bruges, and in or about the year 1475. It is also the first printed book in English. It was followed about 1476 by the French version of the same work, and by the famous Game and Play of the Chesse Moralised. This was once believed to be the first book printed on English soil, but it is now assigned to Caxton's press on the Continent, probably at Bruges.

About 1476 Caxton returned to England, and set up his press at Westminster. It has been asserted that he worked in the scriptorium, but it is not known that Westminster Abbey ever had a scriptorium. Others have thought that he printed in some other part of the Abbey. His office, however, was situated in the Almonry, in the Abbey precincts, and was called the Red Pale, but it is now impossible to identify the place where it stood. In 1477 Caxton produced The Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first book, so far as is known, ever printed in England.

The Westminster printer was patronised by the king and by the mighty of the land, and also by the Duchess of Burgundy, and with his pen, as well as with his press, he sought to supply the books and literature which the taste of the time demanded. “The clergy wanted service-books,” says Mr Blades, “and Caxton accordingly provided them with psalters, commemorations and directories; the preachers wanted sermons, and were supplied with the ‘Golden Legend,’ and other similar books; the ‘prynces, lordes, barons, knyghtes & gentilmen’ were craving for ‘joyous and pleysaunt historyes’ of chivalry, and the press at the ‘Red Pale’ produced a fresh romance nearly every year.” From his arrival at Westminster about 1476 until his death about 1491—the date is not exactly known—Caxton was continually occupied in translating, editing, and printing, though beyond the prologues, epilogues, and colophons to his various publications he composed little himself, his principal work being the addition of a book to Higden's Polychronicon, bringing that history down to 1460. His translations number twenty-two.

The long list of his printed works includes a Horæ, printed about 1478, and now represented only by a fragment, which is of great interest as being probably the earliest English-printed service-book extant. It was found in the cover of another old book, and is now in the Bodleian Library.

Other books printed by Caxton were the Canterbury Tales; Boethius; Parvus et Magnus Catho, a mediæval school-book, the third edition of which contains two woodcuts, probably the earliest produced in England; The Historye of Reynart the Foxe, translated from the Dutch by Caxton; A Book of the Chesse Moralysed, a second edition of the Game and Play of the Chesse, printed by Caxton abroad; The Cronicles of Englond; The Pylgremage of the Sowle, believed to have been translated from the French by Lydgate; Gower's Confessio Amantis; The Knyght of the Toure, translated by Caxton from the French; The Golden Legend, consisting of lives of saints compiled by Caxton from French and Latin texts; The Fables of Esope, etc., translated by Caxton from the French; Chaucer's Book of Fame; Troylus and Creside; Malory's Morte d'Arthur; The Book of Good Manners, translated by Caxton from the French of Jacques Legrand; Statutes of Henry VII., in English, the “earliest known volume of printed statutes”; The Governal of Helthe, from the Latin, author and translator unknown, the “earliest medical work printed in English”; Divers Ghostly Matters, including tracts on the seven points of true love and everlasting wisdom, the Twelve Profits of Tribulation, and the Rule of St Benet; The Fifteen Oes and other Prayers, printed by command of “our liege ladi Elizabeth … Quene of Englonde, and of the … pryncesse Margarete,” and the “prouffytable boke for mānes soule and right comfortable to the body and specyally in aduersitee and trybulacyon, whiche boke is called The Chastysing of Goddes Chyldern.”

Between seventy and eighty different books, besides indulgences and other small productions, are attributed to Caxton's press, and the works just named will serve to give an idea of their diversity and range. Some of the most popular were printed more than once; of the Golden Legend, for example, three editions are known, and of the Dictes or Sayings, the Horæ, and Parvus et Magnus Catho, and several others, two editions are known. There is also a strong probability that many of Caxton's productions have been lost altogether, since thirty-eight of those yet extant are represented either by single copies or by fragments.

In 1480, three or four years after Caxton had settled at Westminster, John Lettou, a foreigner of whom little is known, established the first London printing-press.[4] His workmanship was particularly good, and he was the first in this country to print two columns to the page. He subsequently took into partnership William de Machlinia, and according to the colophon of their Tenores Novelli the office of these two printers was located in the Church of All Saints', but this piece of information is too vague to assist in the identification of the spot. Machlinia is afterwards found working alone in an office near the Flete Bridge. His later books were printed in Holborn.

