XXIX. Letter from John Winter Jones, Esq. of the British Museum, to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H. Secretary, upon the discovery of two rare Tracts in the Library of that Institution, hitherto unknown, from the Press of William Caxton

In the course of my labours at the British Museum, a volume came recently into my hands containing two tracts: the first, “Meditacions sur les Sept Pseaulmes Penitenciaulx;” the other, a French version of the “Cordiale, sive de quatuor Novissimis.” It became my duty to ascertain all the typographical particulars relating to these works, as they had been hitherto but partially described in the Museum Catalogue; and I was much struck, in the course of my inquiry, by the resemblance between the types with which they are printed, and those used by the first English printer. A closer examination has led me to the conclusion that they are actually the production of Caxton's press. The “Meditacions” are printed in the same character as the French and English Recueil of the Histories of Troy, and the first edition of the Game of Chess. The Cordiale is printed in the same type as the English version of the same work, made by the unfortunate Antony Widvile Earl Rivers; the Propositio clarissimi Oratoris Magistri Johannis Russell, the second edition of the Game of Chess, the first edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Mirrour of the World, and several other pieces, printed by Caxton.