University of Virginia Library

Bibliographica

The Publication Of Steele's Conscious Lovers
by
Rodney M. Baine

The accessible accounts concerning the publication of Sir Richard Steele's Conscious Lovers are confused and conflicting. These accounts should be clarified, not only because the date of publication is generally incorrectly given but especially because in his interesting current biography Willard Connely unintentionally reflected upon Steele's honesty by showing Sir Richard selling to Lintot rights which he had already sold to the Tonsons:

Although Steele desperately needed cash, he did not sell the same copyright to both the Tonsons and Lintot. Instead, Lintot paid these sums

to the Tonsons, not to Steele.[2] In publishing The Conscious Lovers, Steele dealt only with the Tonsons. In the original agreement he assigned the play to Jacob Tonson, Jr., in return for £40 "in hand" and "divers other good Causes and Consideracions":

That these "divers other good Causes and Consideracions" were not a previous money payment seems probable, for in a Chancery pleading of December, 1722, Tonson deposed that for the copyright of The Conscious Lovers he had paid Steele £40 "and other valuable considerations."[4] Had Tonson made previous cash payments it would have been to his advantage to cite them. But by the spring of 1722 Steele must have reached some tentative understanding with Tonson, for on 1 March 1722 Lintot had agreed with Tonson for "the Half of Sir R. Steele's Comedy that was to be published," and paid him £25.[5]

A few days after he purchased the copyright from Steele, Tonson on 26 October 1722 made an "assignment" to Lintot of "the Half of the Conscious

Lovers, for £70."[6] These two transactions between Lintot and Tonson are somewhat puzzling, especially since according to Aitken, "In February, 1718, Lintot entered into an agreement with Tonson to be equally concerned in all the plays they should buy after eighteen months following the date of agreement." This £70, or £95,[7] seems rather a high price for a partner to pay for his half of a copyright purchased from the author for £40 and undefined considerations. Moreover, it seems unlikely that the £70 was payment for half the copies of the printed play. Lintot's notation "An Assignment for the Half of the Conscious Lovers" is not the usual notation for half a printing; and surely Tonson did not rush the play through the press in six days, then withhold publication for more than a month. Although Steele probably exacted a promise that publication should be delayed until after the first run of the play, the opening performance was scheduled for Novemver 7. An additional indication that the play could hardly have been printed by October 26 is the fact that in his Preface and his Dedication to the King, Steele announced with pride that his play had been "supported and encouraged" and "received with universal Acceptance, for it was in every Part excellently performed."

But the actual agreement between Lintot and Tonson, as ambiguously recorded by Lintot, was "to be equally concerned in all the Plays they should buy, Eighteen Months following the above Date [16 February, 1718]." Evidently their blanket agreement had lapsed by 1722, and the original £25 paid Tonson as an "Agreement for the Half of Sir R. Steele's Comedy" was a preliminary and partial payment. On October 26, as Lintot's memorandum book shows, Tonson and Lintot reached a final agreement about The Conscious Lovers.[8]

On the last day of the phenomenal run of eighteen successive performances, ending 27 November 1722, The Conscious Lovers was finally announced for publication on December 1, and it duly appeared on that day,[9] although with a title-page post-dated 1723.

The Epilogue actually spoken at the performance was prefixed to the second edition of Benjamin Victor's An Epistle to Sir Richard Steele, on his Play called The Conscious Lovers, published 4 December 1722, and was printed four days later in The British Journal.[10] It has probably never been printed with the play.

