In 1631, Thomas Heywood, already well established as a man of
letters, turned his hand to civic pageantry. In fact, this decade of pageantry
in a sense belongs to him, for by 1639 he had produced some seven Lord
Mayor's Shows (1631-33, 1635, 1637-39), a number exceeded only by the
indefatigable Anthony Munday earlier in the century. This first show by
Heywood, Londons Ius Honorarium (STC 13351; Greg,
Bibliography, no. 448), was printed by Nicholas Okes, as
were
many of Heywood's other works. For example, Okes printed three of
Heywood's pageants (1631-33); and after his death, his son John Okes
printed three more (1637-39), making a total of six of the seven mayoralty
entertainments. The quarto edition of the 1631 show survives in four extant
copies preserved in the Huntington, Yale, Harvard, and Bodleian
libraries.
Though the quarto pamphlet which describes the 1631 pageant is brief
(it collates sigs. A1-C4v), it shows evidence of two
compositors setting
the type; this is demonstrated by peculiarities of spelling and running-titles.
The habits of one of these compositors seem to be unique among the
workmen in Nicholas Okes' print shop. The evidence of press correction
suggests much attention given to the section set by one compositor and very
little paid to the sheets set by the second compositor. I will offer a tentative
reason for this.
The most obvious distinction between the two possible compositors
is found in the running titles. The first title appears on sig.
A4v, is set
in italic type, and reads Londons Ius Honorarium.
Throughout
sheet B the running titles are again in italics, but the I of
Ius is swash italic. But sheet C abandons the swash italic
I and returns to the regular italic I as seen in
sig.
A4v. Thus sheet B differs in its running titles from sheets
A and C. Of
interest too is the title of sig. C2 which misspells Honorarium
as Honorariuus, an error apparently corrected in the outer
forme
of sheet C, for there seems to be only one skeleton. The running titles of
sig. C1v and C2v both contain the same
broken o in the
first o of Honorarium, which lends support to
the
likelihood of one skeleton forme.
In addition to the running titles one may look throughout the pamphlet
to see if the distinction between normal and swash italic capital
I holds; by and large it does. In sheet A the swash
I
is not used at all (cf. the running title on sig. A4v), and
the normal
italic I is used seven times. Sheet B contains four examples
of
the normal italic I, but the swash I appears
some
twenty-six times, which of course corresponds to the sheet's running titles.
Sheet C returns to the pattern of sheet A— there are two swash italic
I's and fifteen instances of normal italic capital
I.
I believe we can tentatively conclude on the evidence of the running titles
and the distinctive use of the italic I that sheets A and C were
set by the same compositor — let us call him Compositor X
— and
sheet B was set by a different compositor, designated Y.
Other spelling tests corroborate this conclusion. The word
chief, for example, appears in each sheet, and in A and C it
is
spelled cheife (sigs. A3, A4, C1v, C2, and
C4). But in
sheet B the spelling is chiefe (sigs. B2, B3, and B4). Thus the
lines are again drawn between Compositor X who set sheets A and C and
Compositor Y who apparently set B. Another distinction is seen in that
Compositor X does not use the letter j; instead, he follows
the
traditional pattern of using the initial and medial i for
j as in iniured (sig. A3) and
iurisdiction
(sig. A4). But Compositor Y uses j in justice
(sig.
B1v), just and rejoyce (sig.
B3),
Majestie (sig. B3v), which represent all the
possibilities for
using j, and he has used the letter both initially and
medially.
What is perhaps the most conclusive evidence for two compositors
comes in the use of u and v. Generally,
Compositor
X, setting sheets A and C, follows what was the traditional printing pattern
of using initial v for u and medial
u for
v. But Y modernizes the practice to use u and
v as we do now. In every instance in sheet A (and there are
quite a few) the compositor follows the usual u-v substitution.
In sheet C this same compositor out of fifty-five possibiliites uses the
traditional substitution fifty-three times, the exceptions being
governed (C1) and descoveryes (C3). The
situation
in sheet B is quite different. Out of sixty possibilities the compositor uses
the modern pattern of u-v forty-nine times. Nine of the eleven
exceptions in sheet B are found in the use of the initial capital
V for capital
U as in
Vpon
(once),
Vlisses (four times),
Vnity (twice), and
Vnicorne (twice). The habit of using capital
V
for
initial capital
U seems to have persisted for some time after
the
other
u-v patterns were modernized. One of the exceptions
here
in sheet B results from an error in proofing. In the copy of the Huntington
Library line 17 on sig. B4 reads: "If to behold above you. . . .," an
example of the modern usage of
v. But the same line in the
Yale, Harvard, and Bodleian copies reads: "Ist to behold abovt you. . . ."
