University of Virginia Library

Justification and Spelling in Jaggard's Compositor B
by
S. W. Reid

Justification of lines is undoubtedly the most familiar and important of the many influences that affect a Renaissance compositor's normal spelling habits. It has long been an assumption among students of early books that before the eighteenth century compositors justified by deviating from their normal spellings as well as by inserting or removing spaces. And only recently William S. Kable has actually shown that in the Pavier Quartos there is a large proportion of Jaggard Compositor B's departures from preferred spellings in long lines, and has argued that these spellings were altered to fit the type within the measure.[1]

However, the influence of justification on compositorial spelling involves more than this practice. An example of justification cited by Kable (p. 16) is especially interesting. Whichever previous quarto of 2 Henry VI—Q1 (1594) or Q2 (1600)—served as copy for the Pavier Q3 (and there seems to be some question about the matter[2]), B was

faced with a full line of verse in his copy, and he apparently shortened his normal spellings as he set his line to avoid filling his own measure with letter, thereby producing the following: The spellings clokes, &, and gowns are not characteristic of B's Pavier work. This particular instance is evidence of a general practice that has for some time been suspected. In discussing justification during the Renaissance generally, R. B. McKerrow carefully writes as follows: "If when nearing the end of a line the [compositor] saw that he was going to have space to fill up, he could add an e to the end of some of the words . . . ."[3] What McKerrow is quietly suggesting is that deliberately "justified"[4] spelling could occur during the initial typesetting of a line rather than after the end of the measure had been reached. Professor Hinman also has suggested essentially the same thing in his work on the First Folio of Shakespeare (I, 187, and n.), and in a private letter he adds: "I think we have all perhaps tended to recognize insufficiently that all lines, 'short' as well as 'long,' might have to be justified—hence that spelling might be affected by this requirement even in short lines . . . ."[5]

The problem here is an obvious and familiar one: lack of precise

knowledge. We know that justification often could affect spelling, but we do not know how often it did. The knowledge that it could, as Hinman's comment reveals, casts doubt on the validity of much spelling evidence commonly cited, in short as well as long lines. Yet no one would seriously suggest that even in long lines every spelling is affected by the need to justify. For instance, in the Folio pages set from known printed copy,[6] B uses only 1(L) doe spelling in a long line, but he sets 24(L) preferred do spellings, 9(L) of these instead of copy's doe; B uses the ampersand only in long lines in the Folio—15(L) times he changes copy's and to & and follows 1(L) copy &, all in long lines—but 16(L) times he sets and where copy has & and 114(L) times retains copy's and in long lines. Can we seriously doubt that at least a few of these do and and spellings in long lines exhibit his habitual preference for do and and, like the numerous spellings in short lines? Up to now we have been forced to disregard all such long-line spellings, to consider them, in effect, useless, even though some have recognized that such a practice is illogical.[7] But surely as our methods of investigation become more sophisticated and facts accumulate, the recognition that all spellings affected by justification need not appear in fully long lines must be paralleled by an equally important recognition that all spellings in long lines need not be affected by justification.

Naturally, the problem is to distinguish justified from unjustified spellings, and to do so we must bring to bear on the question all the relevant information available. Although the practices of a single compositor can hardly define a norm, yet the knowledge we now have of Compositor B's general spelling practices may suggest several possible approaches to the problem and perhaps even identify certain classes of his spellings that are not usually influenced by justification and that therefore may serve as primary evidence of his normal habits.[8]

Before turning to an analysis of the internal evidence of B's justifying practices in certain Folio texts set from known printed copy, we

should review what is known from roughly contemporary sources about Jacobean justification and the conditions affecting it. Moxon is, of course, the best such source, and since justifying a line is essentially fitting types of various sizes within a given measure, it seems reasonable to begin with his comments on letter cutting. He writes in part: Elsewhere (p. 170) he writes of "Spaces Thick and Thin, n Quadrats, m Quadrats and Quadrats." Twice again he refers to "the Thin or Thick Space" and then remarks (p. 171): "It is generally observed by Work-men as a Rule, That when they Cast Quadrats they Cast them exactly to the Thickness of a set Number of m's or Body, viz. two m's thick, three m's thick, four m's thick, &c." But lest we be elated over this apparently precise information, in defining the thin space he writes (p. 353): "Thin Space, ought by a strict orderly and methodical measure to be made of the Thickness of the seventh part of the Body; though Founders make them indifferently Thicker or Thinner." Finally, Moxon refers to the size of spaces in discussing justification itself (p. 207):

Obviously, the least satisfying aspect of these statements is Moxon's account of spaces. About their number, there is little uncertainty; the case of Moxon's time had five—thin and thick spaces, en quads, em quads, and larger quads. McKerrow's comment (p. 10) that the Elizabethan compositor normally used no more than two spaces perhaps derives from Moxon's statements, and I suppose that T. H. Howard-Hill counts the en-quad as a space when he writes that "compositors had available spaces of three different sizes below quads of which two were most frequently used, generally between words" (p. 8).

