Thomas D'Urfey's Richmond
Heiress (1693): A
Bibliographical Study
Raymond A. Biswanger, Jr.
The first edition of Thomas D'Urfey's comedy, The Richmond
Heiress: Or, A Woman Once in the Right, presents a number of
interesting bibliographical problems. It was first published in
1693, evidently from a manuscript which had served as a prompt copy
or, rather more likely, which had been marked to serve as the basis
for a transcribed prompt book. An actor's name appears sporadically
in place of the character he portrayed; more important, warnings to
the actors about to enter the scene have crept into the text in two
places.[1] The quarto collates
A-I4, pp. [8] 1-32
29-36 41-64 (all pp. in parentheses except for 57-64 in square
brackets). The book appears to be very carelessly printed, very
likely in considerable haste.
This edition exists in two distinct issues, the second of which,
as we shall see later, is a reimpression except for two sheets.
The first issue, distinguished as (i), exists with the outer
forme of sheet A, including the title-page, in two variant states.
In the earliest pulls of this forme (iτ) the title-page reads as
follows:
THE | Richmond Heireſs: | OR, A | Woman Once in the
Right. | A COMEDY, | ACTED | At the THEATRE ROAYL, |
By Their
Majesties Servants. | [rule] | Written by THO. D'URFEY,
Gent. | [rule] | LONDON, | Printed for Samuel
Briſcoe, over-againſt Will's
Coffee-Houſe
| in Covent-Garden. 1693. stent ROAYL
Will's
Issue (iτ)
Copies examined: Folger (2.6.47), Huntington
(123057).
Copy reported: British Museum
(644.h.23).
Comparatively early in the printing (on the evidence of the few
copies preserved of this early state) the press was stopped. On the
title-page the misprint 'ROAYL' was corrected to 'ROYAL', and the
line attributing the authorship to D'Urfey was revised to read
| Written by Mr. D'URFEY. |
This produces state (i*), performed by press-correction with the
remainder of the type of the title left undisturbed.
The alteration of the line containing the author's name has an
interesting background. In 1691 D'Urfey had been scathingly
attacked in the epistle dedicatory of the anonymous pamphlet Wit
for Money, in which he was referred to as, "a certain Poet,
who before the Poll Acts, used to write himself T. D.
Gentleman. . . ." The original form of the
Heiress
title-page seems to have been the work of the printer, therefore,
and the change made by the author himself. This view is
substantiated by important textual changes made elsewhere in the
outer forme of this sheet at the same time as the revision of the
title-page. On sig. A2v
'The Scene
Richmond-Hill.'
was added beneath the dramatis personae. On A4v a
necessary
correction was made in the text in stanza 3 of 'SHINKEN's Song
to the Harp' by the alteration of 'Highfoot' to 'light-foot'.
On the same page in 'SONG. In the Last ACT'
the word 'Philosophers' was altered to 'Philosophey' in the last
line of stanza 3; in the third line of stanza 6 'A Health' became
'Success'; and simultaneously an entire new stanza, a seventh, was
added to this song. These are clearly authorial revisions.
Issue (i*)
Copies examined: Folger (10.21.43), Folger (8.30.46),
Chicago, Columbia, Library of Congress, Illinois (822.08 / P699),
Newberry, Pennsylvania.
Copies reported: Bodleian (Mal. 47[6]), Worcester
College
Oxford, National Library of Scotland.
During the course of impression in this first issue, one small
press-correction was made in sheet E, when on sig. E2 in the last
line 'I must needs, nay,' was altered to 'I must needs say,'.
However, both formes of sheet H were heavily press-corrected on
every page. A total of ten variants appear in the inner forme, the
most convenient identification being in line 12 of H1v
where the
stage-direction '[to Doggett.' of the early pulls was
altered in the corrected state of the forme to '[to
Quickwit.'. Most of
these variants represent correction of egregious compositorial
misreadings and lapses, but several represent literary revision. In
the outer forme of H appear twelve similar corrections. In addition
to these the warning to the actors, '[
Sir Charles.T.Romance,
Shink.Guiac.
Constable.' at line 5 of H1 in the uncorrected
state is eliminated in the corrected. The two stage directions on
H1 (lines 24-25 and 29-31) are reset, the first being made less
crowded, and the second indented from the left margin, this last
producing consequential changes in the lineation. In all the copies
observed, both formes of sheet H were either in their uncorrected
or else in their corrected states; in no case was an uncorrected
forme backed by a corrected, or
vice versa.