Of their edition of "many thousand," "a good part" had been sold when the publishers were threatened with a piratical edition. This edition, advertised for 8 December 1722, was, according to Tonson, to be sold by Francis Clifton, Robert Tooke, John Lightbody, and Susanna Collins. Their ventures were indeed not above suspicion. Clifton was a Catholic, and the other three were classed by Negus among the High Fliers, or Jacobites. All except "Lightbody" (or Lightboy), and possibly even he, printed in the Old Bailey. Clifton was continually in trouble for printing attacks against the government.[11] However Susanna Collins was, according to her quondam employee Thomas Gent, a good hearted "ancient gentlewoman."[12] Immediately instituting proceedings in Chancery Court, Tonson deposed that he

had obtained the copyright from Steele by deed-poll on October 20 and had duly entered his copy in the Stationers' Register. Yet Clifton and Susanna Collins had "procured or bought one of the printed copies of the Comedy, and had caused several copies to be printed without consent." Under the Copyright Act of 8 Queen Anne he prayed for an injunction. This he obtained on 11 December 1722, after Tooke alone answered proceedings and denied complicity.[13]

But piratical editions from other sources Tonson could not prevent. In December there appeared at Dublin an octavo edition.[14] Another edition dated 1723 was published by "T. Johnson: London,"[15] and a duodecimo edition for the same year is listed by Nicoll.[16] Despite these piracies printed outside the publishers' reach, however, Tonson and Lintot did not lose by their venture. One of the most popular plays of its day, The Conscious Lovers by 1791 reached its fifteenth edition.

Notes

A Long Use of a Setting of Type
by
Edwin Eliott Willoughby

News of the Savoy Conference and of the planning of a new revision of the Bible brought a money-making idea into the business-like mind of John Speed. He acted upon it with little delay and was soon hard at work, probably with the help of the great Hebrew scholar, Hugh Broughton, preparing a table, The Genealogies Recorded in the Holy Scriptures . . . with the Line of Our Savious, Jesus Christ, which he believed would prove a valuable supplement to the new versions of the Bible. King James was no doubt pleased by the emphasis which Speed placed upon the royal descent of the Saviour and on October 31, 1610, granted him the right to print and to insert into every edition of the Authorized Version of the Bible his Genealogies and a Map of

Canaan.[1] On February 4, 1617, this special license was renewed to Speed for seven years.[2] Speed died on July 28, 1629. In 1638, his privilege (which had been renewed) and his blocks were bought by the Stationers' Company.[3]

Speed prepared editions of his Genealogies and Map for every format in which the Bible was printed. In physical form each edition of the Genealogies consisted of a series of engraved wood-blocks and several pages of letter-press. To print them Speed employed John Beale (who at first had as a partner, William Hall) and, later, John Dawson. The printer no doubt ran off large numbers of copies in the required formats which stationers purchased to complete the sheets of the Bibles which they procured from Barker or his assigns, Norton and Bill. It is probable at other times that Barker or his assigns bought copies of the Genealogies from Speed or his heirs and completed Bibles before selling them to stationers.

How many Genealogies were printed is still impossible to estimate. S.T.C. has lumped all editions and issues of Speed's Genealogies under one number—23039.

We are concerned here with but one of the octavo editions. It is made up of two sheets and two quarter-sheets and signed A-B8, C-D2. With the exception of four pages, it is composed of engraved blocks which bear on sigs. C1v and C2r the engraver's mark of a member of the van Sichem family— probably Christoffel van Sichem, the younger. Four pages are in letter-press: The first page (the title-page), the second page ("To the Christian Reader"), and—on the back of the Map—two pages of topographical matter entitled "Description of Canaan", sig. C1r and C2v.

The printer saved the cost of the composition by keeping these four pages of type tied up (stored, no doubt, with the blocks) and using the same setting of type to print the letter-press of successive issues of the Genealogies. He made necessary changes in the date on the title-page—usually a change of but one numeral. Accidents also introduced a few small differences between issues as the printing proceeded.

This I conclude from reports which Mr. Herman R. Mead, of the Huntington Library (HN), Dr. William H. Bond of the Harvard Library (HD), Miss E. L. Paford of the Pierpont Morgan Library (PML), and Mr. Lewis M. Stark of the New York Public Library (NY)—to all of whom I here record my hearty thanks—have sent me, along with information which I was able to obtain from Folger Shakespeare Library (FOLG) copies.

My correspondents made their reports by comparing copies in their libraries with photostats from a Folger copy and noting agreements and differences.

