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Printing Methods and Textual Problems in A Midsummer Night's Dream Q1
by
Robert K. Turner, Jr.
I
A Midsummer Night's Dream Q1, printed "probably by Richard Bradock"[1] for Thomas Fisher in 1600, is a book of thirty-two unnumbered leaves. It collates A-H4. A1 is the title page, A1v is a blank; A2 bears the head title. The text, commencing on A2, is completed fourteen lines down on H4v, the remaining white space on that page being partially filled by a circular ornament. All leaves are signed with the conventional roman cap and arabic numeral, except F2 where an italic cap and H4 where a small cap are used. The speech-prefixes, which are indented, are set in italic caps and lower case, with some substitutions of small caps, and the stage-directions in italics with personae usually, but not always, in roman. Entrance directions are usually centered (exceptions occur on D2v, F1v, and H1v) and exit and other subordinate directions are placed in the margin unless they are fairly elaborate as they are on F4v and H1. There is nothing very striking about the typography; on cursory examination the book seems to be a run-of-the-mine Elizabethan dramatic quarto. Neither variations in spelling nor typographical abnornalities indicate that it was set up by more than one compositor.
A close look at the running-titles, however, gives us our first hint that the procedure adopted for printing was not so straightforward as may at first appear. Separately signed preliminaries, we have long known, were often printed after the text,[2] but when the preliminaries and the beginning of the text share sheet A we have some right to expect that sheet to have been set up and machined before the rest of the text. The running-titles, however, show us that sheet A of MND Q1 was the last sheet to go through the press. The book was worked in two skeleton-formes, one regularly imposing the inner and the other the outer formes.[3] The running-titles read on both recto and verso "A Midsommer nightes dreame." except on H3v where we find "A Midsommer nights dreame." Significant changes were made in two titles during the course of printing: (1) The "g" appearing in the title used on B3 and C3 (IV in the diagram below) was replaced at D4v, and the new type appears on E4v, F4v, G4v, H3, and A4v. (2) The title used on B4v and C4v (VII) is characterized by a broken "r" and a defective "e" in "dreame." At D3 a break in the "M" also appears, and the three defects are found together on E2v and F3 (where the two "e's" of "dreame" were exchanged in position). At G2v the "r" seems to have been replaced, and the "e" prints somewhat better than usual. When the title appears on H1, only the break in the "M" and the new "r" are evident, and only these two characteristics can be observed in the title as it appears on A3v.
It is then clear that sheet A was printed after sheet H, and with the aid of the following diagram, in which the running-titles are represented by roman numerals, we can understand why running-title IV, which is normally found in the same forme with VII and VIII, happened to be dissociated from them in sheet A:[4]
An examination of the reappearances in various parts of the book of certain recognizable types shows that composition was by formes.[5] Let us first consider the implications of type reappearances in the first two sheets to be set. Type from B(o) is found in both formes of sheet C:
- d B1,18-C1v,8
- F B1,27-C1v,34
- k B2v,1-C1,8(?)
- b B2v,23-C4,26(?)