It is an equally curious fact that owing to the distribution of
the sheets in the binding process, every observed copy of issue
(iτ) with uncorrected sheet A (containing the 'ROAYL' title) is
bound with uncorrected sheets E and H. Moreover, every observed
copy of issue (i*) with corrected sheet A ('ROYAL' title) was bound
either with uncorrected sheet E but corrected sheet H,[2] or else with corrected sheet E and
uncorrected sheet H.[3] No observed
copy of (i*) contained both E and H uncorrected or both
corrected.
Before passing on to the second issue (reimpression) and its
variants, I should say something of the printing of issue (i),
since certain facts in relation to this have a bearing on the
interpretation of the peculiarities of issue (ii). The evidence is,
unfortunately, somewhat contradictory and at first sight not
susceptible to an exact bibliographical solution.
For example, if we took only the evidence of spelling tests to
determine compositors, we should divide the book into sheets B-E
set by compositor X, and sheets F-H set by compositor Y. What
evidence there is would assign sheet A to workman X. As for sheet
I, it is quite anomalous since it contains some characteristics of
both X and Y. A marked compositorial break seems to occur beginning
with sheet F.
Compositor
|
X |
|
|
|
Y |
|
|
? |
Sheets
|
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G |
H |
I |
I'll |
15 |
15 |
9 |
22 |
12 |
5 |
17 |
18 |
I'le (or Ile) |
|
|
|
|
3 |
7 |
3 |
ile |
|
|
|
|
2 |
intrigue (and forms) |
6 |
3 |
5 |
1 |
|
|
|
2 |
intreague (and forms) |
|
|
|
|
3 |
4 |
7 |
'Gad |
7 |
1 |
3 |
6 |
Gad |
|
|
|
|
3 |
12 |
11 |
7 |
Quickwit |
6 |
2 |
6 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
9 |
Quickwitt |
|
|
|
|
2 |
2 |
2 |
Marmalet |
1 |
1 |
5 |
3 |
1 |
|
|
1 |
Marmalett |
|
|
|
|
|
5 |
1 |
Hotspur |
2 |
4 |
|
1 |
6 |
|
1 |
Hotspurr |
|
|
|
|
2 |
|
1 |
2 |
Shinken |
2 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
Shinkin |
4 |
|
|
|
3 |
3 |
6 |
3 |
Roman scene numbers |
1 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
Arabic scene numbers |
|
|
|
|
1 |
3 |
4 |
This table seems to point to only one compositor of sheets B-E, a
workman of regular characteristics. Correspondingly, at least for
sheets F-H, another compositor seems to be present, one of mixed
characteristics but nevertheless in the majority of cases
differentiating himself from the first workman.
On the basis of four appearances of the spelling 'intrigue' (and
forms) in the dramatis personae, there are grounds for assigning
sheet A to compositor X. Sheet I is troublesome. The compositor
shares with X the invariable spelling 'I'll', the invariable
spelling 'intrigue' (once on I2v 'intriegue'), and the
spelling
of 'Quickwit' and 'Marmalet' with single final consonant. On the
other hand, he doubles the last consonant in 'Hotspurr' like Y;
also like Y he does not place an apostrophe before 'Gad' and he
employs the invariable spelling 'Shinkin'. A breakdown of the
occurrences of these variants by pages does not encourage a
hypothesis that X and Y alternated. Although X could have set
I1r, and Y could have set
I1v-2v, on I3-4r there
is the
clash between Y's 'Gad' without apostrophe, one to each page, and
X's spellings of 'Quickwit', 'Marmalet', and 'intrigue'. Possibly
another compositor, Z, is present, a workman of mixed
characteristics in following copy.
It should also be noticed that the compositor of sheet F, though
in most respects associated with the characteristics of compositor
Y, especially in such important invariables as 'Shinkin',
'intreague', and 'Gad' without apostrophe, yet is heavy on the
'Hotspur' spelling, once uses (on sig. F1r) a roman scene
number, once the 'Marmalet' spelling, and is unique in setting
parentheses about stage directions instead of the square brackets
invariably used elsewhere in both sections. The odds are that he is
Y, but some doubt may exist.