About the important matter of the thicknesses of these two spaces we have less than precise information. Moxon is equivocal about it, and probably different fonts had spaces of different thicknesses. One way of determining the thicknesses in the Folio would be to measure the impressions of spaces that have worked up in various uncorrected formes. Hinman has noted some of these as press variants, and the results of such measuring could be correlated with the dimensions of white space at the end of lines not quite filling the Folio measure. In measuring the work-ups, it might also pay to make notes on the relation of the faces of the adjacent letters to their bodies. Because of the irregular casting of the time, our information on spaces and the letters themselves may never be precise, but we need to know more than we do now. Until this is done—and I have not had the opportunity myself—several questions related to the use of spaces in justification must remain unanswered. Chief among these is whether in justifying a compositor would resort first to spacing or to altering spelling. McKerrow felt that the alteration of spelling was probably the compositor's "chief expedient"; on the other hand, Howard-Hill seems to regard spacing as "the most common" means of justification.[10] For now judgments on this question must remain speculative. My own observation leads me to believe that, in B's work at least, alteration of spelling was used more frequently to shorten lines, and alteration of spacing was used more frequently to lengthen them. This impression may lack some general significance because B's normal use of thin spaces between words and little spacing around pointing, on account of the short Folio measure, could be partly responsible for the phenomena noted. However, Howard-Hill has observed the same practice in other books, and

a mental reconstruction of the justifying process suggests that such a practice is not unreasonable.[11] Moreover, it is clear from B's Folio work that he was especially disposed to lengthening lines by inserting spaces after pointing.[12] On the average, several instances of "pigeon holes"[13] following points occur on each of his pages.

Ignorance of the size of spaces not only leaves us uncertain about the relative use of spacing and spelling in justification; it also makes imprecise our observations about the alteration of spelling in justifying any given line of type. The less we know about a compositor's normal practices of spacing, the more we have to rely on our imperfect knowledge of the compositor's normal practices of spelling the words in a given line. Without specific knowledge of how a compositor would normally space between words in his lines (specifically, short lines of verse) when not attempting deliberately to justify them, we cannot show hypothetically how a given long line would have looked had it been unaffected by justification.[14] Hence we cannot demonstrate in which direction a compositor had to alter a given line to justify it—whether by shortening or lengthening it—and therefore we have to rely wholly on general impressions and usually deficient knowledge of the compositor's spelling habits in deciding whether the line and what spellings in it are shorter or longer than they would otherwise be. Hence, too, we cannot calculate precisely the space that had to be made up either by altering spacing or spellings; therefore, we cannot determine with certainty exactly what thicknesses (of letter or spaces) were involved in the justifying process.[15] Finally, it follows from these facts that we cannot prove beyond any reasonable doubt that a particular spelling in a particular long line was not influenced by deliberate justification.

Under these circumstances we are left with making and correlating

observations of the compositor's spelling in long lines that, however sufficient for defining his general practices, cannot demonstratively identify spellings that are not "justified" in a particular line. Nevertheless, it may not be impossible or entirely idle to draw, from an analysis of the large body of information now available on his spelling, several rather tentative conclusions about B's general practices of altering spellings when deliberately justifying lines. One important conclusion about spelling and justification can be reached with some confidence, on the basis of both a few of Moxon's remarks and some observation of B's work. Moxon states that there are three different thicknesses of letters: em, half-em (or en), and quarter-em. Now by far the most frequent thickness is the en. Of this size are obviously the letters b, d, p, and q; c, e, and o; h, n, and u; s, x, and z; v, y, and k; and g and a. Identifying the thicknesses of r, t, f, and long s is perhaps more difficult, but two lines in The Old Wives Tale (1595) cited by Howard-Hill ("Spelling," p. 9) are helpful. Lines 971 and 978 on sig. E4 read: Here the space filled by the final e in weepe has been taken by the t in thou without making more room in the line. The letters t, r, f, and long s all seem to be en thick, as do the ligatures long st and si, fi, fl, and probably ff, the contractions ye, yu, and yt, the query (?), and the numerals 2-0. Of em thickness are m, the ligatures ct, ffi, and long sh, probably the diagraphs æ and œ, the contraction &, and probably w. Belonging to the quarter-em (half-en) class are i and l, numeral I, and the comma, period, and apostrophe, as well as the exclamation mark when it appears.

