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Notes
The investigation of the material in this article was made under grants from the Research Council of the Richmond Area University Center and the Research Committee of the University of Virginia for the writing of a descriptive bibliography of the Restoration Drama.
In these same lines further bibliographical evidence, which did not concern his argument, may be adduced from the measure. Much of the discussion as to the nature of the copy behind this passage in the quarto, found in G. I. Duthie, Shakespeare's King Lear: A Critical Edition (1949), pp. 96-99 quoting Hubler and Greg, is vitiated by the fact that the compositor could not have begun to set the opening lines as prose and decided to line it as verse only in the fourth line: since the first three lines are clearly justified in the short, or verse measure, never used in this play for prose, the natural inference is that he began to set them as verse and the mislineation must be accounted for by other means.
For example, in Bellon's Mock-Duellist, mentioned above, the preliminaries were set by the second workman, who was conjectured to have substituted for the first towards the end of the book but without interrupting printing.
Watermark evidence may be useful in two-section printing. In Oroonoko a different watermark appears in sheets A-D from that in E-M. This watermark division might also develop if there had been an interruption between D and E, but when, as here, no indication of such a work stoppage is found, the evidence rather supports the hypothesis that two presses simultaneously printing different parts of the book had different lots of paper laid out for them.
This interesting book is analyzed in detail in my "The Supposed Cancel in Southerne's The Disappointment Reconsidered," forthcoming in The Library.
This alteration in the type-page opening would require adjustment of the furniture in three of the quarters in both the formes. Just possibly another compositor cut in here.
However, these odds occasionally come up. For example, the reset cancellans title for the Bentley-Chapman reissue of the Knight-Saunders 1687 edition of Davenant's adaptation of Macbeth is set in the same measure as the original title although it could not have been printed as a part of the original sheets. This is most uncharacteristic for a separately machined reset cancellans leaf.
"Principles Governing the Use of Variant Spellings as Evidence of Alternate Setting by Two Compositors," The Library, 4th ser., XXI (1940), 78-94.
"The Compositor of the 'Pied Bull' Lear," Papers of the Bibliographical Society, University of Virginia, I (1948-49), 61-68.
As indicated above, these tolerances were sufficient to go undetected, and type-pages set in such slightly varying measures could readily be imposed in the same skeleton-formes, the wedges taking up the slack and making no adjustment of the furniture necessary.
Dr. Williams divides sheet A irregularly, assigning A1v-2 and A3v-4v to compositor A, and the remaining A1 and A2v-3 to compositor B. This might look suspiciously like castingoff copy and setting by formes (if A4v could be transferred to B, but the 90-91 mm. measure found in all eight type-pages would indicate that compositor A set this sheet entire; and on close examination Dr. Williams's spelling criteria are seen to be somewhat indefinite for the pages assigned to B. Real trouble occurs in sheet B, however, which Dr. Williams divides between the two compositors in the regular manner found in subsequent sheets. Yet with the exception of sig. B3 where the measure is perhaps doubtful and could be that of compositor A, the measure of B3-4v is certainly 88-89 mm. and therefore associated with compositor B, who had definitely set B1-2v in this same measure, the spelling tests agreeing for these earlier pages. I do not pretend to be able to explain this aberration, since in the disputed pages the spelling very strongly suggests compositor A. I hesitate to conjecture that in this one instance (as possibly in the preceding sheet if the spelling tests there are really precise) the stick passed from hand to hand, but perhaps it did.
"New Uses of Watermarks as Bibliographical Evidence," Papers of the Bibliographical Society, University of Virginia, I (1948-49), 151-182. Printing by two presses must necessarily require the services of two compositors.
The determination of the precise spelling criteria which may be used as distinguishing features of the work of two compositors and then the application of these tests to any given book is an extremely onerous task which may on occasion be lightened by at least a tentative assignment of pages between compositors on the evidence of their measures.
Since a study of the characteristics of the compositors of a book is necessary before a textual critic can emend with any certainty, the working bibliographer owes it to the critic to analyze a book with the maximum precision in preparing it for criticism. Every available technique should be exploited, therefore, and among these it is possible that in certain cases the extension of the ways in which this evidence of the printer's measure may be employed and the results interpreted will prove of considerable value.
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