tions and means of mediæval culture and they impeded the growth of the Renaissance scholarship, One of those who patriotically endeavoured to make the best things of the mind, whether new or old, the possession of the English people was William Caxton. His work at home in England began in 1476, and from that time till his death in 1492, he was indefatigable in bringing out printed books, his pen as well as his presses knowing no rest. Very little, no doubt, of his writing was original, but he rendered a great service to English prose by his numerous translations from the French—then a much more highly developed tongue than English-'from the fair language of France,' as he says, 'which was in prose so well and compendiously written.' He plied the new invention with something of the zealous ardour of the old monastic heroes of the Scriptoria-those multipliers of beautiful manuscripts whose tedious toils, prolonged through so many ages, he was now bringing to a close. His work was extremely wide in its scope. He gave an immensely extended circulation to many romances and tales like the famous Morte d Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory, and brought down upon his memory the reprobation of certain puritan writers, headed by Ascham. His bent was towards the profitable and virtuous, and not inappropriately did the varied procession of his publications close with the biographies of the Fathers of the Church.
examples. On the other hand the intellectual and artistic decline of Germany during and after the Thirty Years' War (1618-164S) supplied a parallel to the state of England in Caxton's day;—a parallel which it might be interesting to consider more fully.
