Wynkyn de Worde

“ In 1577 Richard Robinson published a revised edition of Wynkyn de Worde, and the book proved highly popular. Between 1648 and 1703 at least eight impressions were issued. In 1703 appeared the first vol. of a translation by B. P., probably Bartholomew Pratt, “from the Latin edition of 1514.” A translation by the Rev. C. Swan, first published in 2 vols. in 1824, forms part of Bonn’s antiquarian library, and was re-edited by Wynnard Hooper in 1877 (see also the latter’s edition in 1894) . ”

“ None the less, it was hard on a young industry, and though Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, the Faques, Berthelet, Wolfe, John Day, and others produced fine books in England during the sixteenth century, the start given to the Continental presses was too great, and before our printers had fully caught up their competitors, they too were seized with the carelessness and almost incredible bad taste which marks the books of the first half of the seventeenth century in every country of Europe. ”

“ A reversed semicolon was used as a question mark. Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton’s successor in the printing business in London, used five points in 1509. They were the period, the semicolon, the comma, the “interrogative,” and the parenthesis.
The systematization of punctuation is due mainly to the careful and scholarly Aldus Manutius, who had opened a printing office in Venice in 1494. The great printers of the early day were great scholars as well. For a very long time the chief concern of the printer was the opening of the treasures of ancient thought to the world. ”

“ When the illustrations were more profuse, they were too often produced from worn blocks, purchased from French publishers, or rudely copied from French originals, and used again and again without a thought as to their relevance to the text. It must also be owned that many of Wynkyn de Worde's cheap books are badly set up and badly printed, and that altogether his reputation stands rather higher than his work as a printer really deserves. ”

“ COPLAND, ROBERT (fl. 1515) , English printer and author, is said to have been a servant of William Caxton, and certainly worked for Wynkyn de Worde. The first book to which his name is affixed as a printer is The Boke of Justices of Peace (1515) , at the sign of the Rose Garland, in Fleet Street, London. Anthony à Wood supposed, on the ground that he was more educated than was usual in his trade, that he had been a poor scholar of Oxford. ”

“ Nevertheless it can hardly be disputed that as a matter of fact they were, with very few exceptions, third-rate, the superiority of Pynson’s to Wynkyn de Worde’s being somewhat less striking than is usually asserted. In the absence of the needed help and guidance it was better to make a sober dignity the ideal of book-production than to continue to deface decently printed books by the use of job lots of column cuts. The borders and other ornaments used by Berthelet, Reyner Wolfe, and Grafton, the three principal firms of this period, are at least moderately good. ”

“ These are The Chastising of Gods Children, The Book of Courtesye, and the Treatise of Love, printed with type No. 6; but, in addition to these, two other books, probably in the press at the time of Caxton's death, were issued from the Westminster office without a printer's name, but printed in a type resembling type 4*. These are an edition of the Golden Legend and the Life of St. Catherine of Sienna. Wynkyn de Worde's name is found for the first time in the Liber Festivalis, printed in 1493. ”

“ From similarity of style and identity of measurement we can pick out a few from Wynkyn de Worde's later editions, but many must be passed over.
On turning to examine the presses at work at the same time as Caxton's one cannot but be struck by the scarcity of illustrations. Lettou and Machlinia, though they produced over thirty books, had no ornaments that we know of beyond a border which was used in their edition of the Horae ad usum Sarum, and passed into the hands of Pynson. They seem to have been without everything except type, not having even initial letters. ”

“ Two at least of the old morality plays, 'Every Man' and 'Hyckscorner,' are prefaced with cuts, to some of which the names of the characters are attached on labels, so that we may be sure of their identity. Unfortunately most of these little figures are poor copies of those used in a French translation of 'Terence,' published by Antoine Vérard. In 'Hyckscorner' Wynkyn de Worde went farther. To fill up a gap on his title-page he inserts a picture of an elephant with a howdah on his back. ”

