The early English printers did not attempt what the continental ones were doing for the ancient classics. Down to 1540 no Greek book had appeared from an English press. Oxford had only printed a part of Cicero's Epistles; Cambridge, no ancient writer whatever: only three or four old Roman writers had been reprinted, at that period, throughout England. But a great deal was done for public instruction by the course which our early printers took; for, as one of them says, "Divers famous clerks and learned men translated and made many noble works into our English tongue, whereby there was much more plenty and abundance of English used than there was in times past." The English nobility were, probably, for more than the first half-century of English printing, the great encouragers of our press: they required translations and abridgments of the classics, versions of French and Italian romances, old chronicles, and helps to devout exercises. Caxton and his successors abundantly supplied these wants; and the impulse to most of their exertions was given by the growing demand for literary amusement on the part of the great. Caxton, as we have seen, speaking of his 'Boke of Eneydos,' says, "This present book is not for a rude uplandish man to labour therein, nor read it." But a great change was working in Europe; the "rude uplandish man," if he gave promise of talent, was sent to school. The priests strove with the laity for the education of the people; and not only in Protestant but in Catholic countries, were schools and universities everywhere founded. Here, again, was a new source of employment for the press—A, B, C's, or Abseys, Primers, Catechisms, Grammars, Dictionaries, were multiplied in every direction. Books became, also, during this period, the tools of professional men. There were not many works of medicine, but a great many of law; and even the people required instruction in the ordinances they were called upon to obey, which they received in the form of proclamations.