That the same setting of type was used to print the letter-press of issues of an octavo of Speed's Genealogies from at least as early as 1631 and until at least as late as 1640, may be seen by the following table. The first item of it is the date on the title page of each reported issue of the Genealogies. This is followed by symbols of the libraries reporting the issue and the S.T.C. number of the Bible or other book with which it is bound.

• N.d. HN 2296†
• 1631 HN 2296††
• 1633 NY 2311; NY 2314; PML 2314
• 1634 HD 2324; HD 2314
• 1635 HD 2318
• 1636 FOLG 16408; HD Bible, 1642
• 1637 NY 2328
• 1638 PML 2329; HD 2329; NY 2324; NY 2337; FOLG 25140; HN 2337
• 1640 NY 2342

More issues of this edition of Speed's Genealogies, printed from this setting of type could probably be found. The printers of the Genealogies, also, almost certainly used this method of printing the letter-press portion of other formats of the work. But at this time I am content merely to call attention to a long use of setting of type.

Notes

A Note On King Lear, III.ii.1-3
by
George W. Williams

The publication of G. I. Duthie's new edition of King Lear, an attempt to produce a critical old-spelling text as near as possible to that which Shakespeare wrote,[1] has raised a problem in the punctuation of the opening lines of the second scene of Act 111. Although in various places he has admitted emendations from modern editors, in these particular lines Mr. Duthie has preferred the First Folio punctuation, and hence the particular meaning derived, to the punctuation as emended by editors from Pope to the present. Since the question of Shakespeare's intention in these lines has thus been reopened, it may be advisable to examine the evidence for the original

and the emended punctuation, and the two resultant interpretations of the meaning of these lines, to discover which should be nearer to Shakespeare's probable original.[2]

The text of the opening lines appears in the first or 'Pied Bull' Quarto thus:

In the First Folio there are certain alterations and the mislineation is corrected, but the first line remains run-on: The meaning seems to be, accordingly: 'blow you cataracts' and at the same time 'spout you hurricanes.' (The reading drown for the Quarto drown'd is customarily taken as a compositor's misprint.)

Rowe (1709) was content to preserve this reading, but Pope's emendation (1723) of the punctuation for the first time end-stopped the line:

Thus Pope would have the lines mean: 'blow, crack, rage, blow you winds' and 'spout you cataracts and hurricanes.' Theobald (1733) deleted the rhetorical comma after 'cataracts' and substituted one after 'hurricanoes'; and with a few minor differences in capitalization and in interchange of exclamation points with the semicolon and comma after 'cheeks' and 'rage,' all subsequent editors have followed this emendation by maintaining a full stop at the close of the first line.[3] Such a problem is, of course, an uncomfortable one for an old-spelling editor, who must generally follow the reading of his copytext if it seems to make sufficiently good sense; yet in this case it is probable that Mr. Duthie has been over-conservative and has reprinted a corruption from the First Folio, which he chose as his copytext.

The question to be resolved is whether Pope's emendation is preferable to the 'authority' of the Quarto and First Folio, or whether Shakespeare wanted the sense of the concluding words of the first line to be carried over into the beginning of the second.

Whatever the punctuation, it would seem that Shakespeare in this passage had in mind the distinction from Genesis 7:11 between the floodgates of heaven (or cataracts) and the fountains of the deep (or hurricanoes), both of which were set in motion at the time of the Deluge.[4] The crux is, whether he would then have taken the verb 'blow' and 'rage' with 'cataracts,' and 'spout' with 'hurricanoes': according to the Quarto and Folio, the cataracts of heaven would rage and blow while the waterspouts from the deeps inundated the land. The emended punctuation, on the contrary, causes the verb 'spout' to have the two subjects 'cataracts' and 'hurricanoes.' Editors with this latter situation in mind have regarded the two subjects as synonyms, both meaning waterspouts,[5] although this duplicate meaning is by no means necessary or even probable.[6]

The disadvantages of the Folio reading, followed by Duthie, are three. (1) 'Blow' is not the verb which could be assigned with the greatest of propriety to a cascade of water. 'Rage,' of course, is quite applicable, but the immediate verb must be that one standing nearer its subject. 'Blow,' however,

is readily applicable to the winds of the first line and is used once for these winds. (2) By reading 'blow' with the second line, the combination of the three imperatives in the first line secured by the important suspension of the two last verbs 'rage, blow' is wholly lost. (3) If the line is allowed to run on, the epanalepsis, that is the repetition of the same word at the beginning and end of a line of verse,[7] is so very considerably weakened that it is scarcely felt as a figure.