- f B2v,33-C3,33
- y B3,7-C2v, 7
- h B3,10-C1,1
- ſt B3,10-C2v,15
- B B3,sig.-C1v-23
- N B4v,7-C3,16
- ſſ B4v,24-C1v,5
- d B2,2-C3v,7
- f B2,14-C3v,16
- h B2,25-C3v,11
- y B2,27-C3v,34
- W B4,8-C4,7
- d C1,7-D3,24
- g C1,9-D3,24
- d C1,28-D2v,31
- p C1,29-D4v,23
- y C2v,7-D4v,22
- y C2v,18-D3,17
- w C2v,24-D2v,30
- m C3,5-D2,14
- m C3,6-D2,14
- N C3,16-D1v,5
- u C4v,12-D1v,32
- k C4v,30-D1v,20
- u C4v,32-D1v,24
- ſſ C1v,5-D3v,23
- d C1v,7-D4,4
- n C1v,33-D4,28
- A C2,21-D3v,4
- n C2,24-D3v,3
- d C2,31-D4,10
When type reappears in this manner, composition cannot have been seriatim. Had it been so, B(o), to consider the forme which must have been distributed before the composition of sheet C had got very far along, could not have been made ready for the press until B4v had been set. The workman would then have started on sheet C, but we have evidence that B(o) had been worked off and distributed before he reached line 5 of C1v, that is, after he had set only a page of the new forme. Presumably B(i) would then have perfected its sheet, but this forme too was distributed during the setting of sheet C. The press, then, would have been delayed for at least the length of time required to set C3v and C4 before the first forme of C could have been imposed. We know, of course, that press delays sometimes occurred, but, if we examine the reappearances of sheet C type in sheet D, we will find that there too a delay would have resulted from seriatim setting and so through the rest of the book. It seems clear, then, that B(o) was completely set and sent to the press before B(i), that it was machined and ready for distribution before the composition of C(o) was begun, that B(i) was off the press and distributed during the setting of C(i) — in short, that the book generally was set by formes. But, as we shall see when we examine the type shortage evidence, this is not the whole story.
The same pattern of reappearances can be seen in most of the subsequent sheets. D(o) type is found in both formes of E:
- m D1,13-E3v,8(?)
- k D1,14-E4v,24
- k D1,21-E4v,23
- I D1,23-E4,10
- r D2v,12-E4,27
- W D2v,14-E1v,31
- k D2v,17-E1v,24
- m D4v,1-E2,13(?)
- N D1v,5-E1v,35(?)
- k D1v,20-E2,8
- u D1v,24-E3v,23
- ſt D1v,25-E3v,31
- m D2,14-E3v,24
- y D2,27-E2,1
- B D2,32-E1v,7
- S D4,27-E4,30
- d E1,5-F1v,27
- o E1,18-F2,14
- n E1,29-F2,26
- B E1,31-F1v,29
- d E2v,32-F2,10
- y E3,12-F4v,33
- m E3,17-F4v,23
- u E3,26-F4v,3
- b E3,29-F4v,21
- ſh E4v,25-F1v,7
- B E1v,7-F3v,26
- f E1v,13-F3v,16
- k E1v,24-F3v,25
- W E1v,31-F4,33
- I F1,7-G1v,27
- M F1,13-G4v,9(?)
- ſh F1,18-G4v,10
- m F2v,5-G2,13(?)
- d F2v,28-G2,29
- b F3,6-G2,3
- W F3,7-G4v,8
- ſſ F3,16,G1v,29
- u F4v,3-G2,11
- M F4v,17-G1v,29
- W F1v,2-G3v,3
- d F1v,27-G3v,5
- B F1v,29-G3v,21
- g F2,8-G3v,5
- d F2,10-G4,30
- u G1,5-H3v,8
- h G1,11-H1v,18
- ſt G1,12-H1v,32
- m G1,14-H2,3
- m G1,16-H2,1
- r G2v,19-H2,28
- ſi G2v,26-H2,15
- ſt G3,11-H4,14(?)
- m G4v,24-H4,22
- A G4v,26-H1v,13
- L G4v,27-H1v,31
- y G4v,31-H2,32
- y G1v,17-A2,13
- S G1v,26-A2v,5(?)
- B G1v,32-A2v,34(?)
- d G2,26-A3v,17
- w G3v,2-A2v,10(?)
- ſſ G4,2-A4,28(?)
- h G4,4-A2v,8(?)
- k G4,12-A3,26
- d G4,15-A3v,18
- ſ G4,22-A2v,10(?)
- d G4,30-A3,23(?)
- k H1,1-A2v,17(?)
- f H1,5-A4v,8
- y H2v,17-A2v,20(?)
- y H2v,18-A2v,6
- h H2v,24-A3,21
- k H3,21-A2v,34
- L H3,31-A2v,5(?)
