and to address and expound where as shall be found fault to them that shall require it. For him I know for sufficient to expound and English every difficulty that is therein; for he hath late translated the Epistles of Tully, and the book of Diodorus Siculus, and divers other works, out of Latin into English, not in rude and old language, but in polished and ornate terms craftily, as he that hath read Virgil, Ovid, Tully, and all the other noble poets and orators, to me unknown and also he hath read the ix muses, and understand their musical sciences, and to whom of them each science is appropriated. I suppose he hath drunken of Helicon's well. Then I pray him, and such other, to correct, add, or [di]minish where as he or they shall find fault; for I have but followed my copy in French, as nigh as me is possible; and if any word be said therein well, I am glad; and if otherwise, I submit my said book to their correction. Which book I present unto the high born my to-coming natural and sovereign Lord Arthur, by the grace of God, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester, first begotten son and heir unto our most dread natural and sovereign lord and most christian King Henry v11, by the grace of God King of England and of France, and Lord of Ireland; beseeching his noble grace to receive it in thank of me his most humble subject and servant. And I shall pray unto Almighty God for his prosperous increasing in virtue, wisdom, and humanity, that he may be equal with the most renowned of all his progenitors ¶ And so to live in this present life, that after this transitory life, he and we all may come to everlasting life in heaven. Amen.”

Then follows a table of contents, on two leaves.

The reader is next presented with a specimen of a different kind which may serve as a counterpart to that extracted from the English Troy book, (vide p. 26, ante) relating to the Death of Hector by Achilles :

;

"DEATH OF TURNUS.

Anon, as Æneas heard Turnus speak, he made no tarrying at all, but went as soon as he might towards the field, and left the assault

ing of the walls and of the towers that they had envayshed. Then departed from the assault the one party and the other, for to see the battle of the two barons. Æneas and Turnus were both in the field all alone, well apparelled, and approached each other right hard like two bulls, and drew out their sharp swords. Then was there no sparing but that every of them smote his enemy so that the shields, wherewith all they covered themselves, were all to hewn and broken all to pieces. The battle was fierce and cruel, for they hated each other right sore. But, at the last, Turnus was overcome; and he cried mercy to Æneas, that he should not slay him. And wyt that Æneas should have pardoned him that he had misdone against him, if it had not been the ring and the girdle of Pallas, that Turnus did wear upon him. For when Æneas did see them, the sorrow that he made for the death of Pallas, that Turnus had slain, was renewed in his heart, which redoubled then his great wrath: and [he] said to Turnus, Thou shalt abye now the gladness that thou had of the death of Pallas-for thou shalt here die for his sake.' And anon, he shoved his sword through the body of him, whereout his soul departed. All thus was conquered all Lombardy and the pucelle Lavine by the hand of Æneas."

6

The immediate original of Caxton's book is supposed to be the French edition published at Lyons in 1483, by Guillaume le Roy, who was both translator and printer ;---and to which was joined a French translation of Boetius, by Jehan Le Meun: consult Maittaire, vol. i. 441; and particularly Panzer, i. 535; who talks of another ancient French edition of Virgil with wood cuts; and refers us to Mylii Memorab. p. 355. Dr. Askew's copy of the Lyons edit. of 1483. [Bibl. Askew. n°. 532] does not appear to have contained the Boetius. It is an exceedingly rare book; but how far it may have been borrowed from the prose translation of the Æneid into the Italian language, by Atanagio Greco, and first printed in quarto, at Vicenza, in 1476;—afterwards at Bologna in 1481, 4to.-it is out of my power to determine; never having seen a copy of either of these two latter works. The first is excessively scarce, if we may credit the

elaborate account of it given in the quarto catalogue of the Crevenna library, vol. ii. p. 202-an authority, which might have been noticed by the editor of the recent edition of Haym's Bibl. Ital. vol. ii. 202, n°: 4. But to return to Caxton :

This translation of Virgil, by our venerable printer, then “ welk stricken in years,” appears to have excited the indignation and called forth the rival powers of GAWIN DOUGLAS ;* an author, whose name cannot be mentioned without admiration by the inhabitants of either side the Tweed. Douglas, in the prologue to his exquisitë Scottish poetical version, thus notices Caxton and his labours :

Thoch Wylliane Caxtoune had no compátioun
Of Virgill in that buk hé préyt in prois,
Clepand it Virgill in Eneados,

Quhilk that he sayis of Frensche he did transláit,

It has nathing ado therwith, God wate,

Nor na mare like than the Deuil and sanet Austin.
Haue he na thank tharforé, bot lois his pyne';

So schamefully the storie did peruerte,
I reid his work with harmés at my hert,
That sic ane buk, but sentence or ingyne,
Suld be intitulit eftir the poete diuine."

Gawin Douglas's Virgil. Pref. p. 5.

Whether this criticism, being "noised abroad," suspended the efforts of any future printer to republish Caxton's version, is now only matter of conjecture: but this one thing is remarkable; that no reprint of it ever appeared. It was doomed to sink silently into oblivion; overpowered by the popularity of the versions of Phaer, Twine and Stanyhurst. For these latter works consult Warton's Hist. Eng. Poet. vol. iii. p. 398, &c. and the Censura Literaria, vol. iv. p. 234.

Caxton's edition has justly received the encomiums of Oldys, in

* The first edition of Douglas's Virgil did not appear till the year 1553, in 4to. Vide Censura Literaria, vol. iii. p. 286.