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The Chief Substantive Editions of
Oldham's Poems, 1679-1684: Printer, Compositors, and
Publication
by
Harold F. Brooks
John Oldham's second collection of poems, Some New Pieces, 1681, was 'printed by M. C. for Jo. Hindmarsh.'[1] M. C. is Mary Clark, successor of Andrew Clark. No other possible printer using these initials at this time is known to Plomer or to Wing.[2] Thanks to the Wing Index, it is now an easy matter to trace other books from the same printing-house in the years 1678 to 1684, and so to locate in Mary Clark's possession ornaments, initial capitals, and damaged letters employed in this and in the other four textually-significant volumes by Oldham published under Hindmarsh's imprint, and in the unauthorised Saytr Against Vertue, 1679.[3]
A table, with its appended key, will spell out the evidence which assigns the printing of that piracy, followed by Satyrs Upon The Jesuits . . . And
Key.
The Oldham editions, designated by initials and date (or as Works 84), are those already mentioned, with Some New Pieces, 1684, and Poems, And Translations, 1684, (Oldham, Bibliography Nos. II.9, 11) subjoined. The seven other volumes are:
- Ambroise Paré, The Works Of That Famous Chirurgeon, Ambrose Parey, translated . . . By Th. Johnson, 1678, Printed by Mary Clark for John Clark.
- Francis Bacon, Essays, 1680, Printed by Mary Clark for Samuel Mearne, John Martyn and Henry Herringman.
- Peter Heylyn, KEIMH^IA EKK^HΣTIKA. The Historical and Miscellaneous Tracts of Peter Heylyn, 1681, Printed by M. Clark for Charles Harper.
- Antoine Le Grand, Apologia Pro Renato Des-Cartes, 1679, Typis M. Clark impensis Jo. Martyn.
- Roger L'Estrange, The Case Put, Concerning the Succession Of His Royal Highness the Duke of York, 1679, Printed by M. Clark for Henry Brome.
- Paul Lathom, The Power of Kings from God, 1683, Printed by M. Clark for Joanna Brome.
- Izaak Walton, Love and Truth, 1680, Printed by M. C. for Henry Brome.
The name or initials of Mary Clark, when given in brackets after the sigla, are taken from the imprints. In horizontal line with each volume are noted, either by signature or by 'Tp' for title-page, the places where items of evidence appear.
In the vertical columns:
The bowl of flowers is an elaborate ornament used on title-pages. The triangle of foliage (suitable for a tailpiece) occurs on internal title-pages. The minor ornament recorded in the third column looks like the bottom part of a medallion. The sprig of flowers (column four) is an unimpressive one on a small oblong, failing at the left-hand end to print sharply. It has, however, a special importance, because it enables one to distinguish at sight, from this true first edition, another edition, with a crowned rose on the title-page, which also bears the date 1683, but is in fact subsequent to the second edition, of 1684.[6]
- N1 may be seen as the initial capital to the text in A Saytr Against Vertue, 1679.
- N2 may be seen as the initial capital to the text of 'A Satyr Against Vertue,' in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681.
- R1 is an R with damage at the foot of the upright: see the last letter of READER on H1v of Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681.
- R2 is an R with damage at the foot of the upright and a gap at the top of the loop: see HORACE in the drop-title on A2r of Some New Pieces, 1684.
- R3 is an R damaged where the loop should join the upright, both at the top and at the centre of the letter, so that there are only faint traces of ink between upright and loop at these points. It can be seen in SATYR on H1r of Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681. In Heylyn's Tracts what may be R3 appears in DECLARATION on 3S2r and 3T1r. The types were evidently lifted from the first of these pages for use in the second. If this is R3, then it has made a somewhat less defective impression.
- R4 is an R with damage at the top of the loop, and midway down the outside of the upright, opposite the point where the bottom of the loop joins it. This R is found in drop-titles; for example on D8v of Some New Pieces, 1681.
- S1 is damaged or malformed at the top: see the first S of SATYRS on the title-page of Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682.
- S2, the first S of JESUITS on that title-page, has damage to the central curve.
- P is damaged a little above the foot of the upright; see POEM in the drop-title of 'A Satyr Against Vertue' on H2r of Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681.
To exemplify the use of the Table, one may consider Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681. Here it records an ornament, an initial N (N2), two different damaged R's (R1 and R3) and a damaged P. It further shows the ornament, the initial, and R3, in volumes with 'Mary Clark', 'M. Clark', or 'M. C.' in the imprint. R1 is shown in Poems, and Translations, 1684, which in turn shares R3 with Parey's Works, 1678 ('by Mary Clark'), Heylyn's Tracts, 1681 ('by M. Clark'), and Walton's Love and Truth, 1680 ('by M. C.'), and yet another damaged R (R2) with Some New Pieces, 1684 ('by M. C.') and Lathom's Power of Kings from God, 1683 ('by M. Clark'). The P is shown in Poems, And Translations, 1683, which shares an ornament with L'Estrange's The Case Put, 1679 ('by M. Clark'), and a fourth damaged R (R4) with Some New Pieces, 1681 ('by M. C.'), Some New Pieces, 1684 ('by M. C.'), and with Lathom and Walton's volumes ('by M. Clark' and 'by M. C.'). Thus, directly or with one intervening link, five independent pieces of evidence indicate the printing of Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, in Mary Clark's shop. A single piece might be explained away; five, of three different kinds, are irresistible.
Satyrs Upon The Jesuits was Oldham's first collection of poems. Though the title-page is dated 1681, it was probably first issued by Joseph Hindmarsh in November or December, 1680.[7] It was advertised in the Term Catalogues for November, 1680; and its internal title-page for 'A Satyr Against Vertue, is dated 1680. That poem was set up from the pirated quarto of 1679: by Christmas 1680 Oldham is satirising Hindmarsh because in perpetuating the bad text he has 'exposed' the author—rendered him liable to public contempt. There were three isues of the edition: the copies described in my Bibliography or examined for it are or may be of the third issue, those which are perfect collating A4 B-L8. It was not until
The next step was to add 'A Satyr Upon A Woman', which occupies the first six leaves of a new sheet, sheet L. The augmented volume was issued with the last two leaves, L7 and L8, blank. This second issue is represented by the copies in the Guildhall Library in London, and the W. A. Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles. The Birkbeck, British Museum, and New-berry copies, which lack these leaves, may belong to this issue, since leaves are more likely to be lost when blank.
Oldham then became aware that in this authorised volume, the bookseller, Hindmarsh, who employed the printer, had used for the text of 'A Satyr Against Vertue' the 1679 piracy, so that it remained riddled with corruptions. The pirated quarto (as we have seen) was printed by Mary Clark; a fact which, with the sequel, strongly suggests that Hindsmarsh was the publisher concerned in the piracy. If this were so, and Oldham knew it, his grievance against Hindmarsh was now double. In his 'Advertisement', or preface, to the 1681 volume, he had declared as his reason for including this 'Satyr' the provision of a correct text: it was
The further consequence of Oldham's indignant discovery was a third issue of Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, in which L7r, formerly blank, carries a list of errata. Fifty out of the sixty-seven pertain to 'A Satyr Against Vertue'; the remainder to 'Satyrs Upon The Jesuits'. To this third issue belong the two copies in the Bodleian (Antiq.e.E.1681/3 and Godwyn Pamph. 1618(10)), one each in the Cambridge University Library (CCD.3. 3) and the Huntington Library, the two at Austin (Texas), and one of my two copies. The errata are of major textual, as well as of bibliographical, importance, for they are undoubtedly authorial. If they were not, their source would have to be editorial guesswork, or an earlier printed edition, or a MS. deriving from private circulation. Apart from the bad quarto, where nearly all the corruptions in the 1681 Satyrs Upon The Jesuits themselves originate, the only previous publication of 'A Satyr Against Vertue' was in the unauthorised Poems on Several Occasions by the E. of R. (which I shall refer to as Rochester, 1680).[11] Though this is not without correct readings where the bad quarto, and (following it) the text in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, are astray, it would not have made possible the corrections in at least eleven of the errata: those for p. 97, l. 7; p. 99, l. 14; p. 104, l. 6; p. 105, ll. 4 and 13; p. 109, l. 10; p. 112, ll.8 and 11; p. 113, ll. 2 and 18; and p. 119, l. 1.[12] Evidently some of the MSS. in circulation were better than the one from which the 1679 quarto was printed, and further evidence of that is supplied by B. M. Additional MS. 14047 (which I shall call MS.A), and the MS. formerly H. M. Margoliouth's, which he
The errata to the 'Satyrs Upon The Jesuits' are equally authoritative. Some restore a harder reading: 'made' for 'make', 'write' for 'writ', 'shamelessness' for 'shamefulness' (p. 49, ll. 2, 8, 14).[17] The obvious 'there' for 'these' (p. 2, l. 19)[18] agrees with an autograph draft (MS.R, p. 174). In two instances (p. 25, l. 3, p. 30, l. 2)[19] the word in the Errata gives the true sense, indicated in a draft, and is yet so near in form to the wrong reading in the text as to make the misprint easy to understand. For 'plagues' and 'name', Oldham's first thoughts (MS.R, pp. 188, 191), he must have substituted, in the MS. he sent to press, 'curse' and 'Title', which were misprinted as 'cure' and 'little': the errata evidently restore the reading of that MS. Finally, no one correcting by the mere light of nature would have suspected corruption in l. 18 on p. 35: 'Than Bullies common Oaths and canting Lies?'[20] Yet 'canting' is changed to 'bant'ring' in the Errata, and 'bantring' is also the word in two autograph drafts (MS.R, pp. 193, 281). It is possible that both readings are Oldham's: he was evidently dissatisfied with his epithet; among his revisions in the second edition, Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682, his alteration of this line gets rid of it: 'Than a Town-Bullie common Oaths, and Lies?'.