The implications of these facts are clear and important, though perhaps not profound: spelling variations involving the interchange of letters of equal thickness need not be disregarded when they occur in long lines, because they could not have been a material factor in justifying the line. Spacially, nothing is achieved by substituting s for z, c for k, or e for a. Hence B's spelling of important words such as 'dear' and 'near', with variation between internal vowels -ea- and -ee-, can be analyzed on the basis of almost all evidence, in spite of the fact that often some of the spellings are in long lines. A glance at his spelling of these words in long lines shows that no variation from his normal habits occurs under these circumstances. Although when recording spelling we probably should not blindly mix the occurrences

in long lines with those in short nor blithely ignore the difference, justification cannot be a physical factor in B's spelling of such words.

Equally certain conclusions about the effect of justification on B's spelling are not feasible given our present knowledge, but it is not impossible to make some other observations and to suggest that when setting two or more prose lines, Compositor B generally typeset most or all of the line before beginning to alter spelling, if further justifying was needed, and then worked back along the line changing appropriate spelling or spacing as the opportunity presented itself, whereas when setting long verse lines or single prose lines, he sometimes—but not always—varied from this general practice and shortened spellings when possible as he initially set the line. Moxon's account of the justifying process itself (p. 207) pictures the compositor setting to the end of his line and, if necessary, going back over it to insert or remove spaces until a "pretty stiff" line of type is made, but the applicability of his account to a Renaissance compositor's practice is uncertain for several reasons. First, Moxon, writing in the early 1680's, does not recognize alteration of spelling as a viable means of justifying a line. Second, he is speaking only of setting prose. Third, he does not allow for the kind of anticipatory justification that McKerrow and Hinman allow for and that Kable finds in one line of B's work.

The complexities of justification are attested by the fact that these points are all inextricably related; the last two are especially important. Although the physical conditions (as they affect spelling) are identical, obviously justification of prose and verse are somewhat different: the former involves both shortening and lengthening of lines that is dictated by physical conditions, whereas the latter, though it involves shortening of lines and the same physical conditions, does not usually include lengthening lines and is left largely to the discretion of the compositor.[16] When setting continuous prose, a compositor would normally expect to have to justify each line full of letter; except in the case of short prose statements, he would expect his text to "over-run"[17] from one line to the next until he had reached the end of a paragraph. Hence, there would be nothing to be gained, and probably much mental labor lost, in his trying to keep his lines as long or as short as

possible while setting them.[18] Anticipatory justification would accomplish little unless the particular compositor were especially skilled at such guess-work; Moxon's method would be less demanding and more amiable.

On the other hand, when setting verse or a series of short prose lines, there would be much to recommend the procedure of setting as short lines as possible by means of anticipatory justification. Adopting this procedure a compositor would tend both to save space and to avoid leaving a short word or two dangling in a type line by itself. The desirability of this procedure is especially acute at the beginning of a play, canto, or similar literary division, where an ornamental initial or factotum occupies space at the left margin for three or four lines. What can be involved in such cases is illustrated by a line and a half at MV, 8 (sig. O4), set by two different Renaissance compositors as a fourteener amidst blank verse.[19]

• Q1: [Initial] I am to learne: and such a want-wit sadnes makes of mee,
• Q2: [Initial] I am to learne: & such a want-wit sadnes makes of me
• F1: I am to learne: and such a Want-wit sadnesse makes of mee,

B set both Q2 and F1 from Q1; in both cases he produced a line that used space less effectively and was even less pleasing to the eye than his copy. Beginning his line just below the initial in F1 he could have fit it all to the measure had he violated his preferences by setting & and sadnes, as in Q2, and learn. Instead, he ended by spelling mee in a line by itself, contrary to his preference, perhaps following the copy spelling to make as long a word as possible. On the other hand, in Q2 B anticipated his justification problem by setting & and sadnes against very strong preferences, but failed to keep within his type line because of the initial. He was more successful, however, in the example of anticipatory justification in 2H6 cited by Kable, where he set clokes, &, and gowns contrary to his preferences and kept within the line.