“ F.R.S. Treasurer WILLIAM JERDAN, Esq. F.S.A. SAMUEL LOVER, Esq. CHARLES MACKAY, Esq. E. F. RIMBAULT, Esq. Secretary. THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq. M.A. F.S.A. INTRODUCTION. [5] There are three early humorous tracts in verse upon the subject of marriage, all printed by Wynkyn de Worde: only one of them has a date, 1535, but we can have little difficulty in assigning the two others to about the same period. They have the following titles.
1. “A complaynt of them that be to soone maryed.”
2. “Here begynneth the complaynte of them that ben to late maryed.”
3. “The payne and sorowe of evyll maryage.” ”

“ Good lack, imagine the poor pedler tramping with a pack of books to Bristol or Winchester! Before he could reach either city through our wild roads, he would have his throat {164} cut or be starved. Master Wynkyn, we shall always have a narrow market till the king mends his highways, and that will never be."
"I am rather for trying, Master Wynkyn," said Lettou, "some good cutting jest against our friends in the Abbey, such as Dan Chaucer expounded touching the friars. That would sell in these precincts."
"Hush!" exclaimed Wynkyn: "the good fathers are our friends ”

“ With sudden force it struck Wynne that he should define his ideals, and know precisely at what he aimed. It was good for a man to be certain of those things for which he would be prepared to lay down his life. ”

“ Here Wynnie spoke, though with some tremor in her voice.
"I never know, papa, what people mean by talking about childhood in that way. I never seem to have been a bit younger and more innocent than I am."
"Don't you remember a time, Wynnie, when the things about you—the sky and the earth, say—seemed to you much grander than they seem now? You are old enough to have lost something." ”

“ He nods towards Llangorren Court.
"You are merry, Monsieur. But your jests are out of place—in presence of the misery around us."
"You may some day," he goes on, without heeding her observation.
"Yes; when the sky falls we may catch larks. You seem to forget that Mademoiselle Wynn is younger than either of us, and by the natural laws of life will outlive both. Must, unless she break her neck in the hunting-field, get drowned out of a boat, or meet some other mischance." ”

“ In a minute Wynkin would have laid him by the heels, but suddenly up rose a tremendous flare, for the lantern had fallen open as it dropped and the light had caught the gorse, and the strange part of it all was that, as the bush broke into one huge flame, it fell disappearing into the ground, as if there was a deep hole beneath. Looking down, that was precisely what Wynkin beheld, a deep hole, bricked round, and in one side a half-open grated door. ”

“ He flung himself into the work with an energy truly remarkable. From early morning till midnight he battled with the craft, and thought and talked of nothing else. In the cafés, where students met and thrashed out their thousand ideas, Wynne was well bethought, for although his skill with a brush was small he could advance and support a theory with the liveliest talker in the Quartier. His success in argument was, perhaps, not altogether of advantage to his immortal soul, since it led him to cultivate a cynical attitude toward most affairs. ”

“ And so you are Wynne of Wyneote, and lost it.”
“For a greater gain,” said my father. “My son has a silly fancy for the old place, but it is lost—lost—sold; and if we could have it at a word, it would grieve me to see him cast in his lot among a set of drunken, dicing, hard-riding squires—a godless set. It will never be if I can help it. My son has left the creed of his father and of mine, and I am glad that his worldly pride cannot be further tempted. ”

“ Earle, he wishes, and Miss Wynn, she—well, she don't say much. I suppose she knows a fellow can't stand it; but she means it. I think most every Sunday that she will bring some of us around before long, in spite of ourselves. ”

“ Wynne had never seen his father’s office, but at the age of seven he had already formed very pronounced and unfavourable views regarding it. To his mind the office and the City were one—a place which swallowed up mankind in the morning and disgorged them at night. The process of digestion through which they appeared to have passed produced characteristics of a distressing order.
A child judges men by his father, and women by his mother. From this standard Wynne judged that men might be tolerable were it not for the City. ”

