axton, his large folios being confined almost entirely
to those in which his master had led the way, such as the _Golden
Legend_, of which he issued several editions, the _Speculum Vitae
Christi_, the _Morte d'Arthur_, _Canterbury Tales_, _Polychronicon_, and
_Chronicles of England_. The _Vitas Patrum_ of 1495 he could hardly help
printing, as Caxton had laboured on its translation in the last year of
his life, and it may have been respect for Caxton also which led to the
publication of his finest book, the really splendid edition of
Bartholomaeus' _De Proprietatibus Rerum_, issued towards the close of the
fifteenth century, from the colophon of which I have already quoted the
lines referring to Caxton's having worked at a Latin edition of it at
Cologne. The _Book of St. Albans_ was another reprint to which the
probable connection of the Westminster and St. Albans presses gave a
Caxton flavour; and when we have enumerated these and the _Dives and
Pauper_, produced apparently out of rivalry with Pynson in 1496, and a
few devotional books such as the _Orcharde of Syon_ and the _Flour of
the Commandments of God_, to which this form was given, very few Wynkyn
de Worde folios remain unmentioned.

But to one book in folio, Wynkyn de Worde printed some five-and-twenty
in quarto, eschewing as a rule smaller forms, though now and again we
find a _Horae_, or a _Manipulus Curatorum_, or a _Book of Good Manners
for Children_ in eights or twelves.[2]

He was in fact a popular printer who issued small works in a cheap form,
and without, it must be added, greatly concerning himself as to their
appearance. Popular books of devotion or of a moral character figure
most largely among the books he printed; but students of our older
literature owe him gratitude for having preserved in their later forms
many old romances, and also a few plays, and he published every class of
book, including many educational works, for which a ready sale was
assured. The majority of these books were illustrated, if only with a
cut on the title-page of a schoolmaster with a birch-rod, or a knight on
horseback who did duty for many heroes in succession. 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 ba