These manifestly different considerations in setting verse and prose should be kept in mind when we examine a compositor's spellings in justified lines. Whether or not B set his lines according to the method described by Moxon or by anticipatory justification is perhaps best investigated through a comparison of his spelling of the same word occurring twice in the same long line. The advantages of this procedure are evident: all conditions are essentially the same, and, more important, the relative strength of the compositor's spelling preferences in different words is not an issue. The one disadvantage is that coincidence such as this does not often occur. In B's Folio work the variants and/& are the best evidence for testing his practice of justification, since his use of the ampersand is governed almost wholly by his need to justify. It is true that in his Pavier work Kable finds B reproducing & from copy's & 4 times in short lines, in spite of his demonstrable preference for and. But in B's Folio work from known printed copy, no such spellings occur, whereas he alters copy's and to & 15(L) times in long lines and follows 1 (L) & of copy in a long line, while changing copy's & to and 2 (+16L) times. This corresponds to his general practice in the Paviers, where he changes 29(L) and forms to & in long lines and follows 4(L) cases of copy's & in long lines, while altering 5 (+16L) & spellings to and.[20]

The pairing of and and & in a single long line occurs only three times in B's Folio work from known printed copy. At IH4, 752, the following prose line appears in the Folio: | any time this two and twenty yeare, & yet I am bewitcht |; in Q5 copy it appears as: | . . . any time this 22. yeare, and yet I am be-| witcht. There is no influence of copy spellings in this case: and was created by B alone, and & is a change from copy's and. Had B anticipated the need to shorten his line early in the initial typesetting of it, he would have been free to improvise &, or even follow copy's 22; but the justification by altered spelling took place toward the end of the line. The second case of and/& in a single long line appears in the stage-direction at Tit., 86.[21] Here, too, in prose and appears in B's work at the beginning of the line and & at the end. In both places copy has and. On the other hand, the third example of and/& in a single long line occurs in a passage of

verse (IH4, 378). The line is obviously lengthy in copy (Q5), and B sets it as follows: This is a fairly clear example of anticipatory justification and tends to confirm that such alteration of spelling occurred in verse lines. But the two previous examples suggest that in prose passages B set either to the very end, or nearly the end, of his line before beginning to alter his spellings to justify it. In a case like IH4, 752, we cannot distinguish between justification toward the end of the line (such as McKerrow describes) and justification from the end of the line backwards (such as Moxon recommends).[22] Nevertheless, this evidence and that in Tit., 86, show that justification took place toward the end of B's line.

This is slim evidence to build a theory upon, of course, but it has its simplicity to recommend it.[23] Moreover, these few cases of relatively uncontaminated evidence can be supplemented by similar examples which support the hypothesis that B normally justified his prose by altering spellings toward the end of his line before working back over the rest of the line already set and changing type as the opportunity was presented.

For instance, the contraction y e offered a means of shortening a line two ens by altering the spelling of one word. Such alteration occurs in F1 on sig. I3 (Ado, 72), where B follows the first the of copy, but changes the second the of copy to y e. (Here also the last word in the line appears as block for copy's blocke, though B seems to favor generic -cke endings.) A parallel instance appears on sig. M5 (LLL, 2478): the penultimate word in the line is y e, which replaces copy's the, whereas closer to the middle of the line the (for copy's the) appears. B's preference for heere and its compounds is a strong one: in the Folio he alters known copy's here to heere 27 (+1L?, +6L, +2R, +1L?SD) times, besides retaining 18 (+2L, +4R, +1L?SD) heere forms of copy; he sets here only a total of 10(L) times, all in long lines (1 of these in a rhyme). It is of some interest, then, that at IH4, 2925, heere: here's appears where copy has here, here's; there are no spellings following here's that could have been shortened.[24]

Less compelling, perhaps, are examples of words with the final -e/-ee spelling which, though not identical, were treated by B in an identical manner and which occur in the same line. B's practice of spelling 'be', 'he', 'me', and the like is consistent and at the same time subject to unpredictable, random variation. Nevertheless, his preference for generic -e, is incontestable. It is significant, therefore, that where such words occur together in a single long line, the -ee spelling always appears later than B's preferred -e. Copy's he is . . . he becomes he's . . . hee at Ado, 49; B sets copy's ye . . . ye . . . me as Ye . . . yee mee (IH4, 1103). Likewise, copy's hee . . . hee is set as he . . . hee, he feele . . . he heare as he feele . . . hee heare, and he be . . . he as he be . . . hee (IH4, 2146, 2775, 3087).