A well-known name is that of Wynkyn de Worde, a native of Holland, and at one time assistant to Caxton. At Caxton's death he became master of the Red Pale, and issued a number of books “from Caxton's house in Westminster,” including reprints of several of Caxton's publications. He made use of some modified forms of Caxton's device, but he also had a device of his own, which first appears in the Book of Courtesye printed some time before 1493. He printed, among other works, the Golden Legend, the Book of Courtesye, Bonaventura's Speculum Vitæ Christi, Higden's Polychronicon, which appeared in 1495 and is the first English book with printed musical notes; Bartholomæus' De Proprietatibus Rerum, which appeared about 1495 and is the first book printed on English-made paper, and which has already been noticed as the authority for supposing that Caxton learned printing at Cologne; the Boke of St Albans, the Chronicles of England, Morte D'Arthur, The Canterbury Tales, etc., etc. He also issued a host of sermons, almanacs, and other minor works.

In 1500 Wynkyn de Worde moved from Caxton's house in Westminster to the Sign of the Sun, in Fleet Street, and presently opened another place of business at the Sign of Our Lady of Pity, in St Paul's Churchyard.

About a year after Caxton had established himself at the Red Pale, and had issued the Dictes or Sayengis, and two years before the city of London had attained to the dignity of a printing-press, typography began to be practised at Oxford, but by whom is not known, though very possibly by Theodore Rood of Cologne. The first Oxford book was the Exposicio in Simbolum Apostolorum of St Jerome, a work which happens to be dated 1468, and has thereby led some to assign to Oxford the credit of having printed the first book in this country. But that date is now acknowledged to be a printer's error for 1478. A similar misprint led to a similar error as to the first book printed in Venice. The Decor Puellarum, executed by Nicolas Jenson, purports to have appeared in 1461, and thus was at one time supposed to be the first book printed in Venice, but the date is now recognised as a misprint for 1471, which leaves John of Spires the first Venetian printer and his Epistolæ familiares of Cicero, 1469, the first Venetian printed book.

Cambridge was more than forty years later than Oxford in providing herself with a printing-press.

In the same year that London began to print appeared the first books from the press at the Abbey of St Albans, namely, Augustini Dacti elegancie, and the Nova Rhetorica of Saona. As both were printed in 1480 it is uncertain which is the earlier. This press was probably started in 1479, but of the printer nothing is known, except that when Wynkyn de Worde reprinted the Chronicles of England from a copy printed at St Albans, he refers to him as the St Albans “scole mayster.” The famous Bokys of Haukyng and Huntyng, and also of Cootarmuris, commonly known as the Book of St Albans, written by the accomplished Juliana Berners, prioress of the neighbouring nunnery of Sopwell, was printed at the monastery in 1486, and reprinted ten years later by Wynkyn de Worde.

CHAPTER XII

EARLY PRINTING IN SCOTLAND

Scotland was one of the last of the countries of Europe to appreciate the advantages of typography so far as to possess herself of a printing-press. She was also, as we have pointed out in a previous chapter, the only one, save England, and possibly Holland, to have the art of printing brought to her by one of her own sons and not by a foreigner.

The first Scottish printer was Andrew Myllar, an Edinburgh bookseller, who imported books from England and from France, and who, in the latter country, learned how to print. Two books are extant which were printed for him on the continent, probably at Rouen by Laurence Hostingue, and these are worth noticing. The first may speak for itself, through its colophon, of which the following is a translation:—“The Book of certain ‘Words Equivocal,’ in alphabetical order, along with an interpretation in the English tongue, has been happily finished. Which Andrew Myllar, a Scotsman, has been solicitous should be printed, with admirable art and corrected with diligent care, both in orthographic style, according to the ability available, and cleared from obscurity. In the year of the Christian Redemption, One thousand five hundred and fifth.” The second book is an Expositio Sequentiarum, or Book of Sequences, of the Salisbury use, printed in 1506.