The 1682 edition incorporates in its text the errata from the third issue of the 1681; and since fresh revision shows Oldham still at work in that text,[21] the adoption of the errata is a further confirmation of their authenticity.
As set up for the first issue, Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, was the work of two compositors, readily distinguishable by their different habits
To spring the Lye, and mak't their Game and Sport.
But I forget (what should be mention'd most)
Confession our chief Priviledge and Boast.[22]
The second, or main compositor, M, reserves italics for proper names, and a few other emphatic words, often of religious connotation: 'begging Friers', 'Hereticks', 'The Birth and Passion', for example.[24] Italicised
It was the 'Satyrs upon the Jesuits' themselves, as we noted, that were shared between the two compositors.[29] They occupy the first six sheets of
L's characteristic italics appear in the first six pages of Sheet D—D1r to D3v; and in ten pages of E—E2r to E4v, and E6v to E8r (the last five pages of the sheet). They appear, too, (and with a turn-down) in the first five lines of E5r, but not in the remainder of the page. In sheet D, it is clear that L continued his setting of Satyr II, begun in sheet C, for the six pages needed to finish it, and that M began at the beginning of 'SATYR III. Loyola's Will'., and continued with it to the end of the sheet. In this sheet, one's eye is caught by the headlines, which differ from those in sheets B, C, F, and G, and exhibit anomalies among themselves.
In the other four sheets, apart from the headline to the Prologue, the versos are all headed 'SATYR I.' (or II, III, or IV as the case may be), and the rectos 'upon the Jesuits.' Now we have, in a larger swash italic, 'SATYR II.' on D1v, D2v, D3v, D4v; 'SATYR III.' on D5v, D6v, D7v, D8v. With the exception of D4r, which bears the drop-title of 'SATYR III. Loyola's Will.', the recto headlines run: D1r 'upon the Jesuits.'; D2r, D3r 'upon the Jesuites.'; D5r, D7r and D8r 'Loyola's Will.' The headline on D4v, 'SATYR II.', is wrong: the text below is part of Satyr III. On D6r, 'upon the Jesuits.' is not wrong, but it is anomalous, because all other recto headlines to this satire appear as 'Loyola's Will.' The anomalous headline is the first that compositor M had to set for a recto of the Inner forme. Presumably he had begun by composing the two whole sheets allotted to him, F and G, and now continued with the wording he had used there, before changing on D8r to 'Loyola's Will.' The 'Loyola's Will.' of D5r, though in the perfected and folded sheet it precedes the anomalous headline, belongs, of course, to the Outer forme. Provided the Inner forme was printed before the Outer, the 'Loyola's Will.' headlines, once begun, follow each other in unbroken series so far as the order of composition and printing are concerned. That the Inner did precede the Outer forme, there is yet stronger evidence in the headline of D4v: 'SATYR II.' The text on that page is part of Satyr III: the headline is wrong. Evidently it was let stand from D1v of the Inner forme. Significant also is the variation in spelling from 'upon the Jesuits.' on D1r and D6r, to 'upon the Jesuites.' on D2r and D3r. If one compositor set the whole skeleton for either forme, or if compositor L set all the headlines for all the pages of which he composed the text, then without assignable reason he varied between Jesuites and Jesuits. But
D Inner | D Outer | Originally set by |
D2r upon the Jesuites. | D3r upon the Jesuites. | L |
D7v SATYR III. | D6v SATYR III. | M |
D8r Loyola's Will. | D5r Loyola's Will. | M |
D1v SATYR II. | D4v SATYR II. | L |
D3v SATYR II. | D2v SATYR II. | L |
D6r upon the Jesuits. | D7r Loyola's Will. | M |
D5v SATYR III. | D8v SATYR III. | M |
D4r Drop-title: | D1r upon the Jesuits. | M |
SATYR III: Loyola's Will. |
Inner D would be ready a page ahead of Outer D, the pages within each of the two stints being set in the order of the text. This was not the order in which Sheet E was set. The evidence consists of a shortage of capital W's, and consequent recourse to VV's[30] in the later pages of each compositor's work, taken together with the indication that the two men met on E5r. Since in Sheet D six pages (to finish Satyr II) were given to L, and ten to M, it is not surprising that these figures were reversed in Sheet E. Two stints of three pages each were evidently expected from Compositor M, and two, of five each, from Compositor L. For his first stint, M had only to continue straight ahead with the text of Satyr III, as he had been doing in Sheet D. He set E1r, E1v, and E2r, without any
He used his last W, and resorted to one VV, on E8v. On his next page, however, he required no VV's, and was able to set three W's. This cleaned him out again; on E3r he has no W's and four VV's. For E3v a solitary W was again to hand, supplemented by one VV. He must then have acquired three W's more, since two (and no VV's) appear on E4r, and one remained over for E4v, where a VV was needed in addition. The fresh W's came no doubt from type-pages distributed on three occasions during the shortage. No combination out of L's six in Sheet D would have released W's in the sequence (three, one, and three) which is necessary in order to explain the facts. Outer D, indeed, would still be on the press. But distribution of the last three pages from Outer C would yield exactly what the compositor obtained: C8v providing three, C7r one, and C6v a further three.
Meanwhile M, too, in his second stint, ran out of W's. Assuming that he started with the page before the five already set at the end of the sheet, by L, and worked backwards, all becomes clear. On E6r he needed only one W, which he had. This left him with one and no more for E5v, where he followed it with three VV's. Reaching E5r, he took over from Compositor L, whose italics and turn-down are seen in the first five lines (probably a stick-full); and having no W's he was obliged to use two VV's in his share of the page. One can tabulate the work of the compositors on the two sheets so as to give a rough idea of their simultaneous progress, and how they could come together on E5r.
Compositor M: D4r, D4v, D5r D5v, D6r, D6v, D7r, D7v, D8r, D8v; E1r; E1v, E2r; E6r, E5v, E5r
Three of the formes they set are known in an uncorrected and a corrected state. In Outer D, 'Call', 'Impluicit', 'thousand' (D3r, p. 37), 'Genevah's' (D4v, p. 40), 'Cononical' (D7r, p. 45), 'ro' (D8v, p. 48) are changed to 'tale', 'Implicit', 'thousands', 'Geneva's', 'Canonical', 'to'. The uncorrected readings are found in B.M. 11632.aaa.28, Bodley Antiq.e.E. 1681/3, and my second copy; the corrected, in my copy of the first issue, and ten others: Bodley G.Pamph. 1618 (10), Cambridge University Library CCD.3.3, Trinity College Cambridge, Birkbeck College (London), the Guildhall (London), Yale, Huntington, Newberry, W. A. Clark (Los Angeles) and Austin (Texas). In Outer E, 'may' (E1r, p. 49) is changed to 'make'. Five of the copies examined have the corrected state: Bodley
By such wise Methods made their Churches spread
By such wise Methods made their Churches spread.
After the first issue we have been examining, the next step was to add 'A Satyr Upon A Woman'. The addition of Sheet L, with that satire occupying its first six leaves, is what constitutes the second issue. Typographically, the new piece is identical in style with 'Byblis', which it immediately follows, and may be presumed the work of Compositor M; certainly Compositor L's characteristics nowhere appear in it.
'A Satyr Upon A Woman' was written 'Whitsuntide 1678,'[32] and so was available for inclusion in the first issue of Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681,
One conclusion, at least, important to the editor and biographer of Oldham, is plain: the anomaly of the half-title to the fourth 'Satyr Upon The Jesuits' was initiated in the printing-house and not before. It does not reflect any peculiarity either in the MS. from which the 'Satyr' was printed, or in the circumstances of its delivery to the publisher: it does not, for instance, as I once inclined to think, point to Oldham's having supplied it later than the MS. of the other three.
After Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, in the four further volumes of Oldham printed by Mary Clark (namely Some New Pieces, 1681, Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682, Poems, And Translations, 1683, and Remains, 1684), Compositor L's style of italicisation does not recur. Nor can I establish that any of them was divided between different workmen. In Remains, 1684, it is true, there are some signs, at bibliographically significant points, that this might be so. One copy (Works, Together with . . . Remains, 1684, Bodleian 12 θ 1868) has an early state of G Outer which shows error where the text is divided between that forme and G Inner and H Outer.[33] G Inner ends correctly on G8r with the catchword 'III. Hence': the number of the stanza which should follow, and the first word of its first line. But instead of beginning, as would be correct and consistent, with 'III.', then a line of leads, and the first line of the stanza, G8v begins with the stanza's second line. This gain of space, by omission, is matched at the foot of the page by the inclusion of three lines which are also set at the top of H1r. As a result, the G8v catchword, correct for the line which should follow the three at the foot of that page, corresponds not with the first but with the fourth line on H1r. The mistake in the division of the text is most simply explained if it occurred by simple omission at the top of G8v. The compositor would then get three lines more on the page than had been allowed for, and if the new sheet, H, were begun at the point predetermined by casting-off, the duplication of those three lines would be the outcome. If we were forced to envisage a compositor, having set three lines a first time, immediately setting them again, in circumstances which rule out mere dittography, we might think such an error improbable, and seek to attribute the second setting to a second workman. But at the completion of a forme, and especially of a sheet, it would be normal for setting to be interrupted by other tasks: imposition, locking-up, perhaps distribution of type; and the error of duplication would be easy enough for the original compositor returning to the copy after an interval. I have failed to find in the orthography or typography of the sheets, formes, and pages in question anything that might reflect a change of compositor. Two other sheets, B and C, do contrast in a single typographical feature with the rest of the book, including G and H. Except twice (on F1v, G4v) only B and C have turn-overs: the remaining sheets have overflows, unleaded above, leaded below (like those of sheets H-L in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681). In sheet B such overflows are a minority, and in sheet C there are none. Instead, there are turn-downs, and one turn-up. The turn-up is of the regular space-saving kind, tucked in at the end of the preceding line of print. But the turn-downs are of a form not found in Mary Clark's substantive editions of Oldham apart from this one. They require exactly the same amount
Nowhere else in the editions under consideration—nowhere in Some New Pieces, 1681, Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682, or Poems, And Translations, 1683—is there (so far as I can detect) a peculiarity correlated with one or more of the constituent bibliographical units, such as would suggest that the task of setting-up had been divided.
We have now to investigate the patterns of compositorial preferences in these four texts, and, necessarily, to bring into the comparison Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, and A Satyr Against Vertue, 1679. For the patterns have to be compared not only with each other, but with Compositor M's; and in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, M can be studied as he sets from the Satyr, 1679. From the comparisons we may form some opinion about the presence or absence, in the four later volumes, of M or other workmen. We have two great advantages. We can follow the compositor of the Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682, in precise detail, as he sets from the first edition, merely incorporating a number of authorial corrections (some from the 1681 errata). And with one exception,[34] wherever the texts are being set from MS. we can observe the features that coincide with the practice of the author, which is known from about a hundred-and-thirty pages of rough drafts, and about ninety of holograph fair copies, in the Rawlinson MS.[35] None of the features is so idiosyncratic as to prove beyond a pedant's cavil that the printer's copy was autograph, but there is not the least reasonable doubt that it was. The notion of Oldham, never prosperous, and capable of handsome fair copy, deciding instead to employ a scribe (who must, if he existed, have had the same pattern of spelling as Oldham himself) is patently ridiculous. 'A Satyr Against Vertue' was never printed from autograph, because the 1679 edition was pirated from a corrupt MS. in circulation, and the reprints in 1681 and 1682 (the first, with errata in the third issue of the book; and the second with a corrected text) were each set up from the previous edition. Everywhere else in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, and everywhere in Some New Pieces, 1681, Poems, And Translations, 1683, and, I believe, in Remains, 1684, we are safe in assuming autograph copy, and examining compositorial practice by the help of a general comparison
The first step is to note those details of Oldham's spelling and punctuation which will be needed for our comparisons. His fair copies are punctuated carefully but not heavily. He is fond of such doublets as 'Life & name,' 'remote & wide,' 'Pollute & soil,' and rarely divides them by a comma. He seldom fails to mark metrical elision, but occasionally uses a notation of Cowley's and Jonson's, retaining 'e' along with the apostrophe in a slurred syllable: 'Reve'rence', 'Praye'rs'. Though I have found 'Anathema's' and 'Hero's', the apostrophe hardly ever occurs in plurals: it is regular in possessive singulars, among which, however 'Churches' appears for 'Church's'. Hyphenation is not profuse; in particular, prefixes like 'out-', 'over-', 'un-', 'off-', and suffixes like '-men', '-boys', denoting classes of people, are not hyphenated. Oldham writes 'outgo', 'overlay', 'overan', 'offspring', 'unnumber'd', 'Statesmen', 'Linkboys'. Among his spellings, the most evidential are those from which he never varies, and those for which he has a very strong preference. These are listed in Table III, where I give (except for the hyphenations and apostrophe plurals) the number of instances observed.[37]
Uniform Practice | Strong Preferences | ||
In MS R. | Never found | Majority | Minority |
outgo | out-go etc. | ||
overlay | |||
oreran | |||
offspring | |||
unnumber'd | |||
Statesmen | |||
Linkboys | |||
Ecchos (plural), etc. | Anathema's (plural, 1) | ||
Hero's (plural, 1) | |||
chast 7 | chaste | ||
hast 6 | haste | ||
wast 5 | waste | ||
tast 3 | taste |
dy 22 | die | destiny 8 | destinie 1 |
dye 5 | defy 3 | defie 1 | |
easy 9 | easie | glory 17 | glorie 2 |
ey 8 | eye 1 | ||
eys 21 | eyes 2 | ||
els 11 | else 1 | ||
aw 4 | |||
ow 6 | owe 1 | ||
ere 38 | e'er | ||
e're 3 | |||
honour 18 | honor | ||
honour'd 1 | honor'd | ||
honourable 1 | honorable | ||
honourably 1 | honorably | ||
human 9 | humane | ||
inhuman 1 | inhumane | ||
judgement 9 | judgment | ||
judge 3 | judg | ||
budge 1 | budg | ||
drudge 1 | drudg | ||
badge 3 | badg | ||
edge 1 | edg | ||
pledge 1 | pledg | ||
alledge 1 | alledg | ||
knowledge 3 | knowledge | ||
priviledge 1 | priviledg | ||
sacriledge 1 | sacriledg[38] | ||
lest 15 | least | brest 16 | breast 4 |
loth'd 8 | loath'd | ||
rhime 12 | rhyme | ||
rhimer 3 | rhymer | ||
rhiming 1 | rhyming | ||
sence 41 | sense | shew 18 | show 2 |
soveraign 4 | sovereign | shew'd 5 | |
soverain 2 | soverein | shewn 3 | shown 1 |
spite 28 | spight 1 | ||
spiteful 3 | |||
strait 39 | straight 2 | ||
tho 25 | though | ||
tho' 15 | |||
thô 1 | |||
thro 27 | through | ||
thro' 14 | |||
thrô 1 |
Passing from the autographs to the editions, it will be best to begin with Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682, where the data for the compositor's practices are virtually complete. I shall call him SJ82. Setting as he is from the first edition, 1681, on the whole he follows copy closely, so that he does little to obscure the contrast between the sections of text there set by L and M; indeed, many of the author's spellings still come through.[40] In both sections, he inserts new hyphens. Though he retains 'Statesmen', 'Henchboys', his inclination is to change 'outdo' and its fellows to 'out-do', 'out-face', 'o're-ran', 're-spread', 'non-sence'; he also, less strikingly, hyphenates pairs of words unhyphenated in his copy: 'Priest-guelder', 'Chimny-Tales', 'all-pow'rful', 'Hot-House', 'Passion-Nails', 'Powder-Plot', 'Saddle-Pomel', 'Wiping-Paper', 'Church-Dispensatories', 'Country-Saints'. Apostrophes, too, are inserted: for metrical elision, and sometimes to mark possessive singulars; but no new ones for plurals, though 'Anathema's', 'Molucco's', 'Grotto's', 'Chimaera's', 'Limbo's' are retained. The elisions (and the possessive 'Church's' for 'Churches') often required the dropping of 'e' when the apostrophe was introduced, and the resulting habit produces a number of abnormal spellings: 'Fraterniti's', 'Mari's', 'Agu's', 'Candl's'.
