Caxton's 39185- Eneydos 1490 ENGLISHT FROM THE FRENCH LIURE DES ENEYDES, 1483. EDITED BY THE LATE W. T. CULLEY, M.A., Oxford, AND F. J. FURNIVALL, M.A., CAMB., HON. DR. PHIL. BERLIN, WITH A SKETCH OF THE OLD FRENCH ROMAN D'ÉNÉAS BY DR. SALVERDA DE GRAVE. LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY BY N. TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL. 1890. PREFACE.' THIS curious little book was printed by Caxton, and specially dedicated to Prince Arthur, eldest son of King Henry VII. It is a translation into English by Caxton himself of a French version of the Aeneid,' and is a folio, as usual without any title-page; but Caxton in his colophon at the end gives the date of the translation as June 22nd, 1490, that being probably the period at which he completed it. There are, according to Mr. Blades in his 'Biography and Typography of William Caxton,' eighteen or nineteen copies extant, of which three are in the British Museum, three at St. John's College, Oxford, one at Trinity College, Cambridge, one in the Hunterian Library, Glasgow, and the rest in private libraries. The first and eighth leaves out of a total of eighty-six are blank, but the first is not reckoned in the signature, and the Prologue begins on the second, signed Aj. The lines are spaced to an even length, measuring four and three-quarter inches, and thirty-one go to a full page. No other edition is known. Caxton englisht his Eneydos either from the French 'liure des eneydes' printed at Lyons by Guillaume Le Roy on Sept. 30, 1483, or from a more correct MS. of it. A fairly full collation of Mr. Alfred Huth's copy of the French print has been made by Dr. Furnivall—misprints and all—and will be found at p. 188-214 below. As to the great English printer and his other works nothing need here be said, but we may add a few words on the work before us. It begins with a Prologue by Caxton himself, and ends with a colophon of his own as well, in which he gives the date of the translation. The Prologue is amusing, especially for his perplexity as to the style of words to be used in his translation. No doubt the English language was changing very rapidly in Caxton's time, but in his Prologue he uses most plain and excellent English, quite readable at the present 1 By Mr. Culley, with a few corrections on pages v―vii by me.-F. J. F. |