The traditional emendation providing the sequence 'spout you cataracts and hurricanoes' may now be examined. If cataracts and hurricanoes are both synonyms for waterspouts, the line may appear redundant. Yet the fact that the words may appear redundant to later critics is no indication that Shakespeare need have been averse to using both words. Both would appeal to the poet experimenting with the new language; stuffing or bombast perhaps they would be, but not without a splendidly effective sound and magnitude.

Nevertheless, it is most unlikely that he used them as redundancies: the passage in Genesis need not be a gloss restricted to the Folio's syntactical equation. Indeed, as Milton was later to demonstrate (see footnote 6 above), the imperative 'spout' can in Lear be most meaningfully directed to the floodgates of heaven, the cataracts, and to the fountains of the deep, the hurricanoes, so that Lear in a mighty image is calling for a second Deluge to wipe out the race of men by a joining of the waters of heaven and earth, both of which will share in the drowning of the land.

With this poetically more logical and significant meaning depending on emendation, we may return to the Folio text for an enquiry into the source of its probable corruption for these lines. In his extensive introduction Mr. Duthie argues most tellingly that the 'Pied Bull' Quarto was set from a manuscript which had been written by a scribe taking down the dictation of the actors of the King's Men reciting their parts to reconstruct a missing prompt book during a provincial tour. With a wealth of evidence he demonstrates that this hastily written manuscript was almost certainly taken down chiefly in prose and with only casual punctuation, and that at a later time, perhaps in preparation for making a fair copy, a reviser gave it a rough sort of final punctuation and lineation. Mr. Duthie is under no illusions about the quality of this punctuation, and he fitly describes it as sparse, erratic, and never dependable.[8] Since there can now be no question that the Folio text was set from a printed copy of the Quarto annotated by 'Scribe E' comparing

it with the true playhouse promptbook, the error in the Folio text originated in the Quarto, and therefore must be attacked in the Quarto.

If one follows Mr. Duthie's very plausible account of the origin of the manuscript behind the Quarto, there are two possible explanations for this error. If the scribe were roughly punctuating as he wrote, and if in this case he reproduced what he heard (very likely the actors would dictate by phrase groups or by clauses, pausing at a natural stop), we must assign the error to the actor and believe that in the process of carrying the lines in his memory over the course of months he forgot the unusual rhetorical suspension and slipped into the easier and more natural period offered by the run-on line with its neat pairing of subjects and verbs. As Mr. Duthie has shown in a number of examples, the actors were by no means perfect in their parts and on occasion forgot or confused their lines. If on the other hand we follow the hypothesis that the Quarto text was taken down in prose and almost completely without punctuation, followed by a later revision which rather ignorantly punctuated and lined the text, then regardless of the actor's delivery of the lines we probably have a clear case, as would be expected, of this reviser's failing to understand the delicate suspension and epanalepsis, and consequently reading the lines as seemed most natural to him.

These may seem sufficiently plausible alternatives to account for the mispunctuation of the Quarto, yet there is evidence not previously advanced which may lay the blame on the compositor.

