Henry Bradshaw's ‘Notice of a Fragment of the Fifteen Oes … by William Caxton … in the Library of the Baptist College, Bristol,’ London, 1877. Reproduced in photolithography in 1869. 71. *‘Art and Craft to know how well to die,’ translated from French by Caxton, 15 June 1490, fol. Westminster? 1491? [3]. A similar work, of which a unique copy is in the Bodleian, was issued by Caxton about the same time, ‘Ars Moriendi: the Craft for to die for the Health of Man's Soul,’ apparently translated from the Latin by Caxton. The original has not been identified.
The few French works printed by Colard Mansion before Caxton left Bruges are not included in this list, although Mr. Blades has enumerated them among Caxton's books. There is no proof that Caxton was personally concerned in their publication.
Immediately after Caxton's death Wynkyn de Worde, his assistant, began to print from Caxton's fount and in Caxton's house; and it is difficult to determine, with any certainty, the printer of several books which appeared about 1491, the year of Caxton's death. The following books, often attributed to Caxton, are more probably the work of Wynkyn de Worde, viz.: ‘The Chastising of God's Children,’ fol. 1491? (with title-page); ‘A Treatise of Love,’ fol. 1493?; ‘The Life of St. Katherine, and Revelation of St. Elizabeth of Hungary,’ fol. 1493; and ‘The Siege of Rhodes,’ fol. (cf. Caius, John, fl. 1480)). Wynkyn de Worde states that Caxton printed, at Cologne, a book entitled ‘Bartolomæus de Proprietatibus Rerum,’ of which Wynkyn issued a later edition. No such work is known. In the prologue to ‘The Four Sons of Aymon’ Caxton says that he had translated, at the request of John, earl of Oxford, ‘The Life and Miracles of Robert, earl of Oxford,’ but of this nothing is extant. In the Pepysian Collection (2124) at Magdalene College, Cambridge, is a manuscript (unprinted) translation by Caxton of six books of Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ dated from Westminster, 22 April 1480.
The price of Caxton's books mainly depends on their condition and on the number of copies known to be extant. The highest price paid for a Caxton is 1,950l. This sum was given by Mr. Bernard Quaritch, in behalf of a Chicago merchant, at Sotheby's sale-rooms, on 6 May 1885, for the unique copy of Malory's ‘King Arthur,’ in the Osterley Park Library. At the same time and place 1,820l. was paid for Caxton's ‘Recuyell,’ the first book in the printing of which he was concerned.
[The earliest life of Caxton is that by the Rev. John Lewis of Margate, published in 1737, and later writers, up to 1861, depended almost entirely on Lewis's work. Neither Oldys, in the Biographia Britannica, 1748, nor Ames, in his Typogr. Antiq. 1749, nor Herbert, in his edition of Ames, 1785, nor T. F. Dibdin, in his revision of Ames, with the aid of new notes by Herbert and Gough, added to Lewis's facts, although bibliographical details are treated more elaborately by Dibdin than by any of his predecessors. In 1861 Mr. William Blades superseded all existing lives of Caxton by the first volume of his new life of the printer, which was followed in 1863 by a second volume, treating almost exclusively of Caxton's typography. Abbreviated editions of this book appeared in a single volume in 1877 and 1882, and it is undoubtedly the standard authority. Full reprints are given of original documents, and numerous plates give the reader the opportunity of studying Caxton's varied types. Mr. Blades has also issued a useful little pamphlet, ‘How to tell a Caxton,’ London, 1870, and a short Catalogue of Books printed by Caxton, London, 1865. Mr. Blades's Prefaces to his several reproductions of Caxton's books, mentioned in the list in the text, are also of great service. M. J. P. A. Madden has criticised adversely many of Mr. Blades's conclusions in his Lettres d'un Bibliographe, 4th ser. Paris, 1875, pp. 12–38. Mr. Blades's researches have been largely used in this article, and the writer has also to thank Mr. Bernard Quaritch for kindly supplying him with information respecting recent Caxton sales. See also Wyman and Bigmore's Bibliography of Printing; Beedham's Caxton Reproductions, Iowa, 1879; T. F. Dibdin's Ædes Althorpianæ; Cat. of the British Museum, Cambridge University, Bodleian, Chatsworth, Rylands, and Huth Libraries. In the early part of the eighteenth century an attempt was made to deprive Caxton of the honour of introducing printing into England, and to confer the distinction on Corsellis, a German printer alleged to have settled at Oxford in 1464. For the history of the controversy, and the baselessness of the contention, see art. Richard Atkyns, 1615–1677, supra, and Conyers Middleton's Dissertation concerning the Origin of Printing in England, 1735.]
CAY, JOHN (1700–1757), editor of the ‘Statutes,’ third son of John Cay of North Charlton, Northumberland, by Grace, daughter and coheiress of Henry Wolff of Bridlington, Yorkshire, was born in 1700 (Burke, Landed Gentry, 1868, p. 225). Intended for the legal profession he was entered at Gray's Inn on 3 Sept. 1719, called to the bar by that society on 20 June 1724, and subsequently made a bencher (Gray's Inn Admission Register). In 1750 he was appointed steward and one of the judges of the Marshalsea (Gent. Mag. xx. 429). Cay, as a classical antiquary, was admitted in August 1736 to the Society of Antiquaries. Together with his brother Robert, a merchant at Newcastle-