Finally, although we now have no statistics on B's spelling of the words involved, three other cases of repetition of a single word within a single line are of interest. The first is at IH4, 969: copy's three . . . foure . . . three or foure score becomes three . . . foure . . . 3. | or fourescore (literarily, the alteration of the first three is much to be preferred to that of the second). At LLL, 2403, the second instance occurs: copy's Some . . . some . . . some at the beginning, middle, and end of the line appears as Some . . . some . . . som. Som is apparently a form eschewed by B. It even is in a verse line, as is the third case: dost . . . dost in copy is set by B as do'st . . . dost (IH4, 435). These last two examples indicate that B did not always employ anticipatory justification when setting long verse lines. Moreover, since there are no examples of words repeated in long prose lines occurring first in B's non-preferred spelling and then in his preferred, present evidence suggests uniformly that B did not normally attempt to justify his prose lines as he initially set the words, but rather set at least nearly (if not entirely) to the end of each line before beginning to alter spellings to justify the line and, when necessary, worked back along each line altering the spellings that he had already put in type.

The hypothesis that in order to justify his lines B generally altered spellings at the end of them before returning to alter preceding spellings already set, and that he sometimes departed from this practice when setting verse or single lines of prose finds support in collateral spelling evidence of three kinds. First, there are, in the same line, different words whose spellings could be varied by adding or removing letters of equal thickness, and for which B possessed preferential spellings that are identifiable from the evidence of his normal practice. Second, in the same line there are such words for some of which B's preferential spellings are not certainly identifiable because the evidence

is incomplete or equivocal. Third, there are such words for some of which B's preferential spellings are not identifiable because we now have no evidence of his normal spelling practice.

Of the three classes of words, the first obviously provides the most useful evidence of B's justifying practice. For example, in setting Ado, 609, from copy's know mee: . . . may be . . . goe, B had several alternatives when finding that the line lacked an en of filling the measure. First, he could insert an en quad after the colon following 'me', as he often did, or insert thin spaces between the words. Without precise knowledge about spacing, we cannot say with confidence that he ignored this alternative, but it appears that he did. Second, he could lengthen any of the words by adding (or retaining from copy) a final -e: knowe, mee, maye, bee, goe were all spelling alternatives open to the seventeenth-century compositor. What B apparently did, however, was to set his preferred spellings know, may, be, and me (from copy's mee) and to violate his preference for go by setting the spelling goe (as in copy). Now, it is clear from the Folio and Pavier evidence that B was much more tolerant of mee and bee than he was of goe. In the Folio alone he alters 5 (+3L, +1R) me spellings of known printed copy to mee and retains 2 mee forms of copy, while changing 7 (+4L, +1R) mee spellings to me and reproducing 147 (+10L?, +60L, +8R, +1LR) me forms. The spelling be is also clearly his preference, but he alters 2 (+1L?, +9L, +1R, +1LSD) be copy spellings to bee, while changing 1(L) bee of copy to be in a long line and retaining 116 (+6L?, +44L, +2R) be copy spellings. On the other hand, this goe is the only one in B's Folio work from known printed copy, whereas 23 (+2L?, +1L, +1R, +1SD, +1L?R, +1L?SD) other goe copy spellings are rejected in favor of go. In short, the relative position of these words in this line, and not B's normal habits, seems to have been the determining factor. Somewhat less certain is the relative strength of his tolerance for knowe and maye as opposed to goe. The spelling maye does not occur either in B's Pavier or Folio copy; he usually sets may (the only spelling in the Folio and its copy), and chooses 22 may forms against Pavier copy's maie. Hence the infrequency with which he was exposed to maye could well have been a factor in his reluctance to justify by using it, and may in the present case is as likely to reflect this reluctance as to reveal his justifying practice. The same applies in a lesser degree to know, which is B's usual spelling; Pavier copy has only 4 knowe spellings, which B alters to know, and Folio copy has 1(L) that he alters to know while also setting 1(L) knowe for copy's know. From this meagre evidence, it is difficult to compare the strength of B's

preference for go and intolerance for goe with his preference for know and intolerance of knowe. Again such relative strengths, rather than position in the line, may have determined B's use of preferential know as opposed to non-preferred goe.