The Quarto, to repeat, prints:

What is at once observable is the faulty comma in the second line after 'drencht', and it is a reasonable hypothesis that we have here a situation by no means unknown in Elizabethan play quartos whereby through a memorial or visual error the compositor misplaced the punctuation concluding one line by dropping it to the end of the line immediately below.[9] If this comma after the second line, which impossibly intervenes between a verb and its direct object, were moved to the line above, we should have the Quarto's conventional light punctuation to end-stop the first line after 'blow'. This is so clear an example of a reasonably common compositor's error that the case could be taken as demonstrated were it not for the lack of a necessary comma in the third line after 'ſteeples', which raises the question whether the comma after 'drencht' is not instead a faulty 'inversion' of this comma from the third line. However, the lack of such necessary punctuation is not at all unusual in the Quarto, as instance the omission of the necessary punctuation after III.i.21 in the same inner forme F with III.ii.3. Yet if there is any slight doubt that the comma after 'drencht' was moved up by compositor's error from 'ſteeples' instead of having been exchanged from 'blow' in the line above, another explanation may be advanced which is perhaps more strictly bibliographical.

It is well known that in setting verse a compositor was likely to use a shorter measure, or printer's stick, rather than the longer measure required for the full width of his type-page, and that he would shift to a stick with the full measure when he arrived at a series of long lines or approached a passage of prose.[10] This was an economical custom, for he could fill up the right-hand margin of his type-page more quickly by inserting quads in the page-galley than by setting them individually in his stick to fill out a succession of short lines. When we examine the 'Pied Bull' Quarto, we see that the compositor indeed used two measures according to the nature of his material, a short measure 80 mm. wide and a long measure 93 mm. wide. The lines in question occur on sig. F4 recto of the Quarto, where it can be observed that III.ii.1-3, 10, 21-22, as well as the concluding line of the previous scene III.i.55, are justified to the 80 mm. measure without the use of quads or spaces at the end, that line 18 has probably been concluded by direct setting in page-galley, and that the compositor did not switch to his 93 mm. measure until the prose beginning with line 25. If we then look more narrowly at III.ii.1 where we are questioning the lack of punctuation after 'blow', we see that the line is crowded in the 80 mm. measure. Thin spaces only are used between the words except for the thick space between speech-heading and first word which is invariably maintained by this compositor throughout the play. Moreover, in the first line no thin space is set after the comma following 'cheekes' or the comma following 'rage' although such spaces appear after commas in lines 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Therefore, the line could not be justified in the stick if a comma were to appear after 'blow' unless the compositor were to go to the trouble of picking out the final 'e' in 'cracke' or in 'cheekes' which he had already set, and it is plausible that he did not

take this trouble but instead automatically justified his line by omitting the final comma.[11] It would seem that the probabilities are as great (and indeed the two facts may perhaps be connected) that the comma after 'drencht' is the one properly belonging a line above after 'blow', but in either case there is good reason to suspect compositor's error.

To sum up, against the 'authority' of the Quarto punctuation we have a much superior Shakespearian reading to be derived by emendation. In turn, this emendation may be assisted by arguments concerning the circumstances of memorial composition of the manuscript behind the Quarto; but if these seem too speculative it is possible to bring forward the fact that within the crucial passage the punctuation is manifestly corrupt in two other places, and that certain lines of bibliographical speculation lead to the conclusion either that the original comma was displaced in error to the verse below or that because of difficulties in justifying the line the compositor did not set it although it was present in his manuscript.

There remains the problem of the retention of this corruption in the Folio text set from a marked printed copy of the Quarto corrected by comparison with the promptbook. One must admit that this corrector, Scribe E, devoted some attention to these lines since he relined correctly 2-3, altered 'wind' to 'windes' and 'the' to 'our' before 'steeples', and (unless we may credit the Folio compositor) removed the faulty comma after 'drencht' and possibly placed the semicolon with a following capitalization of 'rage' in the first line. Whoever was responsible,[12] this semicolon and its accompanying alteration of 'rage' to 'Rage' indicates as clearly as may be that in the Folio 'Rage' is intended to begin a new rhetorical period which must necessarily be completed by a run-on line. It was doubtless this consideration which led Mr. Duthie to retain the Folio reading, but in the light of all the evidence

adducing corruption in the origin of the reading in the Folio's copytext, it would seem that in this case, as in others which Mr. Duthie has illustrated, Scribe E was careless or chose to believe the superficially more natural rhetoric of the Quarto over the punctuation of the promptbook, if indeed that was perfect. Since no direct Shakespearian authority is present in the copytext for the Quarto, and since positive authority in the Folio is shown only by specific alteration and not by failure to alter, we may if we choose believe that this crux should properly be resolved on the purely literary ground of meaning and style, bibliographical evidence concurring, and that the most fitting conclusion we may reach is that Shakespeare did indeed write:

Notes

The Twelfth Day Of December: Twelfth Night, II.iii.91
by
I. B. Cauthen, Jr.

