Caxton’s experience as a publisher did nothing toward the development of any conception of literary property. Such literary labour as was contributed to his publications was his own work, and if there had at that time existed in England anything of the nature of copyright, the ownership in such copyright would, for the series of translations which comprised the most important portion of Caxton’s list, have been vested in the publisher himself. There seems to be, in the record of his business in Westminster, no reference to any literary payments whatever, that is to say, to any arrangements for editorial service or to compensation to scholars for the collection or collation of manuscripts. In this matter of the securing of “copy” for his Press, Caxton’s task was assuredly less arduous than that which came upon the first printers in Germany or Italy. He had at his command or within his reach the manuscript treasures of the great collections in Bruges, and during the years which were spared to him for carrying on the work of his Press, he was able to make but a very small beginning in the work of placing before the English public the legends and histories selected from those collections. Caxton brought into his publishing business methods and standards which were the results of a long and honourable experience as a merchant. While he did not amass wealth, he seems to have sufficiently mastered the principles of a balance-sheet to have been able to carry on his undertakings with a full measure of independence and with no such serious financial anxieties as those which oppressed Gutenberg or which hampered the too idealistic ventures of Aldus. Caxton was evidently a clear-headed, practical man of business (although his interests came to be rather literary than commercial), possessing a keen sense of humour, shown in his appreciation of the best humorous literature of the time, and with a perception far beyond that of his publishing contemporaries as to the actual requirements of the public he was endeavouring to serve. Caxton made no claim to scholarship in the sense in which the term was used in the fifteenth century, but he is justly to be ranked with the men of letters. He was evidently a good linguist, having a thorough knowledge of French and Flemish, and a sufficient familiarity with Latin to enable him to print correctly books in that tongue, and to translate from Latin into English. In his edition of _The Golden Legend_, in the _Life of S. Roche_ he prints the following record: “Which lyff is translated oute of latyn in to englysshe by me, Wyllyam Caxton.” His English style was fluent, and will compare favourably with that of other writers of the time. In the prologues and epilogues attached to his translations, he utilised freely (as was the custom of the time) material from various sources, altering this as he found convenient, and it is not always easy to distinguish between the pages