cter, smaller than No. 3, and
distinguished from any other of Caxton's founts by the short, rounded,
and tailless letter 'y' and the set of capitals with dots. He used it in
the _Liber Festivalis_, the _Ars Moriendi_, and the _Fifteen Oes_, his
only extant book printed with borders, and it was afterwards used by
Wynkyn de Worde.

Caxton died in the year 1491, after a long, busy, and useful life. His
record is indeed a noble one. After spending the greater part of his
life in following the trade to which he was apprenticed, with all its
active and onerous duties, he, at the time of life when most men begin
to think of rest and quiet, set to work to learn the art of printing
books. Nor was he content with this, but he devoted all the time that he
could spare to editing and translating for his press, and according to
Wynkyn de Worde it was 'at the laste daye of his lyff' that he finished
the version of the _Lives of the Fathers_, which De Worde issued in
1495. His work as an editor and translator shows him to have been a man
of extensive reading, fairly acquainted with the French and Dutch
languages, and to have possessed not only an earnest purpose, but with
it a quiet sense of humour, that crops up like ore in a vein of rock in
many of his prologues.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--From Caxton's 'Fifteen Oes.' (Type 6.)]

Of his private life we know nothing, but the 'Mawde Caxston' who figures
in the churchwarden's accounts of St. Margaret's is generally believed
to have been his wife. His will has not yet been discovered, though it
very likely exists among the uncalendared documents at Westminster
Abbey, from which Mr. Scott has already gleaned a few records relating
to him, though none of biographical interest. We know, however, from the
parish accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, that he left to that
church fifteen copies of the _Golden Legend_, twelve of which were sold
at prices varying between 6s. 8d. and 5s. 4d.

Caxton used only one device, a simple square block with his initials W.
C. cut upon it, and certain hieroglyphics said to stand for the figures
74, with a border at the top and bottom. It was probably of English
workmanship, as those found in the books of foreign printers were much
more finely cut. This block, which Caxton did not begin to use until
1487, afterwards passed to his successor, who made it the basis of
several elaborate variations.

Upon the death of Caxton in 1491, his business came into t