(Such by Confession your Familiars grown)
SJ82 | Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681 | SJ82 | Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681 |
out-do | outdo (cp.R outgo etc.) | sovereign | soveraign L |
out-face | outface | forein | foreign L[41] |
o're-ran | o'reran | show | shew |
o're-spread | or'espread | show'd | shew'd |
non-sence | nonsence | shown | shew'n |
Chimny-Tales etc. | Chimny Tales etc. | spight | spite M |
haste | hast M | spightful | spiteful M |
waste | wast M | through | thro' L |
taste | tast M | ne'er | ne're L (R 18 vs. 15)[42] |
easie | easy | Emperor | Emperour L (R 3 vs. 1) |
lousie | lousy (cp.R defy) | Emperors | Emperours L |
Heresie | Heresy (cp.R destiny) | Successors | Successours L } |
R, as 4 to 3. | |||
mortifie | mortify (cp.R. glory) | Ancestors | ancestours } |
Cries | Crys M (cp.R Eys) | Horror | Horrour L (R horror, 4 vs. 0) |
Eyes | Eys L | Soldiers | Souldiers M ( R) |
lye | ly (cp.R Ey) | Soldier's | Souldier's M |
awe | aw M | Relicks | Reliques M (cp.R, Poetique) |
owe | ow M | Masks | Masques M |
Jesuit | Jesuite M (R, seldom) | phantastick | phantastic M (R, phantastick) |
welcom | welcome M (R, welcom, 1) | uncontroul'd | uncontroulld M |
judg | judge M | unsetled | unsettled M |
grudg | grudge M (cp.R, drudge) | hazards | hazzards M |
badg | badge L | until | untill |
edg | edge L | Remorse | Remorss L |
Knowledg | Knowledge L | pity | pitty L |
priviledg | priviledge L,M | Indulgence | Indullgence L |
Sacriledg | Sacriledge M | forbiden | forbidden L[43] |
least | lest M | ||
breast | brest M |
Of these changes, a number, no doubt, are in the direction of general printing-house usage or at least of house-style. Some check is provided, however, by the work of L, who is certainly not SJ82. Where their practices differ, a common house-style was evidently not in force. L's work does show some of the same features as SJ82's. He has 'sense', 'forein', 'eyes' (p. 29, beside 'Eys', p. 60); the 'e' mute in 'haste', 'waste', and similarly in 'else'; some mistaken elisions of 'e' with the apostrophe: 'who're' (for 'whoe're'), 'plac't', 'mak't; and two or three apostrophes in plurals: 'Anathema's', 'Molucco's' and 'Prayer's'—which last, however, is probably the misintepretation of an autograph 'Praye'rs'. Clearly one cannot rely on these forms in the attempt to distinguish among and identify Mary Clark's compositors, though in the full picture of a compositor's practice they have their place. Fortunately, L's is far from suggesting that all SJ82's departures from copy should be referred to house-style or general usage. L's hyphenations are not much more frequent than they are likely to have been in his copy: some of those which link pairs of words may be his own, but he seldom divides words, and almost never hyphenates prefix or suffix in the manner of SJ82. The exceptions are 'Play-house', 'Fly-flap', 'Church-yards', and one suffix, 'Fisher-men'. Faced with verse-lines too long for his measure, his methods of division agree only three times with SJ82's. On p. 33 he uses the same type of overflow, and twice on p. 54 the same type of turn-over. His commonest method (seventeen instances) is a turn-over tucked in at the end of the previous or the next line of print. On the remaining nine occasions he has a line of leading before as well as after the overflow; on at least three this is in order to lose space. Though he has 'Judgments', he never uses the '-dg' ending, but always spells 'badge' (3), 'Bridge', 'Knowledge', 'edge', 'Priviledge'. Nor does he divagate from Oldham's practice in
We can now marshal the evidence which favours the hypothesis of Some New Pieces, 1681, Poems, And Translations, 1683, and Remains, 1684, having been set by Compositor SJ82. Whoever set them, one man or several, certainly shared many of the characteristics displayed in the 1682 volume. The evidence pointing to SJ82 consists in the first place of features common to all four texts, with secondary support from features common to two or three. In Some New Pieces and Poems, And Translations, we can test compositorial preferences more closely, by collating the printed text of five poems with the autograph fair copies in the Rawlinson MS. The autographs actually printed from are unlikely to have differed much in their accidentals from these, which are therefore fairly good guides to the compositor's probable departures from copy in the poems concerned: 'Upon A Printer' and the paraphrases on Psalm 137 and the Hymn of S. Ambrose in Some New Pieces; the ode on Jonson and the 'Dithyrambique' in Poems, And Translations.[44] As regards divergent spellings of significant words, Table V records the results of this collation.
SNP | Autograph | P&T | easy |
out-done (2) | outdone | Link-boys | Poesy |
Off-spring | Offspring | whimsy | |
Bell-men | Belmen | defy | |
Echo's (plural) | Ecchos | ||
Heroes | Hero's (plural) | ||
easie (2) | easy | easie (2) | |
vie | vy | Poesie | |
out-vie | outvy | whimsie | Autograph |
defie | defy | defie | Linkboys |
(and 'defy' retained) | |||
Honor (3) | Honour (3) | Honor | lest |
Badg | Badge | Judg | soverain |
Knowledg | Knowledge | forreign | |
breast | brest | least | Honour |
sovereign | soveraign | sovereign | Judge |
forein | |||
through and through | |||
Center | Centre | ne're | |
Conqu'rours | Conqu'rors | Conqueror | dost |
Actors | rigour | ||
Vapor | |||
rigor | Conquerour | ||
ne'er | ne're | ne'er | Actours |
do'st (5) | dost (5) | do'st | Vapour |
Extending the review to Remains, 1684, and to the whole of the text in Some New Pieces, 1681, and Poems, And Translations, 1683, Table VI is designed to assist comparison between spellings favoured in each, and by Compositor SJ82. The spellings listed are compositorial or most probably so, none likely to come from the copy. Where the number of occurrences is given, it includes those in Table V.
SNP | P&T | Remains | SJ82 |
out-done (2) | out-rages | out-done | out-do |
out-face | |||
o're-run | o're-run | o'er-charg'd | o're-ran |
o're spread | |||
Bell-men | Bell-men's | Gown-men | non-sence |
Off-spring | Link-boys | Woman-kind | |
Echo's (plural) | Chimaera's (plural) | Chimaeras' (plural) | Chimaera's (plural) |
Pulvilio's " | Regalio's " | Limbo's | |
Virtuoso's " | Capricio's " | Molucco's | |
Huzza's " | Idaea's " | Anathema's | |
Hero's " | Grotto's " | Grotto's | |
Inquistor's " | Scaevola's " | ||
easie | easie | easie | easie |
defie | defie | ||
vie | Poesie | ||
out-vie | whimsie | ||
Honor (9 vs. 6) | Honor | ||
Judg (5) | Judg (2) | Judg | judg |
Budg | trudg (2) | ||
grudg (2) | grudg | ||
Badg | drudg | badg | |
pledg | pledg | edg | |
knowledg (2) | knowledg | knowledg | knowledg |
acknowledg (2) | priviledg | ||
alledg | Sacriledg | ||
Bridg | |||
Pordidg | |||
Stourbridg | |||
least | least | least | |
breast (7 vs. 0) | breast (15) | breast (9 vs. 2) | breast |
sovereign | sovereign | sovereign | sovereign |
forein (3 vs. 0) | forein (5 vs. 0) | forein | forein |
spight (7) | spight (3) | ||
spightful | |||
through (15) | through (6) | ||
Center | Center | ||
Choire (1) | Choire (1) | ||
fewel (1) | fewd (1) |
These last two spellings, linking Poems, And Translations with Some
Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. In 'Choire', 'fewd', and 'fewel', we have already had example of the resemblances in accidentals which, without running through all four of the texts we are considering, form cross-links between them. One of the most salient is the intruded apostrophe in 'do'st', connecting Poems, And Translations with Some New Pieces, where in the 'Hymn of St Ambrose' it recurs five times (the autograph fair copy reading 'dost'). This abnormal spelling is found twice more in Some New Pieces, and four times in Poems, And
To conclude this examination of continuity in the workmanship between Compositor SJ82 and Some New Pieces, 1681, Poems And Translations, 1683, and Remains, 1684, one orthographical and one specifically bibliographical feature should be considered. Matching the spate of commas added by SJ82, the printed texts of the Jonson ode and the 'Dithrambique' in Poems, And Translations, compared with the autographs, have a hundred fresh commas before 'and'. For the three poems in Some New Pieces where the like comparison can be made, the figure is forty-seven, still a very high one. For Remains, we have only Oldham's general habit to go on. Despite the closer following of copy, some twenty of the commas before 'and', occurring in such doublets as 'Cells, and Grotto's', are almost certainly the compositor's; and there are about fifty more that I should hesitate to ascribe to the author. In all three volumes (except for sheets B and C of Remains), when a verse-line is too long to print undivided, the solution overwhelmingly preferred is an overflow of the type unleaded above and leaded below. This is the type adopted by SJ82 forty-eight times out of the fifty-four when he departs from copy, and one hundred and twenty-eight out of the one hundred and forty-three when he follows it. Poems, And Translations has no turn-overs at all, and one double-leaded overflow against two hundred and twenty-five of the usual type. Some New Pieces has seventy-four of these, two of them in pages where a turnover, tucked in at the end of a line of print, is also employed: four turnovers of this kind, all but one quite early in the compositor's work, are his only deviations from his regular method. In Remains, outside sheets B and C (the first to be set), only two of the fifty long lines are differently dealt with. Even in the exceptional sheets there are eleven of the customary overflows. That makes fifty-nine in the whole volume, against twenty-four of the turn-overs peculiar to it.
