Caxton, William

William (1422-1491), the first English printer. He was a wealthy London silk merchant. While a commercial envoy at the court of Burgundy, he caught the book-collecting fever. Books had been coming from German presses for thirty years. In 1474, eighteen years before the discovery of America, he translated a History of Troy from the French and printed it for sale. This was the first book printed in England. A year later he published The Game and Playe of the Chesse. He then went into the business extensively at Westminster, then a suburb of London. Books from the Caxton press are the poems of Chaucer, Gower, Aesop's Fables, Reynard, the Fox, a version of the Aeneid, Malory's Mort d'Arthur, and various manuals for the use of the clergy, in all sixty-four, or, so others say, ninety-nine volumes. He offered his most expensive volumes at six pounds, about thirty dollars. A volume sold recently at a London book auction fetched $10,000. See Book; Printing

A list of the books printed by Caxton: Pilgrimage of the Soul; Directions for keeping Feasts all the Year; Four Sermons; The Golden Legend (a collection of lives of the Saints), three editions; The Art and Craft to know well to Die, from the French; The Infancy of our Saviour; The Life of St. Catherine of Sens; Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ; A Directory of Church Worship; A Book of Divers Ghostly Matters; The Life of St. Wynefrid; The Provincial Constitutions of Bishop Lyndwood of St. Asaph, in Latin; The Profitable Book of Man's Soul, called the Chastising of God's Children; The History of Troy, translated from the French; The Book of the Whole Life of Jason; Godfrey of Boloyn; The Knight of the Tower, from the French; The Book Royal, or the Book for a King; A Book of the Noble Histories of King Arthur and of Certain of his Knights; The History of the Noble, Right Valiant, and Right Worthy Knight Paris and of the Fair Vienne; The Book of Feats of Arms and of Chivalry, from the French of Christina of Pisa; The History of King Blanchardine and Queen Eglantine his Wife. To these may be added, the History of Renard the Fox, translated by Caxton from the German; The Subtle Histories and Fables of Aesop, from the French; The Works of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate; Translations of Cicero, Boethius, Virgil, from the French, and Cato; Chronicles of England; The Description of Britain; The Polychronicon; The Life of Charles the Great, twice printed; Siege of the Noble and Invincible City of Rhodes; Statutes of the First Year of Richard III., and those of the first, second, and third parliaments of Henry VII.; The Game of Chess; The Moral Proverbs of Christina of Pisa; The Book of Good Manners; The Doctrinal of Sapience, from the French; A Book for Travellers.

Patriarch of the English press! Stranger to the powers that slumber in thy craft, insensible to those elevated conceptions that guide the world's helm, yet thy honest toil for the day and honest hope for the morrow shall accrue to the advantage of mankind continually, forever. Lad--apprentice--mercer--retainer--hoary learner--venerable printer--thou, simple man, by the accident of time and the grace of fortune, shalt live in immortal memory !--Welsh.

Cayenne (ka-en') Pepper, the pulverized fruit of a plant belonging to the same family as the ground cherry, tomato, and potato. It is not a pepper at all, but it was first imported from the port of Cayenne in French Guiana. The proper name is capsicum, but under the name of "red pepper" it has spread from tropical America, and its red, peppery pods are well known in American gardens. The young pods are pickled to make Chile sauce. In spite of a little change in shape and color and a decided difference in taste, one cannot fail to see the marked similarity which the fruit of this plant bears to that of the ground cherry. See Pepper