' CAXTON, WILLIAM, who introduced printing into England, was b. in the Weald of Kent, about 1422. The particulars of the life of this great benefactor of his country are scanty. He was apprenticed in 1439 to Robert Large, a wealthy London mercer. At the death of the latter in 1441, he went to Bruges, where in 1462 or 1463 he seems to have been governor of a chartered association of English adventurers trading to foreign parts. In 1471, C. entered the service of Margaret, the duchess of Burgundy, formerly an English princess; and apparently towards the end of 1476 he set up his wooden printing press at the sign of the red pale in the ahnonry at "Westminster. The art of printing he had acquired during his sojourn in Bruges, doubtless from Colard Mansion, a well known printer of that city; and in 1474 he put through the press the first book printed in the English tongue, the Reeayell of the Ifistoryes of Tro-ye, a translation of Raoul le Fevre's work. The Game and Playe of the Chem(' was another of C.'s curliest publica
tions; but the Dietes and Notable Wise Sayings of the PhaosophiTs, published in 1477, is the first book which can with certainty be maintained to have been printed in England. All the eight founts of type from which C. printed may be called black letter. Of the 99 known distinct productions of C.'s press, no less than 38 survive in single copies or in fragments only. C., who was an accomplished linguist, and translated many of the works that issued from his press, was diligent in the exercise of his craft or in transla tion till within a few hours of his death, which seems to have happened about the close of the year 1491. In 1877; 'the printer and bia work were fittingly commemorated by a typographical exhibition in London. See The Old Printer and the New Press, by Charles Knight (1854); Life and Ipography of William C. (1861-63), by W. Blades; and the Biography and I'ypography of C. (1877), by the same author.