Towards the end of the
century, when the printing-press was already at work, we find Caxton
greatly busying himself to continue the list. Not only did he give us
the whole of Sir Thomas Malory's _Morte D'Arthur_, "enprynted and
fynysshed in thabbey Westmestre the last day of Iuyl, the yere of our
lord MCCCCLXXXV"; but he actually translated several romances into
very good English prose on his own account, viz. _Godefroy of Boloyne_
(1481), _Charles the Grete_ (1485), _The Knight Paris and the fair
Vyene_ (1485), _Blanchardyn and Eglantine_ (about 1489), and _The Four
Sons of Aymon_ (about 1490). We must further put to the credit of the
fifteenth century the remarkable English version of the _Gesta
Romanorum_, and many more versions by Caxton, such as _The Recuyell
of the Historyes of Troye_, _The Life of Jason_, _Eneydos_ (which is
Virgil's _Aeneid_ in the form of a prose romance), _The Golden Legend_
or Lives of Saints, and _Reynard the Fox_. When all these works are
considered, the fifteenth century emerges with considerable credit.
It remains to look at some of the above-named romances a little more
closely, in order to see if any of them are in the dialect of Northern
England.
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