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  Early English Text Society.

  EXTRA SERIES, LXXIX.


  Dialogues in French and English.

  BY WILLIAM CAXTON.

  (Adapted from a Fourteenth-Century Book of Dialogues
  in French and Flemish.)

  EDITED FROM CAXTON'S PRINTED TEXT (ABOUT 1483), WITH
  INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND WORD-LISTS,

  BY

  HENRY BRADLEY, M.A.,

  _Joint-Editor of the New English Dictionary._

  LONDON:
  PUBLISHED FOR THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY,
  BY KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER & CO., Ltd.

  PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD.

  MDCCCC.


  _Price Ten Shillings._




  BERLIN: ASHER & CO., 13, UNTER DEN LINDEN.
  NEW YORK: C. SCRIBNER & CO.; LEYPOLDT & HOLT.
  PHILADELPHIA: J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.




  Dialogues in French and English.

  BY WILLIAM CAXTON.

  (Adapted from a Fourteenth-Century Book of Dialogues
  in French and Flemish.)

  EDITED FROM CAXTON'S PRINTED TEXT (ABOUT 1483), WITH
  INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND WORD-LISTS,

  BY

  HENRY BRADLEY, M.A.,
  _Joint-Editor of the New English Dictionary._

  LONDON:
  PUBLISHED FOR THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY,
  BY KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUeBNER & CO., Ltd.

  PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD.
  M DCCCC.




Extra Series, No. LXXIX.

OXFORD: HORACE HART, M.A., PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY.




INTRODUCTION.


The work now for the first time reprinted from Caxton's original edition
has been preserved in three copies. One of these is in the Library of
Ripon Cathedral, another in the Spencer Library, now at Manchester, and
the third at Bamborough Castle. A small fragment, consisting of pp.
17-18 and 27-28, is in the Bodleian Library. The text of the present
edition is taken from the Ripon copy. I have not had an opportunity of
seeing this myself; but a type-written transcript was supplied to me by
Mr. John Whitham, Chapter Clerk of Ripon Cathedral, and the proofs were
collated with the Ripon book by the Rev. Dr. Fowler, Vice-Principal of
Bishop Hatfield's Hall, Durham, who was kind enough to re-examine every
passage in which I suspected a possible inaccuracy. It is therefore
reasonable to hope that the present reprint will be found to be a
strictly faithful representation of the original edition.

The earlier bibliographers gave to the book the entirely inappropriate
title of 'Instructions for Travellers.' Mr. Blades is nearer the mark in
calling it 'A Vocabulary in French and English,' but, as it consists
chiefly of a collection of colloquial phrases and dialogues, the
designation adopted in the present edition appears to be preferable. As
in other printed works of the same period, there is no title-page in the
original edition, so that a modern editor is at liberty to give to the
book whatever name may most accurately describe its character. The name
of Caxton does not occur in the colophon, which merely states that the
work was printed at Westminster; but the authorship is sufficiently
certain from internal evidence. On the ground of the form of type
employed, Mr. Blades inferred that the book was printed about 1483.
However this may be, there are, as will be shown, decisive reasons for
believing that it was written at a much earlier period.

A fact which has hitherto escaped notice is that Caxton's book is
essentially an adaptation of a collection of phrases and dialogues in
French and Flemish, of which an edition was published by Michelant in
1875[1], from a MS. in the Bibliotheque Nationale.

    [Footnote 1: _Le Livre des Mestiers: Dialogues francais-flamands
    composes au XIV^e siecle par un maitre d'ecole de la ville de
    Bruges_. Paris: Librairie Tross.]

The text of Caxton's original cannot, indeed, have been precisely
identical with that of the MS. used by Michelant. It contained many
passages which are wanting in the Paris MS., and in some instances had
obviously preferable readings. Caxton's English sentences are very often
servile translations from the Flemish, and he sometimes falls into the
use of Flemish words and idioms in such a way as to show that his long
residence abroad had impaired his familiarity with his native language.
The French _respaulme cet hanap_, for instance, is rendered by'spoylle
the cup.' Of course the English verb _spoylle_ never meant 'to rinse';
Caxton was misled by the sound of the Flemish _spoel_. Caxton's 'after
the house,' as a translation of _aual la maison_ (throughout the house),
is explicable only by a reference to the Flemish version, which has
_achter huse_. The verb _formaketh_, which has not elsewhere been found
in English, is an adoption of the Flemish _vermaect_ (repairs). Another
Flemicism is Caxton's _whiler_ (= while ere) for'some time ago,' in
Flemish _wilen eer_. It is still more curious to find Caxton writing 'it
_en_ is not,' instead of 'it is not'; this _en_ is the particle prefixed
in Flemish to the verb of a negative sentence. As is well known,
Caxton's translation of 'Reynard the Fox' exhibits many phenomena of a
similar kind. From all the circumstances, we may perhaps conclude that
Caxton, while still resident in Bruges, added an English column to his
copy of the French-Flemish phrase-book, rather as a sort of exercise
than with any view to publication, and that he handed it over to his
compositors at Westminster without taking the trouble to subject it to
any material revision.

The original work contains so many references to the city of Bruges that
it is impossible to doubt that it was compiled there. According to
Michelant, the Paris MS. was written in the first half of the fourteenth
century. The MS. used by Caxton must itself have been written not later
than