It is believed that the favour and encouragement shown to Myllar and Chepman by the King was the result of the influence of William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, who had prepared a Breviary, Breviarum Aberdonense, which he wished to be used by his countrymen to the exclusion of the Salisbury Missal, and that the real purpose of the promotion of the first printing-press in Scotland was the printing of this work. For the privilege goes on to say: “And alis it is divisit and thocht expedient be us and our consall, that in tyme cuming mess bukis, efter our awin scottis use, and with legendis of Scottis sanctis, as is now gaderit and ekit be ane Reverend fader in God, and our traist consalour Williame bischope of abirdene and utheris, be usit generaly within al our Realme alssone as the sammyn may be imprentit and providet, and that na maner of sic bukis of Salusbery use be brocht to be sauld within our Realme in tym cuming.” Anyone infringing this decree was to be punished and the books forfeited.

But the earliest work of the Southgate press consisted of literature of a lighter sort, and, when dated at all, is dated 1508, while the Breviary did not make its appearance till later. These early productions, which survive only in fragments, included The Porteous of Noblenes, The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane, Sir Eglamoure of Artoys, The Maying or Disport of Chaucer, and several others. The Maying or Disport of Chaucer is the most perfect specimen remaining, and its exact date can be ascertained from its colophon, which reads as follows:—

Heir endis the maying and disport of Chaucer. Imprētit in the southgait of Edinburgh be Walter chepman and Androw myllar the fourth day of aprile the yhere of God M.CCCCC. and viii yheris.

The Maying and Disport is better known as the Complaynt of a Lover's Life, or the Complaynt of the Black Knight.

Strange to say, we hear no more of Myllar after this. But Chepman comes forward again in connection with the Breviary (though it is uncertain whether he was its printer), and probably printed some other books which have been lost. The Breviary is a small octavo in two volumes, the first of which appeared in 1509 and the other in 1510. It is printed in red and black Gothic characters. The conclusion of the Latin colophon to the second volume may be rendered as follows:—

“Printed in the town of Edinburgh, by the command and at the charge of the honourable gentleman Walter Chepman, merchant in the said town, on the fourth day of June in the year of our Lord 1510.”

The next Scottish printer, so far as is known, was a certain John Story, though only an Office of Our Lady of Pity, accompanied by a legend on the subject of the relics of St Andrew, remains to testify to us of his existence. It was printed “by command of Charles Steele,” and Dr Dickson dates it at (perhaps) about 1520.

Rather more than twenty years later, Thomas Davidson became King's Printer in Edinburgh. His only dated work was The Nevv Actis And Constitvtionis of Parliament Maid Be The Rycht Excellent Prince Iames The Fift Kyng of Scottis 1540. The title-page of this book consists of a large woodcut of the Scottish arms, above which is the title in four lines printed in Roman capitals. This book also displays all three forms of type—black letter, Roman, and Italic. Its colophon, which is printed in Italics, is as follows:—

Imprentit in Edinburgh, be Thomas Davidson, dweling abone the nether bow, on the north syde of the gait, the aucht day of Februarii, the zeir of God. 1541. zeris.

But there is some of Davidson's undated work which is earlier than this, though it is not known for certain when he began to print. Of these undated publications, Ad Serenissimum Scotorum Regem Iacobum Quintum de suscepto Regni Regimine a diis feliciter ominato Strena is notable as affording the earliest example of the use of Roman type by a Scottish printer, for its title is printed in these characters. Only one copy is known, and that is in the British Museum. Opinions differ as to its date, but the majority assign it to the year 1528.

Davidson's most important production, however, was his beautiful folio edition of Bellenden's translation of Hector Boece's work, The hystory and croniklis of Scotland. This, says Dr Dickson, is “an almost unrivalled specimen of early British typography. It is one of those gems which the earlier period of the art so frequently produced, but which no future efforts of the press have surpassed or even equalled.” It has a title-page similar to that of the Nevv Actis, but the title itself is printed in handsome red Gothic characters. Dr Dickson, to whose learned Annals of Scottish Printing (completed, on account of the author's ill-health, by Mr J. P. Edmond) I am indebted for the details of early Scottish typography given above, assigns this book to the year 1542.

Having seen the printing-press fairly set to work in Scotland, it will not be necessary here to notice its later productions. But before closing the chapter it will be interesting to observe that Edinburgh was the place of publication of the first work printed in the Gaelic language. This was Bishop Carswell's translation of the Scottish Prayer-Book, which was printed in 1567 by Roibeard (Robert) Lekprevik. It is in the form of Gaelic common at that time to both Scotland and Ireland, and therefore as regards language it forestalls the Irish Alphabet and Catechism, Dublin, 1571, to which reference is made below. The type of Carswell's Prayer-Book, however, is Roman. The following is a translation of its title-page, made by Dr M'Lauchlan:—

FORMS OF
Prayer and

administration of the sacraments and catechism of the Christian faith, here below. According as they are practised in the churches of Scotland which have loved and accepted the faithful gospel of God, on having put away the false faith, turned from the Latin and English into Gaelic by Mr John Carswell Minister of the Church of God in the bounds of Argyll, whose other name is Bishop of the Isles.

No other foundation can any man lay save that which is laid even Jesus Christ.

1 Cor. 3.

Printed in dún Edin whose other name is Dún monaidh the 24th day of April 1567,

By Roibeard Lekprevik.

Lekprevik, whose first work, so far as is known, was produced in 1561, printed not only in Edinburgh, but also in Stirling and St Andrews, at different times.

CHAPTER XIII

EARLY PRINTING IN IRELAND

In heading a chapter “Early Printing in Ireland,” one is somewhat reminded of the celebrated chapter on snakes. As a matter of fact, however, there is no real analogy. Ireland was very slow to adopt the printing-press, and made little use of it when she did adopt it, yet it would not be quite accurate to say that there was no early printing in Ireland. But it can truthfully be said that Ireland's early printing was late—late, that is, compared with that of other countries.

The first typographical work known to have been produced in Ireland is the Book of Common Prayer—the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI.—which was printed in Dublin in 1551 by Humfrey Powell. Powell was a printer in Holborn Conduit in 1548, and in 1551 went to Dublin and set up as King's Printer. A “Proclamation … against the rebels of the O'Conors.… Imprynted at Dublyn, by Humfrey Powell, 16th August, 1564,” seems to be the only other known specimen of his Dublin printing.

The colophon of the first book printed on Irish ground is as follows:—

Imprinted by Humfrey Powell, Printer to the Kynges Maiestie, in his hyghnesse realme of Ireland, dwellyng in the citee of Dublin in the great toure by the Crane.

Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum
Anno Domini
M.D.LI.

This Prayer-book is exceedingly rare. The British Museum possesses no copy, but has to content itself with photographs showing the title, colophon, etc., of that in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. Emanuel College, Cambridge, has one which formerly belonged to Archbishop Sancroft. Cotton, in his Typographical Gazetteer, says that Powell's Prayer-book is most creditable to the early Irish press. It is in the English language, and printed in black letter.

The first book printed in the Gaelic language, though in Roman type, has already been spoken of. The first Gaelic type was exhibited to the world in a tiny volume of fifty-four pages printed at Dublin in 1571, and entitled Irish Alphabet and Catechism. This was compiled by John O'Kearney, and contained the elements of the Irish language, the Catechism, some prayers, and Archbishop Parker's articles of the Christian rule. The following is a facsimile of the title-page to which a translation is added:—

Irish Alphabet and Catechism.

Precept or instruction of a Christian, together with certain articles of the Christian rule, which are proper for everyone to adopt who would be submissive to the ordinance of God and of the Queen in this Kingdom; translated from Latin and English into Irish by John O'Kearney.

Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?
Arise, cast us not off for ever.

Ps. xliv. ver. 23.

---

Printed in Irish in the town of the Ford of the Hurdles, at the cost of Master John Usher, alderman, at the head of the Bridge, the 20th day of June 1571.

With the privilege of the great Queen.

---

1571

This book was produced by John O'Kearney, sometime treasurer of St Patrick's Cathedral, and his friend Nicholas Walsh, chancellor of St Patrick's and afterwards Bishop of Ossory, and the John Usher who defrayed the expense was then Collector of Customs of the port of Dublin. Its appearance was considered a momentous event by those concerned with it, for great benefits were anticipated for the Irish people as soon as “their national tongue and its own dear alphabet” were reduced to print, as O'Kearney states at some length in the preface. He also tells us that the types from which this volume was printed were provided “at the cost of the high, pious, great, and mighty prince Elizabeth.”

