This volume includes the most considerable and important original work undertaken by Caxton. The “Polychronicon” had its origin with Roger Monk, of St. Werberg in Chester, early in the fourteenth century. It was continued by Higden of the same monastery, and, in 1387, Trevisa, chaplain of the Earl of Berkeley, prepared from the Latin text an English version. Caxton revised this version of Trevisa, and added a continuation of the history, bringing the record down to 1460. 1483. A “Vocabulary” in French and English. Folio. 1483. Gower’s “Confessio Amantis.” Large folio. “Emprynted at Westmestre, by me William Caxton.” Gower had died in 1408, and belonged, therefore, to a previous century, but even as late as the century succeeding his death, he continued to be the most widely read (at least in England) of the English poets. It is probable that the literary authorities of Caxton’s time rated Gower higher than Chaucer. It is certain that the “Confessio Amantis” was one of the most successful of Caxton’s publications. Some lines of Gower’s give an impression of the taste of English readers in his time. Full oft time it falleth so, Mine ear with a good pittance Is fed of reading of romance, Of Iodyne, and of Amadas, That whilom weren in my case, And eke of other many a score, That loveden long ere I was bore. His “Confessio Amantis” had, he states, been written at the command of King Richard II., the same monarch to whom Froissart tells us he presented a volume of the famous “Chronicles,” “fair illumined and written, and covered with crimson velvet, with ten buttons of silver and gilt and roses of gold in the midst, with two great clasps, gilt, richly wrought.” Richard’s interest in books must, therefore, have included literature in two languages. 1484. “The Book which the Knight of the Tower Made to the ‘Enseygnment’ and Teaching of His Daughters.” Folio. “Emprynted at Westmynstre the last day of Januer the fyrst yere of the regne of Kynge Richard the Thyrd.” This was a translation by Caxton of a book by Geoffrey de la Tour, written in 1371. 1484. “The Golden Legend.” Folio. “Fynysshed at Westmere the twenty day of Novembre/ the yere of our Lord M/CCC/LXXXIII/. By me Wyllyam Caxton.”