It should be clear from this protracted discussion of the spellings in this one long line that we must evaluate each similar case of spellings on its own merits from what is known (and not known) about B's normal habits. The evidence of Ado, 609, is qualitatively at least as good—if not better—evidence as that cited earlier for our hypothesis about B's methods of justification. Evidence similar to that in Ado, 609, occurs in prose lines set by B throughout his Folio work from known printed copy; the following table contains the best such examples.

Table I

                           

Copy	Folio	Citation
Never . . . house . . . likenesse	Never . . . house . . . likenes	Ado, 96
Sell . . . thinke . . . would	sel . . . thinke . . . wold	601
poore . . . shee's quicke the childe bragges	poore . . . she's quick, the child brags	LLL, 2632
all . . . will . . . heere	all . . . will . . . here	MND, 359
knowne . . . meane time . . . will . . . bill	knowne . . . meane time . . . wil . . . bil	365
wee . . . ore . . . hee	We . . . ore . . . hee	MV, 2065
stead . . . lacke . . . yeeres be	sted . . . lacke . . . years be	2069
downe . . . beare mine owne . . . far afoot againe	downe . . . beare mine owne . . . far afoot again	1H4, 770
theeves . . . and . . . feare	Theeves . . . and . . . fear	842
prethee . . . roome, and lend	prethee . . . roome, & lend	966
say . . . be	say . . . bee	2150
xxii . . . ther | about . . . hainously . . . Well	two and | twentie . . . there-about . . . heynously . . . Wel	2199
been poore . . . here comes	beene poore . . . here comes	Rom., 34

In addition to these examples in prose lines, there are spellings in several Folio lines of verse which suggest that B did not always employ anticipatory justification when setting long verse lines but sometimes varied the last spellings in a given line before returning to change preceding spellings. Table II lists these.

Table II

             

Copy	Folio	Citation
sayle, and heere she coms amaine	saile, and here she coms amain	LLL, 2489
Keepe . . . looke here comes	Keepe . . . looke here comes	MND, 190
hart . . . foure	heart . . . four	MV, 2057
thank . . . Madam . . . welcome . . . friend	thanke . . . Madam . . . welcom . . . friend	2555
Three . . . and three . . . drinke	Three . . . and three . . . drink	1H4, 424
Arme . . . armes . . . throwne	Arme . . . Armes . . . thrown	2827

These spellings indicate that when setting verse (and probably single lines of prose) B sometimes followed the procedure he commonly used when setting prose passages, instead of shortening spellings as he initially set the line. On the other hand, other spellings imply that B's method of justifying such lines was variable, for it corroborates the theory (supported by 1H4, 378, discussed above) that at times when setting verse B anticipated the need to justify by shortening his normal spellings as he set the line. B's spelling Moon set from Q2 Moone (MND, 6) next to an ornamental initial shows anticipatory justification: two words later the long me thinkes is spelled out from copy's short me-thinks. Other examples in MND are harts do feare from Q2's hearts do feare (2022) and Sweet Moone . . . thank . . . beames from Q2's Sweete Moone . . . thank . . . beames (2075). In other Folio plays collated there are two examples: in a line lacking three ens of the measure, Marry . . . wel . . . carried, shall . . . behalfe is set from known copy's Mary . . . well . . . caried, shall . . . behalfe (Ado, 1874), and copy's finds means . . . kil . . . joyes becomes finds meanes . . . kill . . . joyes (Rom., 3167).

The second class of words also supports this view of B's general practice of justifying his lines. Table III contains words in prose and Table IV words in verse for some of which B's preferred spellings are certainly identifiable and for some not certainly identifiable but which all imply that B generally varied spellings toward the end of his lines before altering those toward the beginning.

Table III

                                           