For these many similarities in the setting-up of text in the four volumes, the simplest explanation would be that Compositor SJ82 set them all. If this is too much to believe, then (it must be supposed) they were set by
Like SJ82, M was on the whole remarkably faithful to the accidentals of printed copy. In three hundred and seventy lines he departs only in seventy details from the 1679 Satyr Against Vertue. Table VII indicates his significant changes of spelling compared with that edition, with the fair copy of 'Upon A Woman', and with parallel drafts for 'Satyrs Upon The Jesuits'.
M | SV79 | M | 'Woman', or SJ draft |
Car-men | Carmen | States-men | Statesmen W |
over-living | over living | out-go | outgo W |
ill-digesting | ill digesting | out-strip | outstrip W |
vain-glorious | vain glorious | Close-stool | Closestool W |
well-built | well built | Death-bed-Pray'r | Death-bed Prayer W |
first-born | first born | Common-shore | Commonshore SJ |
Her self | Herself | ||
to th' (2) | toth' | ||
*at one | a Tone | ||
sense | sense W | ||
Prophesie | Prophecy | rallied | rally'd W |
Jealousie | Jealousy SJ | ||
Fraternities | Fraternity's SJ | ||
spoil'd | spoyld | die | dy (2) W |
lyes | Lies W | ||
lye | ly W | ||
eye | ey W | ||
Eye-balls | Ey-balls SJ | ||
humane | Human | Humane | human W |
welcome | welcom | welcom | welcom SJ |
ruine | ruin | ||
else | els | ||
judgment | judgment W | ||
judg | judg | judg | judge W |
(viz. from copy) | |||
alledge | alledg | ||
Sacriledge | Sacriledg | ||
Though (7) | Tho W | ||
through | thro' W |
humor | humour | favourites | Favorites W |
Successor | Successour SJ | ||
Ne'er (2) | Ne're (2) W | ||
Catars | Catarrhs | ||
sniveling | snivelling | ||
unpitied | unpittied | ||
complete | compleat W | ||
profane | prophane | ||
Ptisick | Tissick | ||
stomachs | stomacks | W='A Satyr Upon A Woman' (auto-graph fair copy) | |
Stagyrite | Stagarite | SJ='Satyrs Upon The Jesuits' (drafts) | |
Idiots | Ideots | *Deliberate 'correction' (erroneous) | |
raze | rase | ||
nauseous | Nasceous | ||
preceding | preceeding. |
The most characteristic of the hyphenations, as with SJ82, concern prefixes and suffixes 'over-', 'out-', (2), '-men' (2). The additions of mute 'e'; the 'ie' or 'oi' for 'y' or 'oy', (though cp., once each, 'lyes' for 'Lies' and 'Apology' for 'Apologie'); the 'or' for 'our' (though once, 'favourites' for 'Favorites');[45] the 'dg', especially in 'judg', for 'dge' (though the reverse change in 'alledge', 'Sacriledge' has to be noted); 'Ne'er' for 'Ne're'; the single for double consonants; the unabbreviated 'through';—these changes all have their parallels in those made by Compositor SJ82.
One can extend the scrutiny of M's performances to that part of it where comparison with Oldham's autographs becomes general instead of particular: a comparison with his prevailing usage. Table VIII assembles spellings in which M departs from it; though where (as with 'our' and 'or', and with double or single consonants) there is a strong minority form besides the prevailing one, we have to remember that the copy may have had the minority-form, and M may simply have reproduced it. He does reproduce many authorial spellings, contrary to some in Table VIII.
- Off-spring
- States-men
- Bank-rupt
- Common-shore (2)
- Paste-board
- Chimaera's (plural)
- Limbo's "
- Grotto's "
- Beautie's (sing.)
- easie
- busie
- massie
- Heresie
- Palsie
- Dropsie
- Secresie
- allied
- denied (2)
- envied
- sanctified
- died
- dies
- Jointers
- plaid
- eye (s) (8)
- haste
- unchaste
- owe (2)
- humane
- strangly
- sense (s) (3)
- feast
- Breast (s) (6)
- sovereign
- Emperors
- Confessors
- Successors
- unsetled
- compeld
- Recals
TABLE VIII Compositor M (in 'Satyrs Upon The Jesuits' and 'Byblis') Spellings contrary to Oldham's prevailing usage
As regards turn-overs and overflows, except in his share of 'Satyrs Upon The Jesuits', where the thirty-eight double-leaded overflows are a means adopted to lose space, M invariably employs for his overflows the style so general with SJ82 and in the other three volumes, with leading below and not above. In A Satyr Against Vertue, 1679, the verse of each stanza is set solid and without overflows, so that the twelve turn-overs required for lines which even the quarto page will not take undivided are of the kind tucked-in at the end of the next or the previous line of print. M changes all these to overflows unleaded above and leaded below, and (his page being octavo) introduces sixty-five new overflows of the same pattern. With fifty more in 'The Passion of Byblis' and 'Upon A Woman', his total reaches a hundred and twenty-seven. It may be significant that when in M's assignment or in the three subsequent first editions there are exceptions to the usual practice, these exceptions come, for the most part, early in the compositor's work. M's seven turn-overs are in the first six pages he set. Three of the four in Some New Pieces (the same kind as M's) are in the first sheet and the first page of the second; the sole double-leaded overflow in Poems, And Translations is on B4v, where A was evidently reserved for the preliminaries. Similarly, all but two of the twenty-four turn-overs
So far, investigation has yielded little or nothing that militates against Compositor SJ82 being M himself. Indeed it supports the hypothesis that the whole run of texts, from M's share of Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, to Remains, 1684, are the work of a single compositor, or else of a pair or group with habits so much in common that it is impossible to distinguish one man from another. There are, however, a few features in one or other of the texts which may give us pause.
Against the identification of Compositor SJ82 with M, four objections might be brought. First, if he is M, why is he much more lavish with commas, especially before 'and', introducing many even when setting from M's work itself? An answer is not hard to find. The difference is not flat contrast, but a progression. For M shows the same inclination though in a much less extreme degree. Comparing his print of 'A Satyr Upon A Woman' with the autograph fair copy, we find twelve additional commas before 'and', and twenty-three in all. As we have noted, Oldham rarely has a comma before the 'and' in a doublet, such as 'Life & name' (though there are three instances in the fair copy of 'Upon A Woman'). Probably most of the commas in such doublets set by M are the compositor's additions. I have counted forty-eight. As with commas, so to a lesser extent with apostrophes. M does not make a point of inserting them for elisions and possessive singulars, but his 'Church's' for 'Churches' probably, and his 'watch'd' for 'watcht' certainly, represent divergences from copy. The five apostrophe plurals set by SJ82 (all following copy) are matched by M's 'Grotto's,' 'Chimaera's,' and 'Limbo's'. In 1681 M had no doubt to work
A like explanation is available for the second difference in compositorial procedure, though this difference is a plain contrast: it, too, may exhibit the same man composing under different conditions. Whatever the explanation, SJ82 capitalises more freely than his copy, whereas M, when checked against his copy in A Satyr Against Vertue, 1679, and against the autograph of 'Upon a Woman', is found to do the opposite. On this point, Some New Pieces, 1681, and Poems, And Translations, 1683, yield evidence against referring the two practices to two compositors. In Poems, And Translations, if we collate 'A Dithyrambique' with the autograph it appears that in every stanza but one, the compositor, like M, must have considerably reduced the capitalisation of his copy. Yet in stanza II, and (as a corresponding collation indicates) in the Jonson ode, he seems to have increased it exactly as it is increased by SJ82. Both phenomena are revealed also in Some New Pieces by a collation of the three poems for which we possess autograph fair copies. 'The Hymn of S. Ambrose' shows a marked increase of capitals, along with a sizeable minority of alterations in the reverse direction. The paraphrase on Psalm 137, on the other hand, has a very few capitals not in the autograph, and a large number of changes to lower-case initial letters. These are also the majority, but by a fairly narrow margin over the new capitals, in 'Upon a Printer'. I can see no reason to believe that these three poems in Some New Pieces, or the two in Poems, And Translations, belonged to stints of different compositors. So I conclude that the same man could treat capitals now like M and now like SJ82, who therefore, despite the contrast in capitalisation, need not be two distinct people.