The evidence for a sharp break in compositorial characteristics
occurring between sheets E and F strongly suggests the hypothesis
that this book, like so many Restoration play quartos, was divided
approximately in half between two compositors and presses and the
two sections simultaneously typeset and printed. Moreover, this
evidence is buttressed by the significant fact, commented on below,
that in the reimpression which constitutes issue (ii) both sheets
B and F (the start of the two sections of text) show no signs of
reimpression and are definitely sheets from the same run as issue
(i). This further serves to differentiate the two sections of the
book, and may be taken as confirming the general hypothesis for
simultaneous printing in two major sections. Yet it is by no means
certain that only two compositors and presses were involved. Sheet
I, for example, with its unique headline square brackets and its
mixed spelling characteristics seems to be associated with
a different compositor and press, brought in to help finish the
book as quickly as possible. In the second section the two
preceding sheets G and H definitely are the product of only one
workman, on the evidence of the spelling but more important on the
evidence of their similar type-page measurement of 48 ll. 194-5
(205-6) x 122 mm. But sheet F, already mentioned as slightly
irregular in spelling, not only has smaller page numbers in the
headlines than those in sheets G and H but also was set to fit a
quite different skeleton-forme, its average type-page measurement
being 46 ll. 188(198) x 126. Moreover, 20 lines of its type
measures about 82 mm., whereas the type measurement for sheets G
and H is about 81 mm. Thus sheets G-H would seem to have been set
by a different compositor from that of F (which on the whole is
difficult to believe), or else there was a delay in the printing
after the composition and machining of sheet F.
In the first section there seems to be a similar break. Sheets
B and C have the same small numbers in the headline, approximately
the same type-page measurements, and seem to have been set with the
same printer's measure of 119-120 mm. and in the
same font of type. Yet sheets D and E change to larger figures in
the headlines, and are set to fill a different skeleton-forme,
since their measure changes to 126 mm.; moreover, though sheet E
has apparently the same font of type as B-C, about 81 mm., that in
sheet D is an 82 mm. type. Since the spelling tests make it almost
impossible to conjecture more than one compositor, clearly this is
an anomaly. Possibly a delay between C and D can be posited here,
as could be conjectured between F and G; but if so, it is a little
more difficult to explain why all the observed copies of issue (ii)
contain sheet C re-impressed.
Issue (ii), with the exception of sheets B and F, was printed
from the standing type of issue (i) re-imposed and in parts
revised. The title-page now reads:
THE | Richmond Heireſs: | OR, A | Woman Once in the
Right. | A COMEDY, | ACTED | At the THEATRE ROYAL, |
By Their
Majesties Servants. | [rule] | Written by Mr. D'URFEY. |
[rule] | LONDON, | Printed for Samuel
Briſcoe,
over-againſt Will's Coffee-Houſe | in
Covent-Garden. 1693. stet Will's
This is the same form as in issue (iτ), and represents the
standing type of this issue, although there have been a few
typographical alterations. The letter 'R' in 'Richmond' has been
changed from one with a straight tail to a sort with a curved tail.
The lower rule, broken in (i), has been replaced and the two rules
moved nearer each other. In (i) the rules are 25 mm. apart, but in
(ii) only 18 mm. The roman 'l' in
'Wil
l's' of
issue
(i) has been replaced with an italic type. On A4
v the
spelling
Philosophey in the third stanza of the song in the last act
has been altered to
Philosophy. In the other sheets changes
in the alignment of the page numbers in the headline in relation to
the text, or alterations in the font used to set the paginal
headlines, demonstrates that the type-pages have been stored and
reimposed for a second impression. There is no question, however,
that sheets B and F in both issues come from a single impression,
since there is no alteration in the headlines or in the text.
Moreover, the outline of a hair on the face of the type across
lines 16-18 of sig. B1
v is present in both issues,
presumably an
impossibility if the type-page had been rinsed and stored between
impressions.
Before the impression a few, mostly minor, corrections were made
in the standing type. For instance, on C2v, line 25, 'hear
you
are' in (i) was altered properly to 'here you are' in (ii). That
these were the sole responsibility of the printing house is shown
by the miscorrection that followed on C3r, line 7, of 'She
hear!' to 'She here!' through a misunderstanding of the context.
Some few of the differences result from type dropping out, as the
disappearance of the u between impressions in the
speech-heading on G2v, line 20, from
'Quick.' in (i) to
'Qick.' in (ii). Viewed as a whole, the alterations made in
standing type do not suggest authorial intervention. Of the text,
such variants appear only on C2v, C3,
G2v, G3, H2, H3v,
I4v. Grouped thus as formes, it is likely that the slight
changes were made just before printing the second impression.
