own language is very Frenchy, perhaps because he translated so
many of his books from French. He not only uses words which are
almost French, but arranges his sentences in a French manner. He
often, too drops the e in the, just as in French the e or a in le
and la is dropped before a vowel. This you will often find in
old English books. "The abbey" becomes thabbay, "The English"
thenglish. Caxton writes, too, thensygnementys for "the
teaching." Here we have the dropped e and also the French word
enseignement used instead of "teaching." But these were only
last struggles of a foreign tongue. The triumphant English we
now possess was already taking form.

But it was not by printing alone that in the fifteenth century
men's eyes were opened to new wonder. They were also opened to
the wonder of a new world far over the sea. For the fifteenth
century was the age of discovery, and of all the world's first
great sailors. It was the time when America and the western
isles were discovered, when the Cape of Good Hope was first
rounded, and the new way to India found. So with the whole world
urged to action by the knowledge of these new lands, with
imagination wakened by the tales of marvels to be seen there,
with a new desire to see and do stirring in men's minds, it was
not wonderful that there should be little new writing. The
fifteenth century was the age of new action and new worlds. The
new thought was to follow.