word journeyman is written, shame bids us strike out the first half of
it, lest we seem to cast a slight upon one who did so excellent a work
for English literature, whose enthusiasm was so genuine and whose
industry so great. But Caxton was always modest for himself, and we
shall serve him best by not putting his claims too high. When he
commenced author there is an ingenuity in the way he mixes his
constructions, which, though it may delight his lovers, compels some
little caution in introducing him, haply, to new readers, whom such a
paragraph as that which begins 'When I remember' on page 213 might
easily affront. But he certainly improved his style by constant
practice, and the handful of his prefaces and epilogues here printed do
not lack literary charm, while the information they give of the man, his
character, his enthusiasms, and his business can hardly fail to please
any reasonably sympathetic reader. Take, for instance, these delightful
confidences as to the fears and hopes attendant on his translation and
publication of that bulky work, the _Golden Legend_ of Jacobus de
Voragine, which might well daunt even an enterprising publisher:--

'And forasmuch as this said work was great and over chargeable to me to
accomplish, I feared me in the beginning of the translation to have
continued it, because of the long time of the translation and also in
the imprinting of the same, and in manner half desperate to have
accomplished it, was in purpose to have left it, after that I had begun
to translate it, and to have laid it apart, ne had it been at the
instance and request of the puissant, noble and virtuous Earl, my Lord
William Earl of Arundel, which desired me to proceed and continue the
said work, and promised me to take a reasonable quantity of them when
they were achieved and accomplished, and sent to me a worshipful
gentleman, a servant of his named John Stanney, which solicited me in my
lord's name that I should in no wise leave it, but accomplish it,
promising that my said lord should during his life give and grant to me
a yearly fee, that is to wit a buck in summer and a doe in winter, with
which fee I hold me well content. Then at the contemplation and
reverence of my said lord I have endeavoured me to make an end and
finish this said translation and also have imprinted it in the most best
wise that I have, could or might, and present this said book to his good
and noble lordship, as chief causer of the achi