This day week Mr. Gladstone opened the Caxton Exhibition at
South Kensington, and delivered a very interesting and characteristic speech on the part taken by Caxton in promoting the art of printing, and introducing it into England. Mr. Glad- stone made it Caxton's groat merit that instead of printing beautiful editions of the Classics, for which there was no popular demand, like the first Continental printers, he at once set him- self to make his English printing pay, by printing books for which there was a popular demand. Thus, while still resident in Flanders, he began by printing English translations of the Classics, the first being a collection of the histories of Troy ; while the first book printed on English ground—just four hundred years ago this very year,—was, we believe, "The Game and Playe of the Chesse." Thus while the first Continental printers, disinterested as they were, made themselves bankrupt by their literary speculations, Caxton, who was most diligent in his literary as well as hip mechanical arrangements,—ho translated more than 5,000 folio pages,—made a good thing of his enterprise, and so rendered it tempting to others. Nor did he increase the jealousy and hostility of the Church. In short, ho was an Englishman, and preferred success in a humble effort to failure in a grand one. By the way, chess must have been relatively more popular in Eng- land than it is now, when Caxton, holding these views, selected it as the subject of his first printing enterprise on English 'soil. If he had to make a like choice now, he would probably print a book on Lawn-tennis.
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