He begins, after the usual preamble, by leaving money to the High Altar of his Parish Church; to the structure of the church; to buy vestments for the church; the endowment of a chaplain to say mass daily. He then gives money to his widow and children; for the poor of the Mercers’ Company; for a vestment in the Mercers’ Chapel; to the four orders of Mendicants; to the Crutched Friars; for bedding in the Hospitals of St. Bartholomew and St. Mary Spital; to the parish church of Shallerton, where his father was buried; to the parish church of Allerton, where his ancestors were buried; to his servants and apprentices sums of money varying from one mark to twenty marks,--there are five apprentices, including William Caxton, who gets the larger sum,--then there are more bequests to churches. To the poor of Coleman Street ward he gives twenty pounds. His soul thus cared for by so many gifts and bequests,--a thing that no one in that age could possibly neglect,--and his children and servants remembered, the testator applies himself to things practical and worldly. And here we observe what a practical citizen of the times most desired. He gave 400 marks toward the completion of an aqueduct lately begun in the City; he gave 100 marks toward the repairs of London Bridge; he gave 300 marks to the cleansing of Walbrook; also 100 marks to ten poor girls of good character on their marriage; also £100 to be divided among poor servants in Lancashire and Warwickshire; also £20 to be distributed by his executors where it might be most needed; also 5 marks for bedding at the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem; also 40 shillings for bedding for St. Thomas’s Hospital, and £6 for bedding at the Lepers’ Houses of Hackney, St. Giles, and St. George of Southwark. Also 100 shillings for the prisoners in Newgate, and 100 shillings for the prisoners in Ludgate. He forgets nobody, this good citizen; he desires good water and plentiful; he wants the Bridge to be kept in repair--where would trade be without the Bridge? he wants cleanliness in the City--why should Walbrook be allowed to be converted into an open sewer? Hospitals for the sick; marriage portions for girls; worn-out servants; prisoners; lepers; he remembers all. Surely, to have been brought up in the household of such a man, so kindly, so thoughtful, with so great a heart, must have been an education for the boy. At this time the principal market of Western Europe was Bruges, and the center of the trade carried on by the Merchant Adventurers--an association containing members of various companies--was that city. There stood _Domus Anglorum_, the House of the English Merchants. It was not uncommon for a young man to be sent to this House in order to learn the foreign trade before he completed his time. Thither, therefore, went Caxton, having seven years still to serve; and there he remained for thirty years. Those who know the history of the Hanseatic [Illustration: THE “DOMUS ANGLORUM,” BRUGES.]