This relationship between composition, presswork, and distribution seems to hold good throughout most of the book, but at sheet G certain abnormalities begin to appear: G(o), which should have been distributed before or early in the compostion of H (o), was apparently not distributed until the setting of that forme was completed, G(i) until after H(i) was composed,[6] and H(o) until after G(i) was completed. We thus have evidence that during the composition of sheet G the time relationship which had existed between the compositor and the press was disturbed, but we cannot without further examination tell what the cause of this disturbance was.
Of the evidence examined so far, two completely different interpretations
To this point I have suggested that there were only two methods of composition—seriatim and by formes—available to the workman who set the type, and I have argued that the latter method was employed in MND Q1. Yet we must realize that when a compositor set a quarto by formes he did not necessarily have to set the type-pages in numerical sequence within the formes, although it is my distinct impression that this order was usually adopted. Nor did the compositor necessarily have to set either by formes or seriatim; he could, if he chose, combine the two methods. Although we can be reasonably sure that MND Q1 was in general set outer forme first, we might now see what we can tell about the order in which the pages of each forme were composed and whether the compositor ever deviated from strict adherence to the method which he generally followed.
In order to do this we must use type-shortage evidence in combination with the evidence of type reappearances. By itself the testimony of shortages is, I believe, less reliable than that of any other bibliographical technique. We generally assume that when a compositor ran short of type of a certain kind, say roman capital A, he substituted for it another appropriate kind of type, say italic capital A or small capital a, and that he continued his deliberate use of wrong-font letters until his supply of proper types was replenished by distribution. There is no doubt that compositors substituted in this manner: we can in some instances determine exactly how many types of a particular kind were in the case; we can see these types being used up, substitutions for them
What sometimes complicates matters is that compositors apparently did not always wait until the supply of regular type was completely exhausted before they began to substitute, and then when distributing they did not always separate the substituted from the regular type but evidently distributed both into the same box in such a way that the two sorts later appear in a more-or-less random mixture. Even when attempts seem to have been made to keep the two sorts separated, once substituting began compositors seem occasionally to have substituted when they had plenty of the regular type on hand, probably because the supply of regular type became fouled during distribution. However, the reliability of type shortage evidence can be increased when we evaluate it in the light of type reappearances, but even here we can be forced away from the most desirable position by occasionally having to take into account the evidence of only one or two reappearing types and sometimes having to argue from the non-reappearance of type. Both are bad policies because mistakes in individual type identifications are easy to make and reappearances are easy to miss.
With these precautions in mind, let us examine the type substitution in MND Q1. In sheet B we find that a shortage of roman capital A was made good by the substitution of small capital A, as follows (here and subsequently, numbers to the left of the stroke represent types of the proper kind and those to the right substituted types):[8]
B(o) | B(i) | |||||||
1 | 2v | 3 | 4v | 1v | 2 | 3v | 4 | |
A/a | 5/0 | 2/0 | 5/0 | 10/0 | 6/0 | 8/1 | 8/5 | 4/1 |
If this seems a borrowing of trouble, we might look at the next sheet, where once again the A's run short:
C(o) | C(i) | |||||||
1 | 2v | 3 | 4v | 1v | 2 | 3v | 4 | |
A/a | 10/0 | 0/4 | 0/2 | 0/4 | 9/0 | 6/0 | 4/0 | 2/0 |
C | ||||||||
1 | 1v | 2 | 2v | 3 | 4v | 3v | 4 | |
A/a | 10/0 | 9/0 | 6/0 | 0/4 | 0/2 | 0/4 | 4/0 | 2/0 |
The evidence in sheet D is weaker, but the best indications are that the compositor did not try to revert to seriatim setting:
D(o) | D(i) | |||||||
1 | 2v | 3 | 4v | 1v | 2 | 3v | 4 | |
A/a | 7/0 | 5/0 | 8/0 | 5/0 | -- | 6/1 | 5/0 | 7/0 |
In sheet E two new shortages are found:
E(o) | E(i) | |||||||
1 | 2v | 3 | 4v | 1v | 2 | 3v | 4 | |
A/a | 7/6 | 0/2 | 3/2 | 4/0 | 3/0 | 5/0 | 2/0 | 6/0 |
H/h | 1/1 | 2/1 | 0/3 | 1/1 | 3/0 | 1/0 | 1/0 | 2/3 |
H/h | 3/0 | 9/0 | 4/0 | 11/0 | 4/0 | 7/1 | 3/6 | 0/7 |
Type reappearances also indicate that D(i) was distributed very shortly after D(o), the first type from this forme reappearing on E1v. Before the composition of E started, the case was resupplied with eighteen A's, enough to finish out the forme with no substitutions, but only eight H's and no H's. Thus small-cap h's were introduced in place of both these letters late in the forme. Once again it looks as though composition must have gone in normal sequential order within the formes.
