Caxton's patron? i.e. who was the Abbot of Westminster at the time,--who
may not, after all, have actively interfered in the matter. This
question remains in some doubt; but it was not the question with which
DR. RIMBAULT commenced the discussion. The object of that gentleman's
inquiry (Vol. ii., p. 99.) was, the particular spot where Caxton's press
was fixed. From a misapprehension of the passage in Stow, a current
opinion has obtained that the first English press was erected within the
abbey-church, and in the chapel of St. Anne; and Dr. Dibdin conjectured
that the chapel of St. Anne stood on the site of Henry VII.'s chapel.
The correction of this vulgar error is, I submit, by no means
immaterial; especially at a time when a great effort is made to
propagate it by the publication of a print, representing "William Caxton
examining the first proof sheet from his printing-press in Westminster
Abbey;" the engraving of which is to be "of the size of the favourite
print of Bolton Abbey:" where the draftsman has deliberately represented
the printers at work within the consecrated walls of the church itself!
When a less careless reader than Dr. Dibdin consults the passage of
Stow, he finds that the chapel of St. Anne stood in the opposite
direction from the church to the site of Henry VII.'s chapel, i.e.
within the court of the Almonry; and that Caxton's press was also set up
in the Almonry, though not (so far as appears, or is probable) within
that chapel. The second question is, When did Caxton first set up his
press in this place? And the third, the answer to which depends on the
preceding, is, Who was the abbot who gave him admission? Now it is true,
as ARUN remarks, that the introduction of Abbot Islip's name is traced
up to Stow in the year 1603: and, as Mr. Knight has observed, "the
careful historian of London here committed one error," because John
Islip did not become Abbot of Westminster until 1500. The entire passage
of Stow has been quoted by DR. RIMBAULT in "NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol.
ii., p. 99.; it states that in the Almonry--