More important changes appear, however, in the second
impression, since a certain amount of resetting is found. Thus the
whole of sigs. D1v and D2 appear in a new typesetting,
as well
as the whole of G4v and the last 15 lines of G1. The
variant
settings may be identified as follows: D1v, line 8, 'four'
with
a comma in (i) but no comma in (ii); D2, line 26, 'surprized' in
(i) but 'surpriz'd' in (ii); G1, line 34, 'disturb' in (i) but
'desturb' in (ii); G4v, line 1, ends with 'Heiress' in (i) but
'Heiress agen' in all but one copy of (ii). The text in these reset
portions shows normal compositorial corruption and there is no
evidence that any variant has authority.
Within sheets D and G these reset portions are confined to a
forme from each sheet. Although it may be that they resulted from
accidental pieing in handling the type, another suggestion is
possible and will be offered later.
Issue (ii), normal form
Copies examined: William A. Clark, Folger (9.3.46),
Folger (cs 368), Illinois (uncatalogued, 24 Je 47 Spencer),
Princeton, Texas (Aitken).
Copies reported: Harvard, Yale, British Museum (G.
18953[5]), British Museum (81.c.5[5]), British Museum (841.d.27),
Bodleian (C.6.14[12] Linc.), Bodleian (Douce D subt. 66[6]),
Victoria and Albert Museum.
The second issue exists in several variant states. Among the
copies examined, Huntington (123058) is unique in possessing an
added leaf (bound between A3 and A4) which is paged 61 and 62 and
contains a song "The Country Gentlemen" on recto and verso.[4] The pagination is enclosed in
square
brackets, similar to the practise in sheet I of the text. This
addition is accompanied in the Huntington copy by two cancellations
made to include revisions to the text. The Gentleman's
Journal for November, 1693, noticed: "Mr. Durfey's
Richmond Heiress has been Revis'd, and Acted several times,
with Alterations and Amendments." The revisions on cancel leaves G3
and I1 would appear to reflect these later changes, at least in
part.
In IV.iii on G3r the changes take away comment on
Tom
Romance's intrigue with Mrs. Stockjobb in order to emphasize the
romance with Sophronia which figures so prominently at the end of
the play. Various additional disparaging remarks about Tom's father
seem to heighten Tom's role as a profligate and so justify the more
his final undoing later. In order to insert this new material,
G3r was reset in smaller type, with 55 lines to the page
as
against 48 in the cancellandum, and some of the revision was
carried over onto the verso, which is set in type similar to that
of the original leaf. Parentheses are used about the headline page
numbers in the cancellans.
On sig. I1 the action of V.iv had originally continued with a
farcical episode involving Numps. In cancellans I1 this action is
excised completely and, instead, Scene Ultima begins at the head of
the cancellans leaf recto with an interview between Sophronia and
Tom Romance (lacking in the original version) before the entrance
of Sir Charles, Guiacum, and Hotspur. Originally, their entrance,
with that of Romance, had begun the first version of the final
scene on cancellandum I1v. Parentheses are used about the
headline pagination of the cancellans.
From the similarity of paper and the fact that the chain-lines
match up, it seems reasonably certain that the added song bound in
the Huntington copy's preliminaries and cancellans leaf I1 were
printed together by half-sheet imposition and then cut apart for
insertion. On the other hand, the paper of cancellans leaf G3 seems
to differ slightly, and it may be that this represents a separate
printing.[5]
The Wrenn copy at the University of Texas also contains variants
not found elsewhere. This copy is peculiar in that the
title-gathering, sheet A, in the second state of the first
impression (i *) is bound up with sheets B-I of issue (ii).
Presumably
there were a few extra copies of this sheet and it was economically
held over to assist in making up the second issue. Sheet G contains
on sig. G1 a pagination variant, the leaf being numbered 37 and 38
instead of the 41-42 found in all other copies of both impressions.
Apparently when the formes were being readied for the second
impression the printer noticed the gap between page 36 on sig.
F4
v and 41 on G1
r and essayed to bridge
it to indicate to the
purchaser that no material was missing. Since there are no other
variants on this leaf it is impossible to demonstrate whether this
change was in fact made late in the run of the first forme through
the press, or early as I have assumed. Whichever it was, there is
some interest in the consequential change made in the opposite
forme to coincide (on this slight evidence) only with the same
sheets of the first forme printed with the variant pagination.