I come now to the third and fourth objections. The liking for 'dg' endings, so prominent with SJ82, and in Some New Pieces and Poems, And Translations, is seen, if M does share it, only twice in his work; and one of these occurrences is hardly evidential: his 'judg' in 'A Satyr Against Vertue' follows copy, and moreover he may have retained it only because the line was full. Further, in two successive lines where A Satyr Against Vertue, 1679, has the '-dg', M departs from it, with 'alledge' and 'Sacriledge'. As to this, it may be answered, somewhat lamely, that to add final 'e' mutes is a habit with both M and SJ82. There can be no doubt that M's copy for 'Upon a Woman' read 'judge', Oldham's only form; and that there M did substitute 'judg'. The absence of 'dg' endings elsewhere is not a serious
Finally, there are the spellings 'human', 'humane.' Here SJ82 is the odd man out, while Some New Pieces and Remains are linked with M. Oldham always writes 'human'. Re-setting 'A Satyr Against Vertue', M once retains 'Human' and once alters it to 'humane'. In 'Upon a Woman', contrary to the autograph, he has 'humane', and 'humane' too, the only other time the word recurs. Some New Pieces never spells otherwise than 'humane' (6), 'inhumane' (3); Remains has 'humane' four times, against 'human' once. Poems, And Translations, on the other hand, with 'human' (9) and 'inhuman' (2) never diverges from Oldham's spelling, which of course must have stood in its copy. SJ82, re-setting from L's work, keeps 'inhuman'; and from M's, the one instance of 'human'. That need occasion even less surprise than the absence, in Poems, And Translations, of even one alteration out of eleven possible opportunities. What is remarkable is that SJ82 changes M's three instances of 'humane' into 'human', the opposite change to M's. However, if this contrast is taken as decisive against identifying him with M, it must decisively separate him from Some New Pieces also: such a verdict has to contend with the similarities of workmanship not only between him and M, but likewise between him and Some New Pieces.
The contrast between Poems, And Translations, 1683, and Some New Pieces, 1681, in their treatment of Oldham's 'human' is one of a very few facts which, taken by themselves, would suggest the participation, in these two volumes and the Remains, of distinct compositors. Some New Pieces differs again from Poems, And Translations and also from Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682, in having 'Rhyme' (3), 'Rhymers' (1), alongside 'Rhime' (3) and 'rhiming' (1), which represent Oldham's form. (The words do not occur in Remains 1684). Remains alone exhibits an obvious preference for 'e'er' (13), which Oldham never uses, against 'e're' (2). A latent preference for it is, however, perhaps indicated by single instances in Some New Pieces (p. 132), contrary to the autograph fair copy, and in Poems, And Translations (p. 194). As for 'ne'er', where the copy was autograph, any given occurrence may simply follow the author's spelling, since he has 'ne'er' and 'ne're' (or 'nere') in something like equal numbers. But the overwhelming majority for 'ne'er' in Remains (10 vs. 1) and Poems, And Translations (16 vs. 4) is unlikely to reflect copy throughout. Compositor SJ82, setting from print, reproduces the copy-spelling 'ne're' eighteen times, but once (p. 8) significantly changes it to 'ne'er'. M has no 'ne'er'; out of his ten instances of 'ne're', five follow printed copy, one agrees with the spelling in a draft, for two there is no MS. version extant. If on these last two occasions, or any of the other three where he was setting from MS., M did alter 'ne'er' to 'ne're', he might have been seeking consistency. Postulating a compositor with this desire, combined with the strong inclination (as shown by SJ82) to follow copy, and a personal preference for
Poems, And Translations, 1683, shows the largest number of exceptional forms. 'Vertue' is not found; and besides fourteen occurrences of 'Virtue', there are 'Mistrisses' (3), 'ghest' (2), 'ghastly' (1) and 'ghastliest' (1). Were these spellings distributed in some pattern of bibliographical units, one would suspect the presence of a second compositor; if from these units the characteristics found elsewhere in the volume and the series were absent, one would be practically certain of it. When these tests are applied, the most that can be said is that eight of the unusual spellings come in L Outer and L Inner, three in B Outer, and three in K Inner. But the remaining eitht are scattered elsewhere; and in each of these formes the accustomed hyphens and commas before 'and' make their appearance. And the man who set 'virtue' in each is capable of setting not only 'non-sense' or 'down-right', but also 'Knowledg', on the same page. Moreover, the spelling 'virtue' is not wholly peculiar to Poems, And Translations: M has it (p. 84), where, as in Poems, And Translations, it is practically certain to be an alteration of the copy-spelling.[46]
To sum up the discussion of the five texts, from M's part in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, to Remains, 1684, one can now attempt to sketch a profile that would delineate a single compositor responsible for them all, bearing in mind that if there was in fact more than one, the profile will be a composite, representative of a pair or group. Either way, it may be helpful at this point to bring together the characteristics of this figure.
He is responsive to the accidentals of his copy, particularly when composing from print. He is lavish with commas, especially before 'and'. In italicisation he is moderate and logical; in capitalisation, somewhat inconsistent, now increasing and now diminishing it from similar copy. He has a strong preference for overflows rather than turn-overs, and normally sets them with leading below but not above, though of course he will double-lead them to lose space, or not lead them at all in a passage set solid. Nor does he eschew turn-overs altogether, but on occasion uses three different varieties: tucked-in before or after the neighboring line of print; placed at the end of the leading between the lines; or in the same position with a further line of leading below. He introduces hyphens, sometimes to join separate words but more often to divide compounds, and especially for prefixes and suffixes. Without a hyphen, he commonly divides Oldham's 'whoe're' and the like. From time to time he inserts an apostrophe before the plural 's'—but L does the same. In two of his most striking spelling preferences he is not invariably consistent; 'humane' and the 'dg' ending as in 'Judg'. In numerous instances he substitutes these for the spellings in his copy; but in one place he alters two 'dg's to 'dge's, and in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682, thrice alters 'humane' to 'human'. Further preferences are for 'least', 'breast', 'sovereign', 'forein', 'spight', 'spightfull', 'sense' (shared with L),[47] 'jealousie', and other 'ie' or 'i' spellings instead of 'y'; 'honor' and other 'or' endings, and 'through' without abbreviation. The preferences do not result in a majority for each of the favoured forms; they are discernible by contrast with the forms we can attribute to the copy. 'Ne'er', especially when it does predominate, must sometimes witness to a preference. Another, previously latent, seems to emerge in the 'e'er' of Remains, and even 'virtue' in Poems, And Translations may have the same explanation.[48] In 'do'st', undoubtedly, and also most likely in 'Choire', 'fewd', 'fewel', we have occasional spellings of our compositor's, or compositor-figure's. Whether it was he or Oldham who veered into 'Rhyme', 'rhymers', 'Ghest', 'ghastly', 'mistrisses', I am not able to give an opinion.
The remaining text that concerns us, A Satyr Against Vertue, 1679,
Our final task is to examine the self-evident or demonstrable errors of the compositors, both to discover any kinds to which they may show themselves prone, and to compare the incidence of error in the different volumes, or, for Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, in the bibliographically-distinct parts of the volume. Some variations in the incidence of error may tentatively be ascribed to differing conditions in which the work was done.
On the incidence of error, I offer my findings with diffidence. The mistakes are often sparse for statistical treatment, while the suggested differences in the haste of composition are more hypothetical than I should like, and in part inferred from the very rates of error they are invoked to explain. At least, however, I was able to follow SJ82 as he set from print, L's or M's—and M's may well be his own former handiwork. Everywhere else, moreover, it was safe to assume that the compositors were setting from Oldham's autograph fair copy, the characteristics of which are known.
In 'Satyrs Upon The Jesuits', neither compositor seems hurried until he reaches the sheets divided between them. Among the mistakes in L's 592 lines on sheets B and C, I classify only one as a 'literal' misprint; and in M's 481 on F and G, only one again. Here (excluding punctuation) L's errors almost treble M's: one in every forty-two lines against one in every hundred-and-twenty, approximately. But in sheets D and E, M's superiority drops sharply. As half-a-dozen 'literals' bear witness, M is hardest pressed in sheet D, where he has ten pages to L's six. In sheet E, with the allotment of pages reversed, L in turn has six 'literals' (in 202 lines), compared with two (in 109 lines) in sheet D. At his worst, in sheet E, L has one error to 13.5 lines; while M, at his in sheet D, has one in 15.3. Under less pressure, M, in sheet E, has no 'literals', and a total of three errors in 116 lines (one in 38.17). Comparably, L in sheet D has five, or one to 21.8—nearly double his rates in B and C.
In the rest of the book M is on his own, setting 'A Satyr Against Vertue' from the pirated quarto, and 'Byblis' and 'Upon A Woman' from autograph; 'Upon a Woman' for the second issue. Only in this third poem, occupying the last five pages of the extended text, does his rate of error rise high: to an average of one in twenty lines. Here he may be hastening, to enable the new issue to be brought out quickly. If we take 'Byblis' with sheets F and G of 'Satyrs Upon the Jesuits', because together they constitute the sections he set, from autograph, without marks of haste, they yield one error to 92.3 lines. This is practically identical with his average, one to 92.75, in setting 'A Satyr Against Vertue' from print that was more likely than not his own work in the first place.
