University of Virginia Library

The Printing of A Faire Quarrell, Q2
by
Gerald D. Johnson

An analysis of the printing of the second quarto of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's A Faire Quarrell, printed in 1622 by A[ugustine]. M[atthewes]. for Thomas Dewe,[1] throws light upon some of the practices used in the production of reprints by a job printer who was engaged in the concurrent printing of several editions. A Faire Quarrell, Q2, was intended to be a page-for-page reprint of the 1617 second issue of Q1. However, a wholesome blunder in the first sheets of the reprint considerably complicated the theoretically straightforward and simple composition.[2] In five of the eleven extant copies of this edition, the four pages of text on B3-B4v are duplicated on C1-C2v.[3] The error evidently arose through an oversight on the part of the foreman who assigned compositorial stints or the compositor of Sheet C himself. In the Q1 copy the text begins on B1 with the title-page and dedicatory epistle taking up the first two leaves. Q2, on the other hand, prints the title-page and the epistle as the first two leaves of Sheet A and begins its text on A3. Thus, after A2, the signatures of the

reprint are not in alignment with those of its copy. At C1, however, this difference in paging was overlooked and C1 of Q2 was set as C1 of Q1, aligning the signatures and creating a two-leaf duplication.

A spelling analysis of Q2, comparing its spelling with Q1, suggests how the compositorial stints were allocated and how the error probably arose. Three compositors worked in the first three sheets, with Compositor A setting A and the outer forme of Sheet B, Compositor B setting the inner forme of Sheet B, and Compositor C all of Sheet C. Compositor A may be identified by his indifference to the copy spelling of heere-here, his preference of final ie on nouns and adjectives and medial y in nouns and adjectives, his favoring of final e on nouns and verbs, and his addition of the apostrophe in elided past participles. In contrast, Compositor B strongly prefers here (he changed the spelling eight times in his four pages), tolerates final y, is indifferent to medial y-i, and strongly favors leaving off final e and omitting the apostrophe. Compositor C's spelling, on the other hand, is characterized by its close following of the copy spelling, no matter how mixed it may be. In fact, in Sheet C, he departed from the copy only forty-five times in all points of spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. Both Compositors A and B, however, alter the accidentals of the copy quite freely, A varying 148 times in his ten pages and B ninety-eight times in his four. On the other hand, both A and B were more accurate in reproducing the substantive reading of their copy than was C. C introduced eleven substantive variants in his setting of Sheet C, not including typographical blunders. Compositor C's errors include misreadings ('longing' for 'lodging' on C3v, 'thy' for 'my' on C2v), oversights (such as the omission of a full line on C1v), and possible "corrections" of the copy (such as in the unusual reading on C1, 'Shall I enter in sir?' which C renders as 'Shall I enter sir?'). Extending the spelling analysis through the remaining sheets of the reprint suggests that Compositor C also set Sheet D. However, in Sheet E yet another hand may be seen, different from any of the first three. Compositor D follows the copy spelling of heere-here, strongly prefers final ie, prefers medial i, but is indifferent to final e and the apostrophe. His spelling may be seen in Sheets E, F, H, and K. Sheets G and I, however, appear to have been set by still another hand. This compositor, Compositor E, follows the copy spelling of heere-here and medial y-i, favors final ie (but not nearly as strongly as does D) and final e, and is indifferent to the apostrophe.

The use of five compositors in a reprint is probably not surprising when we recall that in the setting of a reprint, as McKerrow points out, "as many compositors as the printer could supply with type could be set to work at the same time."[4] But the use of this number of compositors in the production of this quarto is surprising in light of the fact that only one skeleton with one set of running-titles was used throughout its imposition.

One-skeleton imposition is suggested by the pattern of the running-titles as follows:

• A3v - B4v - B3v - C3r - C4r - D3r - D4r - E1r - E2r - F1r - F2r - G1r - G2r - H2v - H1v - I2v - I1v - K2v - K1v
• A4r - B1r - B2r - C2v - C1v - D2v - D1v - E4v - E3v - F4v - F3v - G4v - G3v - H1r - H2r - I1r - I2r - K3r - K4r
• A4v - B3r - B4r - C4v - C3v - D4v - D3v - E2v - E1v - F2v - F1v - G2v - G1v - H4v - H3v - I4v - I3v - K4v - K3v
• [HT] - B2v - B1v - C1r - C2r - D1r - D2r - E3r - E4r - F3r - F4r - G3r - G4r - H3r - H4r - I3r - I4r - K1r - K2r