The situation in sheet F is not quite so clear. Here another series of substitution begins:
F(o) | F(i) | |||||||
1 | 2v | 3 | 4v | 1v | 2 | 3v | 4 | |
A/a | 7/0 | 5/0 | 3/0 | 2/0 | 8/0 | 4/0 | 5/1 | 0/5 |
H/h | 1/0 | 3/0 | 2/0 | 1/0 | 2/0 | 1/2 | 2/0 | 1/0 |
H/h | 0/4 | 0/1 | -- | 4/1 | -- | 1/0 | -- | 0/1 |
T/t | -- | -- | 4/0 | 6/1 | -- | -- | 2/1 | 3/4 |
Upon the completion of this forme, the workman seems to have gone ahead with F(i), setting F1v, F2, and perhaps part of F3v, and then suspending composition to distribute E1v, as type reappearances suggest. From this single type page only three A's, three H's, and no T's were returned to the case, thus necessitating substitution for the A's and T's required by F3v and F4. The rest of the standing type seems to have been distributed after F(i) was imposed.[10]
Sheet G too seems to have been set in regular order within the formes:
G(o) | G(i) | |||||||
1 | 2v | 3 | 4v | 1v | 2 | 3v | 4 | |
A/a | 4/0 | 5/0 | 4/0 | 8/0 | 7/0 | 1/0 | 7/0 | 4/2 |
H/h | 2/0 | 1/0 | 2/4 | 1/3 | 1/0 | 3/0 | 2/0 | 1/0 |
H/h | 4/1 | 1/1 | 1/1 | 1/0 | 6/0 | -- | -- | 2/0 |
T/t | -- | 2/1 | 1/4 | 3/4 | -- | 4/0 | 3/3 | 0/3 |
In the two remaining sheets, H and A, I can see no indication that the type pages were not set in sequential order within the formes, although the type-shortage evidence is not so clear as it might be. It would seem that by this time all of the regular boxes were becoming fouled with the small caps and that substitutions were sometimes made accidentally. In sheet H a new shortage appears:
H(o) | H(i) | |||||||
1 | 2v | 3 | 4v | 1v | 2 | 3v | 4 | |
A/a | 4/0 | 3/0 | 2/6 | 1/2 | 5/0 | 4/0 | 4/0 | 5/0 |
H/h | 2/0 | -- | 2/1 | -- | 1/0 | 5/0 | -- | 1/2 |
H/h | -- | -- | -- | -- | 1/0 | 1/0 | 1/0 | -- |
T/t | 7/1 | 0/2 | 0/4 | -- | 1/8 | 1/1 | 1/0 | 0/1 |
P/p | 3/0 | 4/0 | 1/2 | -- | 2/6 | -- | 2/0 | -- |
A(i) | A(o) | |||||||
1v | 2 | 3v | 4 | 1 | 2v | 3 | 4v | |
A/a | -- | 6/0 | 5/3 | 2/3 | -- | 5/1 | 1/0 | 4/0 |
H/h | -- | 4/0 | -- | 1/1 | -- | -- | -- | 1/0 |
H/h | -- | 2/1 | 6/0 | 6/0 | -- | 2/2 | 4/0 | 6/2 |
T/t | -- | 1/2 | 0/1 | -- | 1/0 | 1/1 | 3/0 | 1/0 |
P/p | -- | 1/0 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
With the information we have thus gained, we can with some confidence chart the progress of composition as follows:
From this we can draw several inferences. It seems likely that the compositor, working on the assumption that composition and presswork could stay more-or-less in balance, originally intended to follow the conventional procedure for setting by formes—to compose two formes, distribute the first, set the third, distribute the second, and so on. That B(o) was machined in the time required to set the four type pages of B(i) or perhaps even a little less time is indicated by its distribution before the composition of C began. Thus the speed of the press, which barring accidents would have remained fairly constant, is established as the rate at which about four type pages could be composed. The compositor could alter this time relationship in his own favor by increasing his normal rate of work or by