part to make the book, except for the Wiclif Bible, unquestionably the
greatest monument of English prose of the entire period before the
sixteenth century. There is no affectation of elegance, but rather knightly
straightforwardness which has power without lack of ease. The sentences are
often long, but always 'loose' and clear; and short ones are often used
with the instinctive skill of sincerity. Everything is picturesque and
dramatic and everywhere there is chivalrous feeling and genuine human
sympathy.

WILLIAM CAXTON AND THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING TO ENGLAND, 1476. Malory's
book is the first great English classic which was given to the world in
print instead of written manuscript; for it was shortly after Malory's
death that the printing press was brought to England by William Caxton. The
invention of printing, perhaps the most important event of modern times,
took place in Germany not long after the middle of the fifteenth century,
and the development of the art was rapid. Caxton, a shrewd and enterprising
Kentishman, was by first profession a cloth merchant, and having taken up
his residence across the Channel, was appointed by the king to the
important post of Governor of the English Merchants in Flanders. Employed
later in the service of the Duchess of Burgundy (sister of Edward IV), his
ardent delight in romances led him to translate into English a French
'Recueil des Histoires de Troye' (Collection of the Troy Stories). To
supply the large demand for copies he investigated and mastered the new art
by which they might be so wonderfully multiplied and about 1475, at fifty
years of age, set up a press at Bruges in the modern Belgium, where he
issued his 'Recueil,' which was thus the first English book ever put into
print. During the next year, 1476, just a century before the first theater
was to be built in London, Caxton returned to England and established his
shop in Westminster, then a London suburb. During the fifteen remaining
years of his life he labored diligently, printing an aggregate of more than