William Caxton, the first printer in England, writes in the preface to his translation of Virgil's Aeneid about the use of the vernacular

Iconfess I am not learned nor knowing the art of rhetoric, nor of such gay terms as are in these days now used having no work in hand, I was sitting in my study where many diverse pamphlets and books laid, it happened that to my hand came a little book in French, which of late was translated out of Latin by some noble clerk of France which book I saw over and read therein in which book I had great pleasure, by cause of the fair and honest terms and, word in French, which I never saw the like before, nor noneWpleasant or well ordered and when I had advised me in this said book, I deliberated and...