[Illustration: _From 'Game and Play of Chesse,' by Caxton._]
Caxton's immediate successors met with a fate similar to his own. The most remarkable feature of Richard Rawlinson's[136:A] library (sold by Samuel Leigh in 1756), which contained nearly 25,000 volumes, consisted in the large quantity of Old English black-letter books, and these, of course, realized absurdly low figures, as the following list testifies:
£ s. d. 'The Newe Testament in English,' 1500 0 2 9 'The Ymage of both Churches, after the Revelation of St. John,' by Bale, 1550 0 1 6 'The Boke called the Pype or Toune of Perfection,' by Richard Whytforde, 1532 0 1 9 'The Visions of Pierce Plowman,' 1561 0 2 0 'The Creede of Pierce Plowman,' 1553 0 1 6 'The Booke of Moses in English,' 1530 0 3 9 'Bale's Actes of English Votaryes,' 1550 0 1 3 'The Boke of Chivalrie,' by Caxton 0 11 0 'The Boke of St. Albans,' by W. de Worde 1 1 0
[Illustration: _Specimen of the type of 'The Boke of St. Albans.'_]
The very high price paid for the 'Boke of St. Albans' is noteworthy, for nearly all the other items are equally rare. In 1844, a copy of this 'boke' was sold as waste-paper for 9d., and almost immediately passed into the possession of Mr. Grenville for £70 or guineas. Dr. Mead's copy--one of the only two known--of 'Rhetorica Nova Fratris Laurentii Gulielmi de Sacra,' printed at St. Albans, 1480, sold for 2s. At the Willett sale, in 1813, it brought £79 16s.
[Illustration: _Specimen page of Tyndale's Testament, 1526._]
The rarity of the English translations of the Bible and New Testament arises from just the opposite cause which has operated in making the early productions of the English press so scarce. The latter were for the most part neglected out of existence, whilst the former were literally read out of it. A complete copy of the _editio princeps_ Coverdale, 1535, is, we believe, unknown. One illustration will sufficiently indicate the enhanced value of this book, and the illustration may be taken as a general one in respect to this class of book: The Perkins copy, which realized £400 in 1873, was purchased at the Dent sale in 1827 for £89 5s. The more perfect of the only two copies known of Tyndale's New Testament, first edition, 1526, in the Baptists' Library at Bristol, is of great interest, and well deserving of a mention in this place. It has no title-page. Underneath a portrait, pasted to the first leaf, is this inscription: