One of Richard Pynson's earliest books was an edition of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ with about a score of woodcuts of the pilgrims obviously influenced by those in Caxton's second edition, but in no way an improvement on them. It is true that not only is the miller again allowed his bagpipe, but a little mill is placed in the corner of the cut to identify him beyond doubt. On the other hand, the knight's horse is bedecked with the cumbrous skirts used in the tilt-yard, but which would have become sadly draggled ere much progress had been made along the miry road to Canterbury. The clerk, moreover, is made to carry a bow as if, instead of having his mind set on Aristotle, he were of the lusty sort that loved to get venison where they should not. Round most of the cuts there is a heavy edge of black, as if from an untrimmed block, which does not improve their appearance. Altogether they are poor work, and it was doubtless his recognition of this that caused Pynson in future to rely so largely on the purchase or imitation of foreign blocks. For his edition of Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_, a verse rendering of Boccaccio's _De casibus illustrium virorum_, issued in 1494, he procured the woodcuts made for the fine French edition (_De la ruine des nobles hommes_), printed at Paris by Jean Du Pre in 1483. Before 1500 he brought out an _Aesop_, copying as usual the German cuts. In 1505 he printed Alexander Barclay's version of Pierre Gringore's _Chasteau du Labeur_ with cuts closely and fairly skilfully copied from those in the Pigouchet-Verard editions. In 1506 he went further and procured from Verard the blocks for a new edition of the _Kalendar of Shepherds_, which, however, he caused to be retranslated, with sundry remarks on the extraordinary English of the version published by Verard. In 1509 he produced in a fine folio Barclay's free rendering of Brant's _Narrenschiff_, illustrating this English _Ship of Fools_ with 117 cuts copied from the originals. In 1518 he procured from Froben some border-pieces for small quartos, one showing in the footpiece a boy carried on the shoulders of his fellows, another an elephant, a third Mutius Scaevola and Porsenna. [Illustration: XXXI. LONDON, PYNSON, C. 1520 BARCLAY'S VERSION OF SALLUST'S JUGURTHA. THE TRANSLATOR AND THE DUKE OF NORFOLK. (REDUCED)]