Finally, there is still another variant state in the copy of
issue (ii) preserved in the Ohio State University library. This is
found in a rearrangement of the type in the first three lines of
sig. G4v, one of the reset pages in issue (ii). In the
impression represented by issue (i) these lines had read "time to
tell ye, that if you follow me quickly, you may recover the Heiress
/ agen. [Speaks as out of breath. / Sir Char.
Hah,
— what say'st thou?" In all of the regular copies of issue (ii)
in the resetting these three lines were condensed to two, reading,
"time to tell ye, that if you follow me quickly, you may recover
the Heiress agen. / Sir Char. Hah, — what say'st
thou?
[Speak [sic] as out of Breath." In the Ohio
State
copy, however, although the type is that of issue (ii) the lines
are arranged as three and the stage-direction reads "Speaks"
as in issue (i). The position of the direction in issue (ii) is
clearly wrong,
since the first speaker (Cunnington) has just said "I have only now
Breath and / time to tell ye . . ." and therefore the
stage-direction must apply to him and not to Sir Charles. It is
obvious, therefore, that the Ohio State copy represents the first
state of the type on G4v in the second impression, which
reprinted that of the first impression, and that the type for these
lines was not rearranged for revision (in the state represented by
other copies of the second issue) but instead for some purely
mechanical reason. It is most plausible to guess that the lines
were reduced from three to two the better to accommodate the
type-page in the opening of the skeletonforme, and in the process
it was necessary to place the direction after a different line even
though in error.
Variants in Issue (ii) [all copies examined]:
- 1) CSmH (123058): added leaf with new song; G3 and I1
cancellans leaves.
- 2) TxU (Wrenn): G1 paged 37-38 (earliest state?). Sheet A(i
*) bound with sheets B-I of issue (ii).
- 3) OU: G4v, earliest and most correct state of
first three
lines on G4v.
Any use of standing-type, especially in connection with partial
resetting, calls for explanation; and for The Richmond
Heiress this is the more necessary bibliographically because of
the peculiarities which are apparent in the printing of the first
impression and which have a connection with peculiarities, such as
the first-impression sheets B and F, in the second impression. The
following hypothesis is offered in full consciousness that there
still remain a few details of the printing process which seem
difficult to pinpoint exactly.
The date of the first performance for the Heiress is not
quite certain. Nicoll assigns it to c. February, 1693;
Summers and Harbage to c. March; and Day to
c. April.
The later date seems much to be preferred, on two counts. First,
the play was advertised in The Gentleman's Journal for
April, 1693 (p. 130). Second, in a letter from Dryden to Walsh
dated May 9, 1693, Dryden wrote:
Durfey has brought another farce upon the Stage: but his luck
has left him: it was sufferd but foure dayes; and then kickd off
for ever. Yet his second Act, was wonderfully diverting; where the
scene was in Bedlam. . . . The rest was woefull stuff, &
concluded with Catcalls. . . .
Since D'Urfey's dedication in the quarto (in which he speaks of the
play's failure) is dated May 6, it is very likely that the play was
first produced in late April or the first few days of May. In spite
of Dryden's prognostication that the farce was "kickd off for
ever," the
Heiress was revived the following November and
apparently then with some success. As previously noticed,
The
Gentleman's Journal for November, 1693 (p. 374), writes that
the play "has been Revis'd, and Acted several times, with
Alterations and Amendments."
[6]
It seems clear from the way in which many Restoration play
quartos were hurriedly printed in two or more sections
simultaneously that the first appearance in print ordinarily
coincided closely with the date of initial performance, and there
is some reason to suspect that authors liked to have copies
available for the third, or author's, night of the play. Thus
Briscoe, it is almost certain, would have started to print the play
shortly before its first night. On the evidence detailed above that
sheets B and F were simultaneously printed on two presses, we may
suppose that they represent sheets run off in anticipation of an
edition of normal size for a successful play. Only on this
assumption can we explain the fact that enough copies of these
sheets were machined to serve for the second impression without
reprinting. It seems legitimate to assume, further, on the basis of
the evidence that when the catcalls of the first-night
reception[7] demonstrated
that the play was doomed to failure, Briscoe reduced the size of
his edition-sheet beginning with sheets C and G and put out his
first issue in a relatively limited quantity.