Copy	Folio	Citation
pray . . . he kild and	pray . . . hee kil'd and	Ado, 42
done . . . lady . . . warres.	done . . . Lady . . . wars.	47
pray . . . yong	pray . . . young	76
runs . . . madde . . . help . . . he	runs . . . mad . . . helpe . . . hee	83
mylde . . . looke . . . and soone dasht	milde . . . looke . . . & soon dasht	LLL, 2534
do . . . Sword . . . bepray . . . me	do . . . sword . . . pray . . . mee	2651
remedy . . . wals	remedie . . . Wals	MND, 2012
them- | selves . . . passe . . . Heere come	themselves . . . passe . . . Here com	2019
afoot . . . me: and . . . stony hearted Villaines | know	afoot . . . me: and . . . stony-hearted Villaines knowe	1H4, 761
mony . . . comming downe . . . Hill	mony . . . comming downe . . . hill	788
Sirra Jacke . . . stands behind . . . hedge	Sirra Jacke . . . stands behinde . . . hedg	803
and . . . rob . . . theeves, and go merrily	and . . . rob . . . Theeves, and go merily	828
would be . . . weeke, laughter	would be . . . Weeke, Laughter	829
day: and . . . & . . . be	day: and . . . and . . . bee	834
cowardes . . . stirring . . . more	Cowards . . . stirring . . . moe	835
backe . . . lead . . . foorth	backe . . . lead . . . forth	920
shall . . . all	shall . . . al	977
end he gave	end hee gave	992
thanke . . . would	thanke . . . wold	2125
day . . . need . . . be	day . . . neede . . . bee	2767
die . . . be . . . he	dye . . . be . . . hee	3081

Table IV

                       

Copy	Folio	Citation
shall . . . will	shall . . . wil	Ado, 1873
Arrowes . . . thought	arrows . . . thoght	LLL, 2177
lookes . . . highnes	lookes . . . Highnes	2321
mumble newes . . .	mumble-newes . . .
trencher Knight . . . Dick	trencher-knight . . . Dick	2403
Foure daies will . . . steepe themselves	Foure daies wil . . . steep thẽselves	MND, 10
None . . . wold . . . were mine	None . . . wold . . . wer mine	214
Well keepe . . . yeeres moe	Well, keepe . . . yeares mo	MV, 117
please thee . . . answers	please thee . . . answer	1970
drunke . . . stay and pause a while	drunke . . . stay & pause awhile	1H4, 450
himselfe . . . heart	himselfe . . . hart	2988

Finally, the third class—that involving one or more words in each line for which B's preferential spelling is unknown because evidence is lacking—helps prove that B varied the spellings toward the end of his line before those at the beginning. For instance, no statistics on B's spelling of 'there' are now available, although experience shows that ther was a form usually eschewed by B. Hence, it is risky to rest too much weight on the there's . . . between (set from copy's there's . . . betweene) of Ado, 60, or on the honour . . . ther's (copy reads honour . . . theres) of 1H4, 2954, even though the spelling variants involve types of equal thickness. The following are similar examples in prose and verse.

Table V

                       

Folio	Citation
shew it selfe . . . badg	Ado, 25
tongue . . . mask	LLL, 2157
worne plain	2202
Faire . . . Wher's . . . Princesse	2235
pause, and . . . new Moon	MND, 92 (verse)
Lanthrone . . . els	2047
cheere . . . corage	MV, 2018 (verse)
laid . . . Friend . . Plotte	1H4, 865
could scape . . . fear	2924
prethee . . . breath awhile	2938
Bils . . . strike, beat . . . down	Rom., 72

That B sometimes varied from his usual practice when setting verse or single lines of prose is indicated by several spellings of words in this class. The spelling Worster (1H4, 2646) set from copy's Worcester, the normal spelling in B's Folio pages of this play, probably exhibits anticipatory justification of a verse line. So do the spellings bils here . . . & challeng'd (Ado, 39) and wil turne . . . ballance (MND, 2112).

Since each piece of this spelling evidence of three kinds tends to confirm—with varying strength—the implications of the spellings of identical words, there is considerable evidence that in justifying, B generally varied spellings at the end of his line of prose—and sometimes of verse—before going back over the rest of the type line to alter further spellings, and that he sometimes departed from this practice when setting verse or single, non-continuous prose lines. There is also some evidence in B's Folio work that conflicts with this view of his general practice, but it is of such quantity and quality that the validity of the view need not be seriously doubted. Indeed, the only line where conflicting evidence is compelling is B's resetting in F1 of his own Q2 MND, 2015:

What spellings we have indicate that 'shadow' conforms to B's generic habit of preferring final -w and -wes: he follows the 1 shadow and the 1 shadowes of his Folio copy. B definitely prefers kinde in both the Paviers and the Folio: in his Folio work, for instance, he alters 5 (+1L, +1R) kind spellings in copy to kinde and retains 2 kinde forms, while in long lines B's kind reproduces copy's kind 1(L) time and his kinde replaces copy's kind 1(L) time. Yet in MND, 2015, kind is clearly the justified spelling. Either this implies that B overlooked by choice or accident the possible deletion of the -e- in shadowes, or that in setting the line he saw from his own Q2 work that justification would be needed and simply set kind when he came to it.[25]