In this connection it is worth while to notice two extant records, one among the State Papers (Irish Series) and the other among the Acts of the Privy Council. From the first, made some time in December 1567, we gather that Queen Elizabeth had already paid £66. 13s. 4d. “for the making of carecters for the testament in irishe,” and that this Testament was not yet in the press. The second (August 1587) states that the New Testament was translated into Irish by Walsh and O'Kearney, but “never imprynted, partlie for want of proper characters and men of that nacion and language skillful in the mystery of pryntyng,” and partly on account of the cost.

I can find no other record of the provision of a fount of Irish types at the Queen's expense, and having no more definite information at hand on this point, and taking into consideration the contents of the book—an Irish alphabet, and directions for reading Irish, and a catechism, etc. (by way of exercise?)—its diminutive size and the imperfection of its print, I venture the suggestion that O'Kearney's work was printed as a trial of the new types given by the Queen and intended for printing the New Testament. This view is supported by the first words of the preface: “Here, O reader, you have the first value and fruit of that great instructive work, which I have been producing and devising for you for a long time, that is, the faithful and perfect type of the Gaelic tongue.” The conclusion seems to be that the types were inadequate for the larger work, and that for some reason there was a difficulty about supplying more or finding anyone to undertake the printing.

The preface further says, after requesting corrections and amendments as regards the typography: “And it is not alone that I am asking you to give this kind friendly correction to the printing, but also to the translation or rendering made of this catechism put forth as far back as 1563 of the age of the Lord and [which] is now more correct and complete, with the principal articles of the Christian faith associated therewith.” This has led some to think that there was an earlier edition of the Alphabet and Catechism. But it seems plain that O'Kearney refers to the Catechism only, not to the whole book, and equally plain that the 1563 work, whatever it was, was not printed in Irish type, or there would have been no special occasion to glorify the 1571 Alphabet and Catechism. Since nothing is known of the Catechism of 1563, it is very possible that it existed only in manuscript and never went to press.

I have gone into this matter of the Irish Alphabet and Catechism of 1571 somewhat at length, because I am not aware that it has ever yet received detailed attention. The quotations I have given from the preface are from an anonymous manuscript translation inserted in the British Museum copy.

O'Kearney's Irish Alphabet and Catechism is so rare that only three copies are known to exist: one being in the British Museum, one in the Bodleian Library, and one in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. The fount of types from which it was printed was not quite correct; for instance, the small Roman “a” is used, and an “H” is introduced, a letter foreign to the Gaelic alphabet.

During the seventeenth century, and even later, most of the Irish books were sent to be printed on the continent or in England. Several books by Irish authors, chiefly catechisms, works on the language, and dictionaries, bear the names of Louvain, Antwerp, Rome or Paris, such as the Catechism of Bonaventure Hussey, printed at Louvain in 1608, and reprinted at Antwerp in 1611 and 1618.

CHAPTER XIV

BOOK BINDINGS

A book as we know it is usually contained in a case or cover intended primarily for its protection. The fastening together of the different sections of the book, and the providing it with a cover, and, incidentally, the decoration of that cover, come under the head of bookbinding, or bibliopegy, as the learned call it. The process of binding consists of two parts: first, the arrangement of the leaves and sections in proper order, their preparation for sewing by beating or pressing, the stitching of them together, and the fastening of them into the cover. This is called “forwarding.” The other half of the work is the lettering and decoration of the cover, and is called “finishing.” With the decoration of the cover only can we concern ourselves here.

The art of binding books is far older than the art of printing. The first known attempt to provide a cover by way of protection for a document was made by the workman who devised a clay case for the clay tablet-books of Babylonia, but this is as far from our notion of bookbinding as the tablets themselves are from our notion of books. Nor do the Roman bindings, which consisted of coloured parchment wrappers, come much nearer the modern conception. The ivory cases of the double-folding wax tablets or diptychs, too, of the second and third centuries, A.D., are also outside the pale, strictly speaking, but they deserve mention on account of the beautiful carving with which they are decorated, and on which some of the finest Byzantine art was expended.