However, failure on the stage, it would be possible to argue,
need not necessarily mean failure with the reading public.
Moreover, D'Urfey was a successful dramatist and may have laid
almost immediate plans for revisions in the hope of a revival after
the turmoil had subsided. Thus it seems that Briscoe decided, or
was persuaded, to keep the type standing in anticipation of a
possible further demand in the future which would justify the
inconvenience in view of the money to be saved if a second edition
were called for. Here the resetting of two pages in sheet D and of
one page and a portion of another in sheet G assumes a new
significance, for the position of this resetting argues for
deliberate and mechanical distribution of the original type after
the first impression rather than an accident to type-pages in
storage. If this is so, sheet D (the third of the first section)
and sheet G (the second of the second section) were probably run
off very close to each other in point of
time and had begun to be distributed before Briscoe decided to keep
any of his type standing for a possible later impression.
The date of the second re-impressed issue is uncertain but may
be placed either before the November revival as a consequence of a
reading demand for the play or else, more probably, in close
connection with the revival itself, probably coincidental with it.
That Briscoe was not aware of the changed text which marked the
revival is shown by the fact that no authorial changes were made in
his standing type. Presumably after the later relative success of
the play, a few remaining copies were
brought up to date by the cancellation of leaves G3 and I1 to
provide some portion of D'Urfey's revisions, as well as the
addition of a new song, as represented, among the copies examined
or reported for this study only in the unique Huntington exemplum.
If this hypothesis is reasonably accurate, it would seem, then,
that Briscoe kept his type standing from early May to November.
The main outlines of this reconstruction do not seem to be
controversial and they may roughly represent the facts in all
probability. The problems raised by the anomalous evidence for the
printing of the first impression may now be surveyed with somewhat
more speculation. It will be recalled that a spelling test shows
little doubt that sheets B-E (and probably A) were set by one
compositor, this comprising the first section of the book. In the
second section sheet G and H were clearly set by the same workman;
but sheet F, although in general showing his characteristics, is
not quite so uniform, and sheet I is rather mixed. Within each
section bibliographical evidence suggests some lack of continuity
in typesetting and also in printing. Thus whereas sheets B and C
employ the same font of type and the same printer's measure, and
utilize the same font for the pagination in the headline, sheets D
and E coincide in a different font for the pagination, and in a
different printer's
measure (126-127 mm. as against 119-120 mm. for B-C), and differ
only in the font for the text, which is slightly larger in sheet D
than that employed in sheets B, C, and E. Correspondingly, sheet F
in the second section is unique in its treatment of setting off
stage-directions by parentheses instead of square brackets, in the
small size of its headline pagination, in the longer printer's
measure (125-126 mm. versus 122-123 for G-H, and 121-122 for I) and
in the slightly larger size of the font used for the text. Sheet I
differs in its use of square brackets instead of parentheses about
the headline pagination; and though its font seems to be the same
as that in sheets G and H, its measure is slightly narrower.
When we put all these facts together we may conjecture that in
the original impression sheet F was started somewhat later than
sheet B. The break that exists between sheets C and D, and between
F and G, suggests that when Briscoe was apprised of the play's
failure sheet F was on the press at the same time as either the
last of sheet B or the early pulls of the first forme of sheet C.
At any rate, the compositor of the first section was far enough in
advance of the second-section workman to have completed his setting
of sheet C, but the second compositor had not, for some reason,
begun to set G. Thus the simultaneous break in the typesetting
after C and F may further suggest that for a short time Briscoe
suspended work on the play, possibly with a view to cutting his
losses at that point by giving up publication. He then, seemingly,
changed his mind, and began again by machining sheet C in a reduced
edition-sheet (from the type already set) and starting fresh
composition
with sheets D and G.[8] If this is
so, the irregular sheet I is explicable as the work of a third
compositor and press, since the first press would be working on
sheet A when the second was engaged with sheet H, and to complete
the play most expeditiously some extra assistance was required in
the second section.
The only irregularity remaining is the shift in sheet E back to
the font of type used in sheets B and C instead of the slightly
larger font employed for sheet D when setting was resumed. This is
mere guesswork, but it may not be unreasonable to
conjecture that since sheet E had to join with the text for sheet
F, long since printed, the inadvertent choice of type for sheet D
was corrected in order to set more text, as was necessary, in sheet
E.
[9]
Notes