These alternatives are equally plausible, especially since it is obvious that oversights and unaccountable variation were not strange to B. Besides this one example, however, there are no other spellings in Folio prose lines set from known printed copy that unoquivocally point to variation from the general practice which we have noted. Possible conflicting evidence occurs, but it is not compelling. At LLL, 2643, moved . . . Atees . . . Atees . . . stirre appears in place of copy's mooved . . . Ates . . . Atees . . . stir, but had B tried to justify by dropping -re from his preferred stirre, his line would have lacked one en, and mooved was therefore, so far as we know, the next candidate for alteration. At MV, 2072, the Folio has trial shall where Q1 has tryall shall (Q2 reads triall shall), but although B's preference is -i- and he consistently tolerates -ll in 'trial', his treatment of 'shall' is unpredictable, as is his treatment generally of the final -l/-ll alternative. These two cases are clearly inconclusive; other conflicting evidence, even less conclusive, is as follows in Table VI.

Table VI

                   

Copy	Folio	Citation
kind . . . mery warre . . . and her	kind . . . merry war . . . & her	Ado, 59
Me-thinks she . . . long one	Me thinkes shee . . . long one	MND, 2110
Sacke be . . . jeast . . . and a foot	Sacke be . . . jest . . . & a foote	1H4, 780
skim milke . . . honorable . . . hang	skim'd Milk . . . honourable . . . Hang	880
prethee doe . . . stand . . . some by roome	prythee doe . . . stand . . . some by-roome	991
play . . . and shew . . . faire paire	play . . . & shew . . . faire | paire	1010
would be loth . . . pay	would bee loath . . . pay	2766
cals . . . Honour pricks	call's . . . Honor prickes	2768
will frown . . . passe . . . & . . . them	wil frown . . . passe . . . & . . . thẽ	Rom., 42

The available statistics on B's spelling of these words show that none of this evidence, either alone or combined, is of a nature to cast doubt on the validity of our view of B's usual procedure of justifying his lines.

Finally, there is a type of evidence that supports the view that when justifying a line B generally altered types toward the end of it before changing those toward the beginning, but that is at present of unknown value, though in the future it may assume major importance. The value of evidence from spacing is currently compromised by our ignorance of the physical facts and by possibly other unknown factors. However, one striking characteristic of B's work in the Folio may be noted. As was mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, Compositor B seems prone to inserting spaces after punctuation to justify his lines. A survey of the Folio pages set by him from known printed copy reveals that the majority of the "pigeon holes" produced in this manner occur in the latter half of his lines. Of course, B's possible preference for spaces after periods rather than commas may play a part in this pattern that cannot presently be allowed for, but even when there are identical points in a single line (especially commas), a very large proportion of the pigeon holes occur next to the later punctuation.

Thus this evidence confirms the implications of the better spelling evidence that B's normal practice in setting continuous prose lines was to set the whole or nearly the whole line in type first and then, if necessary, to begin varying spellings at the end of the line, working back along the line altering appropriate spellings as they presented themselves until the line was justified. Probably this practice usually involved shortening spellings, unless, after spacing out a short line, he found it necessary to lengthen a spelling to avoid producing unacceptable pigeon holes. On the other hand, in setting long verse lines—or long single prose lines—B sometimes shortened spellings when he could as he first set the line, thus producing a line of letter short of the measure but nevertheless affected by anticipatory, deliberate justification.

This, of course, is only a provisional theory, based on evidence that requires a lot of inference to be applicable, and subject to revision—or extinction—as more precise information becomes available. Neverthe-less, it has one thing to recommend it: as Moxon's description of justification reveals, the procedure suggested here is sensible and pragmatic. Should it be confirmed by further investigation, especially of spacing, the effect of this theory would be two-fold. First, it would

require that we bring under examination spellings, especially short ones, in lines of verse and single lines of prose ending within two or three ens of the measure. Second, it would rescue from virtual oblivion and uselessness a large number of other spellings. By careful examination of each long line in disputed texts,[26] we could identify, on the basis of previously determined habits, spellings actually influenced by justification and free some of the remaining spellings to serve as viable evidence of the copy behind the text. In a few cases this might mean the difference between doubt and mild confidence regarding a textual problem—a lot of work for very infrequent results, but where the texts of Shakespeare and his fellows are concerned, certainly worth the effort.

Notes