The Biography And Typography Of William Caxton

Author : William Blades
Publisher : Theclassics.Us
ISBN 13 : 9781230247397
Total Pages : 116 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (473 download)

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Download or read book The Biography and Typography of William Caxton written by William Blades and published by Theclassics.Us. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ... poems of his composition, displaying, after a copious debate between Mercy and Truth, Justice and Peace, a distinct survey throughout the palace and domains of Sapience, of all the products of nature, in distinct chapters, and of arts and sciences; with his further reference, at the end of each, to the authors who have written on them." Ames says (Typ. Ant., page 67), after quoting the whole of the " Prohemium," "I take Caxton to be the poet or author, by the above verses." This opinion was perhaps too readily adopted. Although there is a curious parallel between the poet's statement of his rude and corrupt speech, and the apology of Caxton in his additions to "The Recuyell" for his " vnperfightness" in English, owing to his having been educated where was "spoken as brode and rude englissh as is in ony place of englond;" and although we know that Caxton could put together a few verses, as in the instance of the last two stanzas of "Moral Proverbs;" yet, judging from the literary ability of his known works and translations, we should hardly be justified in ascribing the authorship of "Curia Sapiential" to him. The plan of this work, in which theology, geography, natural history, horticulture, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy are all in turn described, was certainly too high a flight for our printer. The titles given to this book, "The werke of Sapience" and "Tractatus de Fide et Cantus famule sue," adopted by Ames and other bibliographers, were taken from the first and last lines of the poem. The proper title, "Curia Sapientise," appears at the end of " Liber Primus." Caxton's edition is very scarce. St. John's, Oxford, and Earl Spencer, have copies, and fragments are in the Bodleian and the British Museum....