Normally the employment of five compositors would imply expedition in the setting; however, that speed of setting was not of paramount importance in this quarto is suggested not only by the use of one-skeleton but also by the apparent use of only one type-case throughout.[5] Even in Sheet B, set by two compositors, the setting was not simultaneous, for in this sheet three very distinctive types appear in both the outer and the inner formes.[6] Type from outer B (assuming that it was first through the press) was distributed in time for some of its characters to recur in the last two pages of inner B. Now, according to Mr. Bowers, one-skeleton printing, requiring the services of "only three men (the compositor, the pressman, and his assistant)" was "a desideratum for a small shop or for a shop engaged in various pieces of work on more than one press. It would seem that this matter of available labour (and occasionally available presses) may have dictated the custom of one skeleton. . . ."[7] When the amount of work issued by Matthewes in 1622 is considered, it would seem that these matters were of considerable concern to him. He evidently had two presses prior to 1623, for on 5 July 1623 he was allowed only one and was ordered by the Court of the Stationer's Company to "take downe one of his presses and bring it into the hall. . . ."[8] Moreover, the amount of work issued by him in 1622 was enough to keep a fairly large shop with several workmen fully engaged. The Short-Title Catalogue identifies no fewer than eighteen editions as having been issued by him in that year. Among these are ten octavos, five quartos, and two substantially large folios (STC 7229, The Second Part of Polyalbion, and STC 17332, Five Decades of Epistles of Warre). Some of this work, of course, may have been started a year (or even two) previous to 1622, but several of the items must have been produced concurrently with A Faire Quarrell, Q2. The point is that Matthewes' workmen and his presses were busily engaged during this time.[9] Thus it seems likely that the printing of A Faire Quarrell went forward concurrently with some of this other work and that one-skeleton imposition was made necessary by the engagement of the presses and the burden of the workload. The occurrence of the duplication error suggests a lapse of attention on somebody's part, doubtless due in large part to the shifting of compositors, but also perhaps in some degree due to an interval in the printing.[10]

Another anomaly in the printing of this quarto, growing out of the duplication blunder, demonstrates that not a great deal of attention was lavished on its production. As mentioned above, Q2 is a reprint of the second issue of Q1. This second issue has a cancellans title-page and a new scene, consisting of three leaves, inserted after H3. The first two of the three added leaves are signed "H4" (with a note in black letter "Place this at the latter end of the fourth Act." beneath the signature) and "H3" respectively (the third leaf is unsigned). Thus the signatures in Sheet H are muddled, there being two H3's and two H4's, and of course an additional six pages of type must be added when the number of sheets required in the reprint is calculated. Even so, a reprint collating A-K4 and providing forty leaves (Q1 has thirty-nine including the added six) should have been sufficient. The duplicating of two leaves in the reprint, however, complicated the situation, for now an additional page would be necessary if the reprint were to continue following the pagination of its copy. This fact was noted in Sheet H, apparently when the foreman or the compositor saw that H in Q1 consisted of seven leaves. Thus adjustments had to be made. One adjustment consisted of a lengthening of the composing stick measure from 87mm to 92mm, making it possible to reduce the number of lines required for prose passages and to squeeze short lines of verse dialogue together. In addition, the reprint, after Sheet H, has thirty-eight lines per page (thirty-nine on H4v), while the copy varies from thirty-five to thirty-eight (the majority being thirty-eight). With these adjustments and aided by the fact that K2 in the copy has only twenty-four lines and that K2v is blank, the compositors of the later sheets in the reprint were able to gain about twenty-eight lines on the copy and to squeeze twenty-five pages into twenty-four, ending with a full page on K4v.

The adjustments noted above had another probable effect on the setting of the reprint. The setting of a normal page-for-page reprint could easily take place by formes, since the casting-off of copy would present no

problem. And in the first sheets of A Faire Quarrell setting by formes was apparently the process used. The division of the copy noted in Sheet B is indicative of forme setting, and an analysis of type substitution ('VV' for 'W,' 'C' for 'C') offers corroborative evidence in Sheets A, C, E, and H. However, type substitution suggests seriatim setting in Sheet K (two substitutions for "W" on K1, one on K1v). Since it is demonstrable that the casting-off process was complicated in the later sheets by the adjustment of the composing stick and by the number of lines per page, it is likely that the last few sheets were set seriatim.

The analysis of the printing of this quarto suggests that the conditions prevailing in the shop of a job printer such as Matthewes were often unsettled and hectic. It is likely that the profit motive of such a printer led him to take in as much work as he possibly could get, which was at times more than he could reasonably and accurately deal with. Engaged in this commercial rush, workmen, with several jobs under way concurrently, were liable to commit blunders, such as the duplication error, that, though obvious, went unnoticed. Nor is it a matter of much surprise that such as mistake should occur in a reprint. It is likely that reprints were regarded as "simple" work and that many of the workmen involved in their production were neophytes or apprentices. For example, the habits of Compositor C noted above, his slavish following of copy spelling and his inability to set accurately even from printed copy, suggest that he may have been an apprentice.[11] In the 1620's the Court of the Stationers' Company several times ordered Matthewes to "put away" apprentices over the number allotted to him.[12] Considering the amount of work issued by Matthewes in 1622, it is certain that he had need of all the hands he could muster, experienced or not.

Notes