(Orthography was not much regarded in those days.) This book is so rare and so keenly sought for that at the sale at Osterley Park in 1855 a perfect copy was bought for the enormous sum of 1,950l. In 1483 appeared 'The Golden Legende,' considered to be his _magnum opus_, on account of the beauty of the typography; and about 1490 'The Talis of Cauntyrburye' with 27 cuts representing individual pilgrims, and one with all the pilgrims seated round a large table. It is {64} said that Caxton printed ninety-nine different works, of which sixty-four survive either in perfect books or in fragments, which may be consulted at the British Museum. He produced the first printed edition of Chaucer, Lydgate, Gower, and Sir Thomas Malory's 'King Arthur.' He was an accomplished linguist, and translated and published Cicero's Orations 'De Senectute' and 'De Amicitia,' Virgil's 'Æneid' and many other classical works. [Illustration: THE KNIGHT (_From Caxton's 'Game and Playe of the Chesse'_)] With one exception none of his books has a title-page, though some have prologues and colophons; and the pages are not numbered. They are all printed in the Gothic {65} character known as 'black letter,' and nearly all are in small folio size. Caxton, we are assured, received the patronage and friendship of all the great men of his time and was much esteemed throughout Europe; and from a miniature painting in a beautiful manuscript in the library of Lambeth Palace we know that Earl Rivers presented him with his first book in his hand to the King, Edward IV. It is supposed that he died at the end of 1491 in his sixty-ninth year. [Illustration: WYNKYN DE WORDE'S MARK _With Caxton's Initials_] Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's pupil and successor, was a native of Lorraine. He probably came over with him from Bruges, and so attached was he to his master, and so highly did he esteem him, that in all the nine book-marks that De Worde used, he always included the initials W. C. The mark we have given is of rare occurrence, and is one of the best pieces of engraving of the time. Bibliographers have found four hundred books printed by him; among them is 'The Golden Legende,' with woodcuts (1493); a translation of 'Huon de Bordeaux,' from which Shakespeare borrowed the plot of his 'Midsummer Night's Dream'; and his best-known {66} work, often reprinted, 'Treatyses perteynynge to Hawkynge and Huntynge, and Fyshynge with an Angle,' by Dame Juliana Berners (1496), which contains many woodcuts, one of which, a man fishing, is very quaint (_see engraving_). A book which was 'imprynted at London in Flete Street in 1531,' called 'Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, A devoute Treatyse in Englysshe,' is illustrated by three curiously folded woodcuts. De Worde was the first printer in England who used the Roman type. Several of his books have a woodcut on the title-page.