setting quick pages—pages with short lines or plenty of white space—but I doubt that in setting normal material he could gain more than a page in a forme, if that much. His attempt to shift to seriatim setting in sheet C caused him to delay the distribution of B(i) until he could get B(o) ready for the press, for that forme was probably returned to him while he was setting C2v or C3. The distribution of C(o) only three type-pages after B(i) is a further indication that the press was working at something like its original rate and that the compositor deliberately delayed the distribution of B(i).
Thus we have reason to believe that throughout the book certain formes may have been distributed later than they should have been, not because the compositor had gained on the press, but because he wanted to get a new forme imposed or get within a page or so of imposition before he temporarily stopped composing to distribute. Further, we can understand the nearly simultaneous distribution of the two formes of D; the piecemeal distribution of E(i), F(o), and F(i), attempts to get some type on hand during the composition of a forme without using any more time than necessary; and the distribution of G(o), H(o), and G(i) four type pages late in each instance.
II
Some years ago Professor J. Dover Wilson edited the New Cambridge MND on the theory that an original of 1592 was revised in 1594 and again in 1598, perhaps then for the marriage of the Earl of Southampton to Elizabeth Vernon.[12] The copy for Q1, he believed, was the prompt book, which was written in Shakespeare's autograph and which contained manuscript pages from all three periods of composition.
In B(o), the first forme composed, there are two minor instances of mislineation. The first occurs in the first eight lines of the fairy's speech (B3,14-17;II.i.2-9), which appear in the quarto as follows (correct verse line endings are indicated by a stroke):
Ouer hill, ouer dale,/ thorough bush, thorough brier,/
Ouer parke, ouer pale,/ thorough flood, thorough fire:/
I do wander euery where; swifter than the Moons sphere:/
And I serue the Fairy Queene,/ to dew her orbs vpon the
(greene./
Comes / from our debate, from our dissention:
About the first of these one cannot be positive, but it looks as though the lines probably stood in the MS as they do in the quarto, the quatrain being lined as a couplet and the couplets as single lines of verse. If this is true, the couplets of which the rest of the speech is composed, so lined in the quarto, probably were written in single lines in the MS, but were divided by the compositor who, having had to turn over the last word of B3,17, decided that the MS lines were going to be too long for his measure. The compositor could, of course, do about as he chose with this material since he was working on the first forme of the sheet. In the second case, the mislineation may have resulted from the compositor's carelessness; but later in the play (at F3,26; G1,22; G3v,10; and G3v,18) we find other examples of very much the same thing, which just possibly suggests that the MS rather than the workman was at fault.
