firmly established, had absolutely died out. When printing was introduced
England possessed no trained illuminators or skilful scribes such as in
other countries were forced to make the best of the new art in order not
to lose their living, nor were there any native wood-engravers ready to
illustrate the new books. I have never myself seen or heard of a 'Caxton'
in which an illuminator has painted a preliminary border or initial
letters; even the rubrication, where it exists, is usually a
disfigurement; while as for pictures, it has been unkindly said that
inquiry whence they were obtained is superfluous, since any boy with a
knife could have cut them as well.

Making its start under these unfavourable conditions, the English
book-trade was exposed at once to the full competition of the
Continental presses, Richard III. expressly excluding it from
the protection which was given to other industries. Practically all
learned books of every sort, the great majority of our service-books,
most grammars for use in English schools, and even a few popular books
of the kind to which Caxton devoted himself, were produced abroad for
the English market and freely imported. Only those who mistake the
shadow for the substance will regret this free trade, to which we owe
the development of scholarship in England during the sixteenth century.
None the less, it was hard on a young industry, and though Pynson,
Wynkyn de Worde, the Faques, Berthelet, Wolfe, John Day, and others
produced fine books in England during the sixteenth century, the start
given to the Continental presses was too great, and before our printers
had fully caught up their competitors, they too were seized with the
carelessness and almost incredible bad taste which marks the books of
the first half of the seventeenth century in every country of Europe.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century, as is well known, the