_Boccaccio_. With the exception of one work, _Dionysii Areopagiticæ liber_, all of Mansion’s publications were in French. In this respect he forms a noteworthy exception to the printers of his generation, whose earlier works were nearly exclusively in Latin. One or two of the first printers in Lyons also began their work with volumes in French. Mansion’s undertakings were divided nearly equally between books of devotion and books of frivolity, such as _Les Advineaux Amoureux_, the only volume on the list which reached a second edition. The opinion of Mr. Blades, that the fonts of type used by Mansion were identical with those later employed in the first books of Caxton, may, I judge, be considered as established.[47] It is the contention of the German historians that Caxton secured his training as a printer not in Bruges but in Cologne, and that the initiative for the introduction of printing into England is, therefore, to be credited to Germany. The evidence for and against this theory, evidence which depends largely upon technical details, such as the identity of certain fonts of type, the spacing of lines, etc., has been very thoroughly and skilfully analysed by Mr. Blades, and his conclusion, that Caxton did no work in the Cologne printing-offices and that his first printed books did not follow the Cologne models, can, I judge, be safely accepted. Some reference to the grounds for the German belief may, however, be made. Printing had been introduced into Cologne by Ulrich Zell, who was a fugitive from the sack of Mayence. His first publication, or at least his first book with a date, was the _Liber Joannis Chrysostomi super Psalmo quinquagesimo_, issued in 1466. His second undertaking was an edition of the _De Officiis_ of Cicero. He printed in all no less than one hundred and twenty separate works, and was the leading printer in the city at the time of Caxton’s visit in 1471. In connection with his business as a wool-merchant and his official responsibilities for the English _Nation_, Caxton had had continued relations with Cologne, and must have had a full acquaintance with the city. Madden speaks of Caxton as being a visitor, in 1470, at the Weidenbach convent of the Brothers of Common Life in Cologne, at which time the Brothers had their printing-office in active operation.[48] Caxton’s diary tells us that the translation of his _Recueil_, begun in Bruges and continued in Ghent, was completed at Cologne on the 19th of September, 1471. Kapp concludes that his first idea for reproducing his translation in printed copies most probably came to him from an examination of the work of the presses of Zell or of the Brothers. It is of course possible enough that Caxton interested himself, while in Cologne in 1471, in inspecting the printing establishment of Zell, which must, as a novelty, have been one of the noteworthy sights of the city. It seems evident, however, from Mr. Blades’s analysis of the fonts of type used by Mansion and, later,