When B(o) was completed, the limits of B1v,2 and B3v,4 had been established; thus we have more reason to think that the compositor might juggle the text of the inner forme to make it get in these limits. Almost certainly he was doing just this when he set a short speech of Bottom's and one of Peter Quince's in a single line of type at the foot of B2 (B2,33; I.ii.52-53). But it appears that Bottom's Ercles speech (B2,15-18; I.ii.27-34) which is printed as prose was probably written as prose in the copy, since no provision was made in the casting-off for it to be set as verse. One further mislineation occurs in B(i): in the middle of B3v (l. 16; II.i.42-43), we find the beginning of one of Puck's couplet speeches in this arrangement:
Thou speakest aright;/ I am that merry wanderer of
(the night,
Since, as we have seen, the compositor seems to have had to adjust the MS lineation in sheet B, we can better understand his decision to shift to seriatim setting in sheet C even though in doing so he penalized himself in his time relationship with the press. C4v was set out of seriatim order, but no serious problems seem to have arisen. The only instance of mislineation is found at C1v,12 (II.i.175-176) where the compositor chose to set a line and a half of verse in one line of type. It is in this part of the text, however, that Wilson thinks heavy revision to have been made—II.i.1-147 belonging to one level of composition, ll. 148-187 to a second, ll. 188-246 to a third, and ll. 247-268 (end of scene) and II.ii.1-42 to the second again. As C1 begins at II.i.130 and C3 ends at II.ii.38, the seriatim setting of the first five pages of the sheet may indeed suggest that the workman was confronted here with a particularly nightmarish piece of composite copy.
In D(o) we find two more minor instances of mislining—a prose speech of Peter Quince's at D2v,8-9 (III.i.93-94) set in part as verse, doubtless under the influence of Thisbe's immediately preceding verse speech, and at D4v,17 (III.ii.48-49) a line and a half of verse set in one line of type. The textual material included in this sheet runs as follows:
D1 | II.ii.141-III.i.11 | D1v | III.i.11-III.i.47 |
D2v | III.i.85-III.i.120 | D2 | III.i.48-III.i.84 |
D3 | III.i.121-III.i.153 | D3v | III.i.154-III.i.190 |
D4v | III.ii.33-III.ii.67 | D4 | III.i.191-III.ii.32 |
However, the piecemeal distribution of E(i), beginning with E1v after the setting of F2 or part of F3v, suggests that work on F(o) and the first two pages of F(i) went slowly; and this is another part of the
IV.i begins near the bottom of F2v and ends seven lines down on G2. About this scene Wilson says in part:
What, wilt thou heare some musique, my sweete
loue?
Ty.
I haue a venturous Fairy, that shall seeke the Squirils
And fetch thee newe nuts.
Sheet G includes the following textual material:
G1 | IV.i.144-IV.i.177 | G1v | IV.i.178-IV.i.212 |
G2v | IV.ii.22-V.i.15 | G2 | IV.i.212-IV.ii.22 |
G3 | V.i.15-V.i.48 | G3v | V.i.49-V.i.83 |
G4v | V.i.118-V.i.150 | G4 | V.i.84-V.i.117 |
Let us look more closely at the passages in question. At G1,21-23 (IV.i.164-166) we find:
To Hermia / (melted as the snowe)
Seemes to me now / as the remembrance of an idle gaude,/
On G2v and G3, where there are two lengthier mislined passages, the effect of the mislining is different. The first is found at G2v,26-G3,3 (V.i.5-18); asterisks indicate lines which Wilson (pp. 80-81) thinks to have belonged to the earlier layer of composition:
Such shaping phantasies, that apprehend/more,
Then coole reason euer comprehends./The lunatick,
The louer, and the Poet / are of imagination all compact./
*One sees more diuels, then vast hell can holde:/
*That is the mad man. The louer, all as frantick,/
*Sees Helens beauty in a brow of Ægypt./
The Poets eye, in a fine frenzy, rolling,/ doth glance
From heauen to earth, from earth to heauen./ And as
Imagination bodies forth / the formes of things [G3]
Vnknowne: the Poets penne / turnes them to shapes,
And giues to ayery nothing,/ a locall habitation,
And a name./*Such trickes hath strong imagination,/
That if it would but apprehend some ioy . . . . [l. 4]
Of loue / accompany your hearts.