I believe the latter is the corrected state of the line and that the compositor
has either failed to note the difference in the meaning and spelling of the
word or has made the simplest correction, simply replacing one letter in
above rather than two. At any rate, the evidence clearly
points
to two compositors who set the type for this 1631 quarto pamphlet.
It seems somewhat strange that for such a small printing job two
compositors should have been utilized; apparently the shop was pressed for
time, and it was a busy shop. But there is something seemingly unique
about the printing of this quarto by Nicholas Okes. It is generally
recognized that the 1630's is more or less the transitional period in which
the u-v substitution was eventually abandoned in favor of our
modern usage. We are perhaps witnessing in the printing of Heywood's
1631 pageant a clear example of the transition — Compositor X
sticks to
the old pattern, but Compositor Y employs the modern practice. What is
puzzling is that Compositor Y's habit does not re-appear in other material
printed by Nicholas Okes during this period. I have now examined
something like 2,375 pages issued from Okes' shop during the three years
1630-1632, most of it centered in the year 1631. (This, incidentally,
represents the vast majority of Okes' work during the prescribed period.)
I
have found no other consistent example of the modern usage of
u-v, which is the only problem which I explored. Not even
Heywood's pageants of 1632 and 1633, printed by Okes, contain the
modern practice. Thus Compositor Y either disappeared, changed his
habits, or was borrowed from some other shop. The other Heywood
pageant quartos, 1635 (printed by Raworth), 1637, 1638, and 1639 (all
three printed by John Okes), consistently follow the modern
u-v
pattern.
The press correction of the pamphlet also suggests particular attention
given to the work of Compositor Y and sheet B. A study of the press
variants indicates that with two exceptions of errors corrected in the outer
forme of C all the other corrections are made in sheet B, both formes. This
in no way means that A and C are devoid of error — there are a
number
of manifest errors — it suggests only that the proof correction was
for
some reason focused on sheet B. Also the corrections in B generally suggest
a check against the manuscript — again special care. For example,
the
Huntington copy on line 6 of sig. B1v reads: ". . . ther's
way to
scape"; but the corrected forme found in the other extant copies, Yale,
Harvard, and Bodleian, reads: ". . . ther's a way to scape" —
compositor
justification of
the line is not a question here. Again on line 11 of sig. B4 the Huntington
copy reads: "May these my two each Ladies ever smile"; but the other
corrected copies read: "May these my two Coacht Ladies ever smile." The
misprint on sig. B4
v
destrsy appears in both
the Huntington
and Yale copies but is properly spelled
destroy in the Harvard
and Bodleian copies, which may suggest a second round of correction. For
with this one exception the Yale, Harvard, and Bodleian copies agree with
one another and contain the corrected formes and the Huntington the
uncorrected. At any rate, the point is clear: with only two exceptions all
press correction is found in sheet B, and the printed text seems to have been
checked against the manuscript for the purpose of proofing. Thus
Compositor Y, already distinguished for peculiar habits — i.e., not
found
elsewhere in the work of Nicholas Okes' shop — is also singled out
for
special care in the process of press correction while
obvious errors in sheets A and C go largely unnoticed.
One possible explanation for the interesting facts about Compositor
Y's work is that he was an apprentice. This might easily explain the care
taken with sheet B in press correction, and it might possibly explain his
unusual, at least in Okes' shop of the time, modern usage of
u-v. In fact, external evidence shows that on 15 March 1631
Nicholas Okes did acquire a new apprentice by the name of John
Howarden, from Somerset.[1] He was
bound for a term of eight years; there is no record as to when he gained his
freedom. One can at least speculate that perhaps this new apprentice was
the Compositor Y of the 1631 pamphlet describing Heywood's
pageant.
It is certainly not impossible for an apprentice who joined the firm in
March to be setting type by late October or early November, the probable
time for the printing of the Heywood quarto. Professor Charlton Hinman
in his monumental work on the printing of Shakespeare's First Folio has
suggested that the Compositor E whom he identifies was very likely an
apprentice, "apparently the first apprentice taken on by Jaggard in
something over eight years, . . . a certain John Leason, the son of a
Hampshire yeoman. Leason was bound on 4 November 1622,
approximately five months before Compositor E began setting type for the
First Folio."[2]
For whatever the reason, two compositors were used in setting the
type for Heywood's 1631 pageant, Londons Ius Honorarium,
despite the brevity of the quarto (two compositors do not seem to have been
used in the printing of the other Heywood pageants). Whether one of the
compositors was an apprentice named Howarden must remain reasonable
conjecture, no matter how fascinating.