The averages for Some New Pieces, and for Remains, are close to these. For Poems, And Translations, the figure is better, but not so much so as to be anomalous in the series. Taking all three together, the distribution whether of their errors in general, or of their 'literal' misprints in particular, does not seem to indicate special pressure at any point. Some New Pieces, with twenty-five errors in 2376 lines, averages one in 95: Remains, in verse, with sixteen in 1608, averages one in 100.5; and in prose, with six in 614, one in 102.3. Poems, And Translations has twenty-six in its 3807 lines, an average of one in 146.4.
In Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1682, it will be remembered, the compositor introduced a host of new commas. We took this as meaning that he was composing at his ease; yet compared with what seems to be unhurried compositorial performance elsewhere in these Oldham editions, he is much less accurate than one might expect. The two phenomena are perhaps not irreconcilable. Without any sense of being hurried—so that he could indulge his passion for commas—he was no doubt working a good deal more rapidly from print than the rate at which the comparable texts, from MS., were set. His 'literals' are twenty-five in 2583 lines, and his errors average one for every 47. The suggested explanation gains some support from a drop both in 'literals' and in the ratio of error while he is setting
Throughout the five volumes, from Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, onward, all these errors, including L's, belong to the regular kinds one can expect of a compositor. Reverting to our profile of a single workman (for everything except L's stints), whether he corresponds to one, a pair, or several in actuality, we can proceed to classify his errors. The most numerous are his wrong letters (35) as in 'Ptophet', some of which may result from foul case. One may take his turned letters (2) with these. To omit single letters (19) is another of his besetting sins, and his omissions extend to single words (8). Only once does he intrude a word: 'the crafty' for 'crafty'. His corruptions often result from misreading MS. (16), or even print (2); or from the vulgarisations typical of copyists. The misreadings come chiefly from f/long s or y/th confusions, or from minims (particularly Oldham's r); and t and T also contribute. Thus we get 'Persecution', 'there', 'Natures', 'show'd', 'shove', 'Frier', 'Todelet', for 'Perfection', 'your', 'Natives', 'strow'd', 'strove', 'Fircu', 'Jodelet'. Almost half the vulgarisations reduce a rarer grammatical form, usually the subjunctive, to a common one. Similarly, the unfamiliar ecclesiastical term 'Maniples' gives place to the less unfamiliar 'Manciples'; 'thoughts . . . well directed be' is re-set as 'thoughts . . . will directed be', obliterating the reference to 'direction of the intention'; 'St André' becomes 'St Andrew', and Guillim, Guilliam, though this last name was corrected in the course of printing.[53] A few deliberate emendations are also made, half-a-dozen of them wrong, as when 'a Tone' is miscorrected to 'at one' instead of 'attone'; and once the compositor appears to have misinterpreted what was no doubt an authentic revision in the autograph from which he was setting.[54] In five places his misjudgement of elisions injures the metre. Not unnaturally, proper names give him trouble: besides the four mentioned already, he disfigures at least seven others, though only by aberrant spellings. Two of the three words in which he transposes letters are Gordobuc (for Gorboduc) and Baigno (for the somewhat exotic Bagnio). Twice he inadvertently transposes words, and almost certainly on a third occasion also, where the change makes
In sleep we seem, and only sleep to make: . . .
He shares with L a propensity to mispunctuate, especially by introducing premature full-stops, which no appeal to rhetorical principles of punctuation will justify. Once each, he and L add an unwanted 's' to the possessive of a classical name: 'Vitellius's', 'Daphnis's'. In L's assignment, so brief by comparison, one does not expect to find the whole varied assortment of errors seen in the rest of the compositorial work. All the same, the virtual absence of wrong letters, and of vulgarisation, are more likely to be characteristic of L than accidental. Since his rate of error is nevertheless higher than M's, and much higher when both are at their best, one's impression (fanciful, it may be) is of a less experienced but more cautious workman, with a clean case. He sometimes intrudes letters (as in 'poision', or, with transposition, 'preseverse' for 'persevere'), a fault, except for one or two additions of final 's', not found outside his stints. Like M, he misreads Oldham's 'T', with 'little' for 'Title', and 'Call' for 'tale' (the second mistake corrected during the printing).[58] In Mac-quire (2) he
It would not be right to claim the foregoing bibliographical essay as a complete analysis. Nevertheless, it does go beyond a brief list of test words and their spellings, and has had the benefit of some kinds of evidence not always available: re-settings from known copy, and above all a sure knowledge of the author's orthography, established from extensive autograph MS., and not, as so often, dependent upon inference from the printed texts. With these advantages, it is perhaps disappointing that in the later volumes a fully confident identification of one or more compositors has not resulted. Such an identification was possible for Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, and there enables an editor to proceed in the certainty that the differences in orthography within the book do not indicate any change in the character of the copy. He can, indeed, strip from the text the peculiar italicisation introduced by Compositor L, which contrasts so oddly with Compositor M's, and violently distorts the author's practice, seen in the autograph fair copies of other poems. For he knows that that italicisation has no origin beyond the habit of the compositor. What, however, does the editor stand to gain from the analysis of Oldham's four subsequent volumes? Negatively, his gains are important. He is no longer in the dark, ignorant of how the copy was treated in the printing-house. It is unlikely that bibliographical evidence, of a kind that should govern editorial policy on the text or on units of text, is still lurking undiscovered. There are no bibliographical contrasts such as would suggest copy of more than one sort; in particular nothing to suggest that the posthumous Remains, 1684, was printed from a transcript and not from autograph. Autograph copy is, in any case, overwhelmingly probable for all the authorised first editions, but we can add that the bibliographical evidence favours it. Another positive outcome is the help given the editor when he faces the infrequent textual cruces. His judgments must have regard to the habits of the compositor or compositors; and since these, apart from some minor and ascertained variation, are remarkably constant from M's workmanship in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, to that of the Remains, 1684, it is all the easier to take account of them. Further, should he support a decision or conjecture about a crux by a parallel from elsewhere in these texts, he can be confident that the parallel is drawn if not from the work of the same compositor, at least from that of a man very similar in his habits. Workmen otherwise very similar might differ in fidelity to copy, as indeed might the same man at different times. But except in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681,
In examining the books concerned, and interpreting the features they present, I have lacked the extensive experience of comparable volumes which a specialist in bibliography could bring to bear. I hope, however, that my article may make some contribution to bibliographical studies, especially if it leads to further investigation of the material on which it is based. Two lines of enquiry might start from our familiarity with Oldham's actual spellings and the like. I have noted but not explored their survival, in part, after two settings of type. The rate of their disappearance with each reprint would be worth investigating, and coupled with it the progressive obliteration of the differences between what were originally Compositor L's and Compositor M's stints in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits. Again, in studying the autographs and the editions, I was visited by the doubt whether, if I had had only the editions and had had to deduce Oldham's orthography from them, I should not have arrived at conclusions contrary at times to the facts of the autographs. Where Oldham uses two spellings without a strong preference for either, should I have been safe from attributing one to him and one to the compositor? And should I not have assigned to him the spellings 'fewel', 'fewd', and 'Choire', quite exceptional in the editions? To frame hypotheses from the editions alone, and then to compare them with the facts of the autographs, might be a good control-experiment for attempts to identify authorial spellings when there is only the evidence of print to go on, and might suggest some caveats. A question raised by the divergences of compositorial practice we have observed in certain places, combined with its close similarity, otherwise, throughout the editions, is how far consistency is to be expected of one and the same workman, and how far inconsistencies are to be accepted before we postulate a different one. Meanwhile, students of bibliography will, I hope, find some things in the article to reinforce their own researches. I have in mind the observation of compositors under varying conditions, of pressure or absence of pressure, of setting from MS., or from print, or when many corrections have to be made in reprinting. Then there is the endeavour to apply evidence from shortage of W's, from anomalous headlines, and from overflows and turn-overs. The responsibility of a compositor for the exceptional italics in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, may make a point outside some first-class bibliographers' experience: for a distinguished specialist, while not doubting the fact, has told me his surprise that the contrasting italicisation does not signify difference in the copy.
Notes
No. II.8 in my Bibliography of John Oldham (1936; Kraus reprint, with addenda and corrigenda, 1969). I shall cite this as 'Oldham, Bibliography.'
See Paul G. Morrison, Index of Printers, Publishers and Booksellers in Donald Wing's Short-Title Catalog . . . 1641-1700 (1955), and H. R. Plomer, Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers, 1668-1725 (1922). Mary Crooke of Dublin, listed by Plomer, was obviously not printing for Hindmarsh.
Remains, 1684, is usually found as part of Works . . . Together with . . . Remains, 1684 (Oldham, Bibliography, No. II.12).
The other substantive editions of poems by Oldham are Upon the Marriage of the Prince of Orange with the Lady Mary, printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman, 1677; the piracy of Garnet's Ghost [1679]; The Clarret Drinker's Song, 1680; and the 'Ode for S. Cecilia's Day,' the libretto of A Second Musical Entertainment, 1685 (music by John Blow), printed by John Plaford for John Carr. See Oldham, Bibliography, Nos. II.1, 2, 4, 13.