Lys.
More then to vs,/ waite in your royall walkes, your boorde, your bedde./
(haue,/
The.
Come now: what maskes, what daunces shall wee
To weare away this long age of three hours,/ betweene
Or after supper, & bed-time?/ Where is our usuall manager
Of mirth?/ What Reuels are in hand? Is there no play,/
To ease the anguish of a torturing hower?/ Call Philostrate./
In G(i) there are further instances of mislineation. At G1v,7 (IV.i. 184-185) a short verse line is set in the same line of type with a complete verse line, in just the way we have seen earlier at B3v,16 and C1v,12. There is no evidence to tell us positively whether the copy stood this way—the compositor may either have been setting what he saw or hedging against faulty casting off—but the occurrence of the same kind of mislineation on C1v, which was set seriatim, creates a presumption that the copy was so lined. Similarly, we find at G1v,22-23 (IV.i.197-198) that there are two lines of verse set as prose (cf. F3,18-19), probably under the influence of Bottom's immediately following prose speech; no space is saved by the mislineation. G3v contains four mislined passages, the first at G3v,10-12 (V.i.58-60):
And wõdrous strange snow./ How shall we find the cõcord
Of this discord?
Therein, doth kill himselfe./ Which when I saw
Rehearst, I must confesse,/ made mine eyes water:
But more merry teares/ the passion of loud laughter
Neuer shed.
No, my noble Lord,/ it is not for you. I haue heard It ouer,/ and it is nothing, nothing in the world;
I will heare that play./ For neuer any thing Can be amisse,/ when simplenesse and duety tender it.
Although detailed reconstruction of a compositor's procedures must be in part speculative, I believe we can see about what happened if we try to follow our man step-by-step through his work on the sheet. We know that he set G(o) first and that he was probably having to work as quickly as he could to keep up with the press. Before beginning G1 he
The instances of mislineation in sheets H and A (with one exception) are so like those we have already examined that we may summarize them:
- H1,33-H1v,1 (V.i.182-185): Prose mistaken for verse.
- H1v,7 (V.i.193): Two lines of verse in one line of type; probably MS lineation.
- H2,35 (V.i.262): Two lines of verse in one line of type; probably compositor's lineation (cf. B2,33).
- H4,7 (V.i.394): Couplet set in one line of type; probably MS lineation.
- A2v,33) (I.i.53): Two short lines in one line of type; responsibility doubtful.
We have seen that the quarto was set largely by formes under adverse conditions probably caused by sections of difficult copy. In only two places (B2,33 and H2,35) does there seem to be any likelihood that the compositor juggled the lineation of the text in order to fit copy to a predetermined space.[17] The bibliographical evidence seems to me to point toward the kind of heavily revised manuscript described by Professor Wilson as copy for the quarto, although it does not, of course, in itself lend any support to his distinction of different levels of style in the revisions. There is, as Sir Walter Greg has noted, no indication that the manuscript ever served as a prompt book, and the presence of revision may lead one to think of late-stage foul papers as copy.
notes
W. W. Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration, I, 276. The identification is based on the ornaments used. As far as I have been able to determine, nothing is known of Bradock which would be of significant value to us in our examination of MND Q1. He was admitted to the Livery on 1 July 1598 and for a time was actively engaged in the trade. Around the turn of the century, he probably printed several play quartos: in 1598 Edward II Q2; in 1600 Every Man out of his Humor; in 1601 The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington; and in 1602 Antonio and Mellida, Antonio's Revenge, and Poetaster (see Greg, Bibliography, I, s.v.). The Stationers' Registers occasionally record his misadventures as well as his normal business transactions, but none of these seem to have any immediate bearing on the matter at hand (see Edward Arber [ed.], A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers. . . ., passim, and R. B. McKerrow [ed.], A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers . . . 1557-1640 [1910], pp. 46-47).
