In 1490, Caxton, an old, worn man, verging on fourscore years of age, wrote, "Every man ought to intend in such wise to live in this world, by keeping the commandments of God, that he may come to a good end; and then, out of this world full of wretchedness and tribulation, he may go to heaven, unto God and his saints, unto joy perdurable;" and passed away, still labouring at his post. He died while writing, "The most virtuous history of the devout and right renouned Lives of Holy Fathers living in the desert, worthy of remembrance to all well-disposed persons." Wynkyne de Worde filled his master's place in the almonry of Westminster; and the guild of printers gradually waxed strong in numbers and influence. In Germany they were privileged to wear robes trimmed with gold and silver, such as the nobles themselves appeared in; and to display on their escutcheon, an eagle with wings outstretched over the globe,--a symbol of the flight of thought and words throughout the world. In our own country, the printers were men of erudition and literary acquirements; and were honoured as became their mission. III.--THE PRINTING MACHINE. Between the rude screw-press of Gutenberg or Caxton, slow and laboured in its working, to the first-class printing machine of our own day, throwing off its fifteen or eighteen thousand copies of a large four-page journal in an hour, what a stride has been taken in the noble art! Step by step, slowly but surely, has the advance been made,--one improvement suggested after another at long intervals, and by various minds. With the perfection of the printing press, the name of Earl Stanhope is chiefly associated; but, although when he had put the finishing touches to its construction, immensely superior to all former machines, it was unavailable for rapid printing. In relation to the demand for literature and the means of supplying it, the world had, half a century ago, reached much the same deadlock as in the days when the production of books depended solely on the swiftness of the transcriber's pen, and when the printing press existed only in the fervid brain and quick imagination of a young German student. Not only the growth, but the spread of literature, was restricted by the labour, expense, and delay incident to the multiplication of copies; and the popular appetite for reading was in that transition state when an increased supply would develop it beyond all bounds or calculation, while a continuance of the starvation supply would in all likelihood throw it into a decline from want of exercise.