One of the earliest bookbinders or book-cover decorators whose name has come down to us was Dagæus, an Irish monk, and a clever worker in metals. Among the many beautiful objects in metal wrought in the old Irish monasteries were skilfully designed covers and clasps for the books which were so highly prized in the “Isle of Saints.” Nor were covers alone deemed sufficient protection from wear and tear. Satchels, or polaires, such as that mentioned in Adamnan's story of the miraculous preservation of St Columba's Hymn-book, were in common use for conveying books from place to place. Very few specimens now remain, but there is one at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, containing an Irish missal, and another, which is preserved at Trinity College, Dublin, together with the Book of Armagh, to which it belongs, is thus described by the Rev. T. K. Abbott, in the Book of Trinity College:—

“An interesting object connected with the Book of Armagh is its leather satchel, finely embossed with figures of animals and interlaced work. It is formed of a single piece of leather, 36 in. long and 12½ broad, folded so as to make a flat-sided pouch, 12 in. high, 12¾ broad, and 2¼ deep. Part of it is doubled over to make a flap, in which are eight brass-bound slits, corresponding to as many brass loops projecting from the case, in which ran two rods, meeting in the middle, where they were secured by a lock. In early times, in Irish monastic libraries, books were kept in such satchels, which were suspended by straps from hooks in the wall. Thus it is related in an old legend that ‘on the night of Longaradh's death all the book-satchels in Ireland fell down.’”

In Ireland, too, specially valuable volumes were enclosed in a book-shrine, or cumhdach; and although, like the satchels, these cumhdachs are not bindings in the proper sense of the word, yet since they were intended for the same purpose as bindings, that is, the protection of the book, it will not be out of place to speak of them here.

The use of bookshrines in Ireland was very possibly the survival of an early custom of the primitive Church. It seems to have been applied chiefly, if not always, to books too precious or sacred to be read. We are told that a Psalter belonging to the O'Donels was fastened up in a case that was not to be opened; and were it ever unclosed, deaths and disasters would ensue to the clan. If borne by a priest of unblemished character thrice round their troops before a battle, it was believed to have the power of granting them victory, provided their cause were a righteous one.

Cumhdachs were also used in Scotland, but no Scottish examples have survived. The oldest cumhdach now existing is one in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, which was made for the MS. known as Molaise's Gospels, at the beginning of the eleventh century. It is of bronze, and ornamented with silver plates bearing gilt patterns. Another book-shrine, made for the Stowe Missal a little later, is of oak, covered with silver plates, and decorated with a large oval crystal in the middle of one side. The Book of Kells once had a golden cumhdach, we are told, or, more correctly, perhaps, a cumhdach covered with gold plates; but when the book was stolen from the church of Kells in 1006 it was despoiled of its costly case, with which the robbers made off, leaving the most precious part of their booty, the book itself, lying on the ground hidden by a sod.

One of the earliest bookbinders in this country was a bishop, Ethilwold of Lindisfarne, who bound the great Book of the Gospels that his predecessor Eadfrid had written. For the same book Billfrið the anchorite made a beautiful metal cover, gilded and bejewelled. The Lindisfarne Gospels still exists, but the cover which now contains it, though costly, is quite new. Like most ancient book covers the original one has been lost, or destroyed for the sake of its valuable material.

Among the earlier mediæval bindings those of the Byzantine school of art rank very high. They were exceedingly splendid, for gold was their prevailing feature, and jewels and enamel were also lavished upon them.

The ordinary books of the middle ages were usually bound in substantial oak boards covered with leather, and often having clasps, corners, and protecting bosses of metal. In the twelfth century the English leather bindings produced at London, Winchester, Durham and other centres, were pre-eminent. Miss Prideaux instances some books which were bound for Bishop Pudsey, and which are now in the cathedral library of Durham, as “perhaps the finest monuments of this class of work in existence.” The sides of these volumes are blind-tooled; that is, the designs are impressed by means of dies or tools with various patterns and representations of men and of fabulous creatures, but not gilded.

Certain volumes, however, were treated with particular honour, either at the expense of a wealthy and book-loving owner, or for the purpose of presentation to some great personage, and for these sumptuous bindings the materials employed were various and costly. A Latin psalter which was written for Melissenda, wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou and King of Jerusalem, has a very wonderful French binding. The covers are of wood, and each bears a series of delicate ivory carvings of Byzantine work. The upper cover shows incidents in the life of David, and symbolical figures, and the lower cover scenes representing the works of Mercy, with figures of birds and animals. Rubies and turquoises dotted here and there help to beautify the ivory. This book is in the British Museum.