The 1684 is the third part of The Works . . . Together with . . . Remains, 1684, and of those volumes with the same title, dated 1686, which are described in Oldham, Bibliography, as Nos. II.19, 20. No. II.21 is a different edition from these, also dated 1686; and the wrongly-dated 1683 Poems And Translations belongs to it as its third part. Some of the copies listed in Wing as first editions are actually of this reprint.
It is a pleasure to thank those who have facilitated this task: the Committee of the Central Research Fund, University of London; the staffs of the Bodleian and of the British Museum, Cambridge University, and Birkbeck College Libraries; and for access to their copies either in person or by microfilm, the Libraries of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Guildhall, London; the Huntington Library; the New-berry Library, Chicago; and the Libraries of Yale University and of the University of Texas at Austin. The copy in the W. A. Clark Memorial Library, Los Angeles, is too tightly bound for microfilm; my friend Professor Earl Miner kindly inspected it on my behalf. In the later stages of my investigation I have had welcome help from Mr. Brian Jenkins and Dr. Laurel Brake, successively Research Assistants in the English Department at Birkbeck. Dr. Brake was also of great help in examining a large number of publications printed by Mary Clark.
MS. Rawlinson Poet 123, pp. 61-64b; Some New Pieces, 1681, pp. 131-134. I shall refer to the MS. (Oldham, Bibliography, I.1) as MS.R.
In Poems, and Translations, 1683, I5 was cancelled in order to reduce to two lines what was evidently a four-line allusion to Hindmarsh. See Oldham, Bibliography, p. 23.
Ll. 7, 39, 113, 128, 137, 201, 251, 254, 260, 276 of the 'Satyr,' and l. 72 of the 'Apology'. I give the line-numbers of the poems for reference to my forthcoming edition.
MS.A is No. I.11 in Oldham, Bibliography: 'A Satyr Against Vertue' is on ff. 116v-112r (MS. inverted). For MS.m (I.16 in the Bibliography), see H. M. Margoliouth (ed.), The Poems & Letters Of Andrew Marvell, I, 318.
MS.A, copied apparently before the 'Apology' was appended to the 'Satyr', and (apart from the autograph) the only text I know which identifies the spokesman as a 'Court Hector' (vz. Rochester), does not have the readings of the Errata (which agree with the autograph) for p. 104, l. 6; p. 112, ll. 5 and 8; and p. 113, l. 2 (ll. 113, 248, 251, 260 of the 'Satyr'). MS.m diverges from the Errata (and autograph) at ll. 7, 39, 44, 64, 113, 238, 248, 251, 276, 281 of the 'Satyr' and l. 72 of the 'Apology' (cp. errata for p. 97, l. 7; p. 99, l. 14; p. 100, l. 2; p. 101, l. 7; p. 104, l. 6; p. 111, l. 9; p. 112, ll. 5 and 8; p. 113, l. 17; p. 114, l. 5; and p. 119, l. 1).
The fourth, for p. 118, l. 17 ('Apology,' l. 70) corrects 'it' to 'them': the autograph has 'em'.
An attempt in the 1670's to naturalise 'tuant' from French soon withered. All but one of the OED's examples belong to 1672-3. Oldham used the word in writings of 1676, 1681, and 1682.
When ll. 16 and 199, omitted in 1679 and 1681,
but already in the autograph, are restored to 'A Satyr Against Vertue',
Oldham is correcting; when 'Satyrs Upon The Jesuits', II. 257, is changed
from And scatter wide destruction all
around
to And spread avoidless ruine all
around
he is removing a tautology, and revising the phrase away from its source
in Otway.
Heavy italicisation, more or less of this kind, is not peculiar to one compositor. Even in volumes from Mary Clark's shop, the workman is sometimes merely reproducing the italicisation, hardly if at all distinguishable from L's, of an earlier edition set up elsewhere, cp. Henry Dodwell, Two Letters of Advice, second edition, 1680, printed 'by M. C. for Benjamin Tooke', with the first edition, Dublin, 1672, printed by Tooke for Joseph Wilde; and The Poems of Horace, ed. Alexander Brome, third edition, 1680, printed for Henry Brome by M. C., with the first edition, 1666, printed for him by E. Cotes. Compared with L in Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, however, Cote's compositor does seem more consistently predictable in his choice of words for italicisation.
Pp. 63, 52, 53; Satyr III, ll. 493, 272, 289. There are thirty-nine italicised words on p. 54; thirty-one on p. 55.
They are on F1v, F2v, F3r, F3v. Evidently he began at the beginning of the first whole sheet allotted to him, and set seriatim.
Because he was completing the page for L, whose stint the copy (for this last page of 'Satyrs Upon The Jesuits' to be set) filled without trouble.
On p. 16 and probably p. 12, the length of the lines next above and next below would have prevented a turn-over; the same cause, complicated by a triplet-bracket, operated on p. 21. On p. 33 a turn-over for l. 1 was impossible because l. 2 also exceeded the measure: and an overflow was used for l. 2, to match l. 1.
I assume that the copy was cast off, and the text, excluding preliminaries, estimated to fill nine sheets, B-K8. The simplest division would then be to allot the copy for the first four sheets to one compositor, and for the remaining five to the other, the original intention being, I take it, that Compositor L should set B, C, D, and E. In the event, Compositor M turned back to help him with D and E.
Similar evidence from shortage of W's is employed by Robert K. Turner, Jr., 'The Printing of Philaster Q1 and Q2,' The Library, 5th series, 15 (1960). Warned by D. F. McKenzie, 'Printers of the Mind,' Studies in Bibliography, 22 (1969), 15 f., 18 f., 28-40, I am aware that it presumes a compositor working continuously on the pages in question. But since L and M appear to be completing a rush job, the assumption here should be a safe one.
Professor David Foxon kindly allowed me to consult him about the possible implications of this bibliographical fact. He is not, of course, responsible for my hypothesis.
'Satyr Upon A Woman' (Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, second issue); 'Paraphrase upon the 137. Psalm', 'Paraphrase upon the Hymn of St. Ambrose' (Some New Pieces, 1681), and 'Upon a Printer' (id., second issue); the ode on Jonson, and the 'Dithyrambique' (Poems, And Translations, 1683). Cp. MS.R., pp. 54-60, 21-26, 45-53a, 61-64b, 32-44, 205-211, 213.
For assistance in checking and tabulating authorial and compositorial spellings I am indebted to Dr. Leba Goldstein.
Oldham once has 'homag', but it is in a crowded marginal note: in the text opposite, the spelling is 'homage'.
Eg. 'chast', 'sence', 'soveraign', 'aw', 'brest', 'spite', 'Tho'', 'marr', 'interr', 'summ', 'shamm', 'bin'.
These double-consonant spellings in 1681 are probably all derived from the autograph copy-text. Oldham has 'pitty', 'disswades', 'attone', 'awfull', 'painfull', 'allmost', 'Chapple', 'byass', 'deterr', for example. But his practice is very varied: e.g. 'uncontroul'd', 'dazling', 'foretel'.
The printer's autograph copy, unlike the extant autograph, may have had 'Favourites'; the word occurs six times in MS.R, three with the 'our' and three with the 'or' spelling.
Oldham is not absolutely incapable of the spelling 'virtue', but in MS.R he uses it only in two marginalia, where he has picked it up from his source for the first. This, on p. 249, is a quotation from Dryden's All For Love, 1678. The spelling is repeated on p. 250 in a phrase adapted from Otway's Don Carlos. 'Virtue' there is Oldham's word, not Otway's, but the spelling is obviously influenced by the one from Dryden just before.
My figures for 'sense' (absent from MS.R) are: Compositor M, 10; Compositor SJ82, 12; Some New Pieces, 15; Poems, And Translations, 16; Remains, 6; and for 'sence', MS.R, 41; M, 3; SJ82, 4; Some New Pieces, 19; Poems, And Translations, 3; Remains, 7.
My search for variant formes in Poems, And Translations, 1683, is still not quite completed. But K Inner is uncorrected in a copy in my possession, while in the Folger, Harvard, and W. A. Clark (Los Angeles) copies, it is corrected, with 'Guillim' for 'Guilliam' on K3v, and 'T has' for 'Tas' on K8r.
The hypermetrical and awkward line:
But who has kill'd been often clapt, and oft has rhim'd
(in Poems, And Translations, 1683, p. 167), no doubt results
from 'often' having been placed in the margin as a revision of 'oft has', and
then mistakenly inserted before 'clapt'.
In 'The Passion of Byblis' l. 100 (Satyrs Upon The Jesuits, 1681, p. 124) where
Oldham probably recollected Virgil's simile (Aeneid XII 908 ff.):
velle videmur et in mediis conatibus aegri succidemus
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