“ A just man would not accuse a sweep of possessing a blackened soul because his face was sooted from sweeping the flues. The instance may sound trivial enough, but it is no less trivial than the train of thought running through Wynne’s lightly-poised mind as he contemplated the wife of his own making. ”

“ Slightly troubled, in spite of Wynn's hearty manner, Low, with his usual directness however, said, "I do not want any one to deny that I have seen Miss Nellie."
"Certainly, certainly," said Wynn, abandoning his method, considerably disconcerted by Low's simplicity, and a certain natural reserve that shook off his familiarity. "Certainly it's a noble thing to be able to put your hand on your heart and say to the world, 'Come on, all of you! Observe me; I have nothing to conceal. I walk with Miss Wynn in the woods as her instructor—her teacher, in fact. We cull a flower here and there ”

“ When Wynne departed from that erudite circle he felt almost sublime—like nightingales sang their words of praise. A wild elation prompted him to sing, to dance, to fill his lungs with the thin air of the high peaks to which he had leapt. With youth in one hand and success in the other there were no limits to the achievements which might be his. ”

“ Caxton's Type.
"The people, I tell you," exclaimed Wynkyn. "The babe in the cradle wants an Absey-book; the maid at her distaff wants a ballad; the priest wants his Pie; the young lover wants a romance of chivalry to read to his mistress; the lawyer wants his Statutes; the scholar wants his Virgil and Cicero. They will all want more the more they are supplied. How many in England have a book at all, think you? Let us make books cheaper by printing more of them at once. The churchwardens of St. Margaret's asked me six-and-eightpence yesterday for the volume that our master left the parish ”

“ The hour for walking was four, and a few minutes after the clocks had struck, Maurice and Philip started out. It was a dull and lowering afternoon, and the narrow, street was already gloomy with shadows. Half unconsciously Wynne found himself casting about in his mind for topics of conversation which should be free from the personal element. Now that the time for confidences had come, he shrank from words. He reproached himself, and then half peevishly thought: "I seem nowadays to do nothing but to find fault with myself for things that I can't help feeling!" ”

“ In common with many folk, Wynne thought more highly of his lesser deeds than of his greater, and vaunted them enthusiastically. He was inordinately proud of his truculence and acerbity to men who were more successful than himself, and took pleasure in recounting the fine-edged verbal tools he had employed against them. He was mortally offended when Eve told him frankly the attitude was unworthy and easily misconstrued. ”

“ The habitual constrains men even in the midst of events the most startling. The mind of Wynne had been too long bred in priestly forms not to turn to the religious view here in the face of death. His conscience cried out that he might be responsible for the peril and disaster which had come upon them. With the unconscious egotism of the devotee, he felt that heaven had been avenging the impiousness of his sin. He had dared to trifle with his sacred calling, to look back to the loves of the world and of the flesh, and swift destruction had overtaken him. ”

“ Miss Wynn gathered books about her, and in the days of April and May she and Alwyn read up on education. He marvelled at the subtlety of her mind, and she at the relentlessness of his. They were very near each other during these days, and yet there was ever something between them: a vision to him of dark and pleading eyes that he constantly saw beside her cool, keen glance. And he to her was always two men: one man above men, whom she could respect but would not marry, and one man like all men, whom she would marry but could not respect. ”

“ Force.
“What is it?” inquired Wynnette, drawing near her parents, while Elva and Rosemary looked the interest that they did not put into words.
“A letter from your Uncle Enderby, my dears, inviting us all to come over and make him a long visit.”
“Oh! that would be delightful, mamma. Can we not go?” eagerly inquired Wynnette.
“Perhaps. You will all graduate at the end of this current term, and then, perhaps, we can go with advantage, but not before.”
“Oh, that will be joyful, joyful, joyful!” sang Wynnette, in the words of a revival hymn.
“But what will Le and Odalite do?” ”