" MR. NICHOLS,
quoting from Stow, also informs us that printing-presses were, soon after
the introduction of the art, erected in the Abbey of St. Albans, St.
Augustin at Canterbury, and other monasteries; he also informs us that the
scriptorium of the monasteries had ever been the manufactory of books, and
these places it is well known formed a portion of the abbeys themselves,
and were not in detached buildings similar to the Almonry at Westminster,
which was situated some two or three hundred yards distant from the Abbey.
I think it very likely, when the press was to supersede the pen in the work
of book-making, that its capabilities would be first tried in the very
place which had been used for the object it was designed to accomplish.
This idea seems to be confirmed by the tradition that a printer's office
has ever been called a chapel, a fact which is beautifully alluded to by
Mr. Creevy in his poem entitled _The Press_:--

"Yet stands the chapel in yon Gothic shrine,
Where wrought the father of our English line,
Our art was hail'd from kingdoms far abroad,
And cherish'd in the hallow'd house of God;
From which we learn the homage it received
And how our sires its heavenly birth believed.
Each printer hence, howe'er unblest his walls,
E'en to this day, his house a chapel calls."

Mr. Nichols acknowledges that what he calls a vulgar error was current and
popular, that in some part of the Abbey Caxton did erect his press, yet we
are expected to submit to the almost unsupported dictum of that gentleman,
and renounce altogether the old and almost universal idea. With respect to
his alarm that the _vulgar error_ is about to be further propagated by an
engraving, wherein the mistaken draftsman has deliberately represented the
printers at work within the consecrated walls of the church itself, I may
be permitted to say, on behalf of the painter, that he has erected his
press not even on the basement of one of the Abbey chapels, but in an upper
story, a beautiful screen separating the workplace from the more sacred
part of the building.

JOHN CROPP.

* * * * *

COLD HARBOUR.

(Vol. i., p. 60.; Vol. ii., p. 159.)

I beg leave to inform you that Yorkshire has its "Cold Harbour," and for
the origin of the term, I subjoin a communication sent me by my father:--

"When a youngster, I was a great seeker for etymologies. A solitary
farm-house and demesne were pointed out t