In a retrospective glance at our previous volumes (for can the
phrenologists tell us of a head capacious enough to contain their
exhaustless variety?) our readers will perceive that, from time to
time, sundry "accounts" of the origin and progress of printing have
been inserted in the MIRROR;[1] and though we are not vain enough to
consider our sheet as the "refined gold, the lily, the violet, the
ice, or the rainbow," of the poet's perfection, yet in specimens of
the general _economy of the art_, the long-extended patronage of the
public gives us an early place.

With an outline of the life of CAXTON our readers must be already
familiar; but we wish them to consider the above accurate
representation of the FIRST ENGLISH PRINTER'S RESIDENCE as antecedent
to a _Memoir of Caxton_, in which it will be our aim to concentrate,
in addition to biographical details, many important facts from the
testimony of antiquarians; for scarcely a volume of the _Archaeologia_
has appeared without some valuable communication on Caxton and his
times.

In the meantime we proceed with the _locale_ of Caxton's house,
situate on the south-west of Westminster Abbey, where was formerly the
eleemosynary, or almonry, where the alms of the abbots were
distributed. Howell in his _Londinopolis_, describes this as "the spot
where the abbot of Westminster permitted Caxton to set up his press in
the _Almonry_, or Ambry," the former of which names is still retained.
This is confirmed by Newcourt, in his _Repertorium_, who says, "St.
Anne's, an old chapel, over against which the Lady Margaret, mother to
king Henry VII., erected an alms-house for poor women, which is now
turned into lodgings for singing-men of the college. The place wherein
this chapel and alms-house stood was called the Eleemosinary, or