eed in one instance the evidence is
still stronger. In 1518, Henry Pepwell printed at the sign of the
Trinity the _Castell of Pleasure_. The prologue to this takes the form
of a dialogue in verse between Copland and the author, of which the
following lines are the most important:--

'Emprynt this boke, Copland, at my request
And put it forth to every maner state.'

To which Copland replies:--

'At your instaunce I shall it gladly impresse
But the utterance, I thynke, will be but small
Bokes be not set by: there tymes is past, I gesse;
The dyse and cardes, in drynkynge wyne and ale,
Tables, cayles, and balles, they be now sette a sale
Men lete theyr chyldren use all such harlotry
That byenge of bokes they utterly deny.'

If this means anything, it is impossible to avoid the inference that
Robert Copland printed the first edition of this book. Amongst others
that he was in some way interested in may be noticed a curious book by
Alexander Barclay, _Of the Introductory to write French_, fol., 1521, of
which there is a copy in the Bodleian; _The Mirrour of the Church_, 4to,
1521, a devotional work, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, with a variety of
curious woodcuts; the _Rutter of the Sea_, the first English book on
navigation, translated from _Le Grande Routier_ of Pierre Garcie;
Chaucer's _Assemble of Foules_ and the _Questionary of Cyrurgyens_,
printed by Robert Wyer in 1541.

Copland was also the author, and without doubt the printer, of two
humorous poems that are amongst the earliest known specimens of this
kind of writing. The one called _The Hye Way to the Spyttell hous_ took
the form of a dialogue between Copland and the porter of St.
Bartholomew's, and turns upon the various kinds of beggars and
impostors, with a running commentary upon the vices and follies that
bring men to poverty. _Iyll of Brentford_, the second of these
compositions, is a somewhat different production. It recounts the
legacies left by a certain lady, but the humour, though to the taste of
the times, was excessively broad.

In 1542 Dr. Andrew Borde spoke of his _Introduction of Knowledge_ as
printing at 'old Robert Copland's, the eldest printer in England.'
Whether he meant the oldest in point of age or in his craft is not
clear; but it may well be that, seeing that De Worde, Pynson, and the
two Faques were dead, this printing house was the oldest then in London.

John Rastell also began to print about t