See Ronald B. McKerrow, An Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (1928 [1951 reprint]), pp. 158-159.
As the skeletons were transferred, there was some shifting of the positions of the running-titles within their own formes: the running-title of C1, for example, goes to D2v and not, as we might expect, to D1 or, if the skeleton were turned, to D3. I see no significance in this.
RT IX, distinguished from the others by the spelling "nights", replaced VI at H3v probably because VI had pied. All of the other RTs were in use from sheet B on.
As I have noted elsewhere ("Notes on the Text of Thierry and Theodoret Q1," SB, XIV [1961], 221), reapppearing types are sometimes hard to identify and mistakes are easy to make. I think that as a general rule one should have a cluster, perhaps four or five, identifications which he regards as positive before he concludes that a distribution has been made. In what follows, the identifications which seem to me less than positive I have indicated with a query. I worked with photostats of the Huntington Library copy of MND Q1.
If, as the running-titles indicate, A(i) was composed before A(o) and we find G(i) type in A(i), we ought to find G(i) type in A(o) also unless it was set from another case. I am pretty confident of the identification of the 'k' at A3.26 but rather dubious about the other identifications in A(o). Since a good many A(o) types were used earlier in the book, the possibility of A(o)'s composition from a different case, and thus by a different workman, is ruled out, but I am not altogether happy about the evidence as it now stands.
See, for example, George Walton Williams, "Setting by Formes in Quarto Printing," SB, XI (1958), 39-53.
I exclude from consideration what seem to be accidental wrong-fonts (e.g., ital for rom S, D4; ital for rom I, D4v; rom for ital S, F4v; sc for ital C, G3; sc for rom P, H3v); VV for W, an occasional substitution which sometimes confirms the testimony of others but which often does not, I suppose because the compositor did not make a very strong differentiation between the two characters; and a small roman capital I which is sometimes used for the I's of the regular supply. As far as the last is concerned, it is possible that valid evidence could be drawn from the appearance of the smaller type, but there were at least two sizes of I's in the case when composition started (as there were of A's, H's, and P's), and I am unable always to distinguish between these and the third, smaller, size which I think was introduced later.
That F3 and F4v were set after F1 and F2v is further indicated by the appearance on these pages of a small "k" employed evidently to eke out k's of the regular size. Since these types do not appear in F(i), they were probably not added to the box but set from their own case.
Type from E2 and E3v reappears on G1:
- m E2,13-G1,16
- p E3v,13-G1,9
- m E3v,24-G1,14
- w E3v,34-G1,12
- b E3v,35-G1,15
Throughout this section of the text, the speech prefix for Puck is Robin, yet at III.i.83 a speech that doubtless belongs to Puck is assigned to Quince. Wilson (p. 122) suggests that in the MS the speech was tagged "pu", and that this was misread as "qu" by the compositor. If so, revision would be indicated since the designation "Puck" belongs to a different level of composition but, Wilson thinks, the revision was very minor.
Op. cit., p. 131. Wilson later notes (p. 132), "Q prints both these speeches as prose. The first might be accidental; the second we must attribute to prose arrangement in the 'copy.'"
In a paper entitled "On the Editing of Elizabethan Drama: Or a Note on the Bowers of Light and Darkness" read before the Renaissance Drama Conference of the MLA in December, 1959, Professor Leo Kirschbaum said: "You remember that the manuscript behind the quarto of MND is considered to be Shakespeare's own papers largely because of hypothetical marginal additions which led the compositor to set up incorrectly lined verse. It now appears that whoever marked off the manuscript [for setting by formes] put down too much for certain pages, with the result that the compositor was forced to relinquish correct lining in order to get all the designated material on the page. So much then for the main evidence that the quarto of MND goes directly back to Shakespeare's pen." If my analysis is correct, Professor Kirschbaum is right about the book having been set by formes, but wrong in the inference drawn from that fact.
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