The persecution of the Lollards was but an incident in the fifteenth century, little affecting its literature, though the burning of Oldcastle called forth a bad poem by Hoccleve. The wasteful wars in France, and the turmoil of the Roses, on the other hand, had a great and most disastrous influence. After Lydgate's death about 1447, Capgrave was our leading man of letters, and on his death in 1464 the post was left vacant, unless Master Bennet Burgh can be considered as having held it. The Paston Letters, which begin in 1422 and cover the rest of the century (till 1507), offer some consolation for the lack of more formal literature, but the lack is undeniable. Moreover, not only literature, but the bookish arts suffered terribly from this depression. The fine English illuminated manuscripts which at the beginning of the century had vied with those of France, ceased to be produced after about 1430 (the siege of Orleans was raised by Jeanne Darc in 1429, and the synchronism may be significant), and with the illuminations, the simpler art of penmanship declined also. It was thus small wonder that the art of printing was introduced but tardily to our country, more than twenty years after the first printed Bible had appeared at Mainz, and that, typographically, William Caxton, with no fine models in contemporary English manuscripts to guide him, produced no single book that can stand comparison with the best work of foreign printers. But if he was a poor printer, he was a most enterprising and skilful publisher, and in his homely way a genuine and most prolific journeyman of letters. As the word journeyman is written, shame bids us strike out the first half of it, lest we seem to cast a slight upon one who did so excellent a work for English literature, whose enthusiasm was so genuine and whose industry so great. But Caxton was always modest for himself, and we shall serve him best by not putting his claims too high. When he commenced author there is an ingenuity in the way he mixes his constructions, which, though it may delight his lovers, compels some little caution in introducing him, haply, to new readers, whom such a paragraph as that which begins 'When I remember' on page 213 might easily affront. But he certainly improved his style by constant practice, and the handful of his prefaces and epilogues here printed do not lack literary charm, while the information they give of the man, his character, his enthusiasms, and his business can hardly fail to please any reasonably sympathetic reader. Take, for instance, these delightful confidences as to the fears and hopes attendant on his translation and publication of that bulky work, the _Golden Legend_ of Jacobus de Voragine, which might well daunt even an enterprising publisher:--