The old ballad which Sir Toby Belch begins in Twelfth Night (II.iii.91) is never finished: only the first line,

has been sung when Maria, seeing Malvolio approach, interrupts Sir Toby with "For the love of God, peace!" Had Malvolio not entered just then, we might have had a few more lines of the ballad and a better chance to identify the song that has long puzzled commentators on the play. Although most of the other songs in the play have been identified, the original of this ballad has escaped the many searchers for it. William Sidney Walker declared that "it is the first line of a narrative ballad"[1] but did not further identify it. Later editors of the play have not been successful in identifying the song: William Allen Neilson notes that "this song has not been identified."[2] William J. Rolfe explains it as "from some old ballad that has not come down to us."[3] The Cambridge editors, after stating that "the rest of the ballad has been lost," add that "it is conceivable that the words may give us a clue to the actual date of the first performance . . ."[4] G. H. Nettleton, in the Yale Shakespeare, and Arthur D. Innis, in the Arden Shakespeare, have no note on the line.

The suggestion has not previously been advanced that the line may refer to a well-known carol of the Christmas-Epiphany season, "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which has flourished in England since the Renaissance and is still sung today. It is conveniently found in print in the Sharp-Marson collection of Somerset folk-songs.[5] The carol begins,

and then there follows a listing of the gifts that were presented on the days between Christmas and Twelfth Night—twelve bells a-ringing, eleven bulls a-beating, ten asses racing, nine ladies dancing, eight boys a-singing, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five golden rings, four colley birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a part of the mistletoe bough, or, and the part of a June apple tree—a long and generous series of gifts. About the singing of this carol, Mr. Sharp has this to say:

Mr. Sharp has also pointed out that another way of singing it is to begin with "On the first day of Christmas, etc." and to continue to the twelfth day when the song concludes. This latter version is the most familiar today,

but it appears that the older version is the one with twenty-three verses.[7] Country singers seem to have delighted in this type of song and to have regarded such sequences as tests of memory and endurance.[8]

Several things can be cited, I believe, to substantiate the conjecture that Sir Toby's unfinished ballad is "The Twelve Days of Christmas." In the first place, Sir Toby has never been praised for his memory, originality, or accuracy; indeed, he is seldom free from the delightful malapropisms and mistakes which mark his speeches. The misunderstanding of "prodigal" as "prodigy" (I.iii.25), the misunderstanding of "lethargy" as "lechery" (I.v.123), and the misuse of "encounter" for "enter" (III.i.74) are characteristic mistakes. It seems not unlikely that he might substitute the word "December" (the month of the Christmas season) for "Christmas" in the first line of a ballad familiar to the English audience of the time.

In the second place, the song would not be inappropriate for a play that was named after, and perhaps first performed on, the Feast of the Epiphany. As Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch writes, "It seems a reasonable guess that Shakespeare had written [this play] for presentation on . . . Twelfth Night (Epiphany), 1602."[9] If the play were given at that time, a reference to Epiphany, in the good humored vein of Sir Toby's mistake, would link the occasion of the performance as well as add another deft touch to Sir Toby's character.

Then, too, "O the twelfe day of December" appears to be a ballad which contains the definite introduction of a particular day in the first line. Such a first line might belong to a topical broadside ballad, but there should be a definite point to singing it here. There seems to be no such reason to introduce a broadside, for the ballads preceding this one in the text are traditional ones. If a broadside ballad is to break the mood, it should have a definite point alluded to by the date; that point cannot be ascertained here, and hence a traditional ballad seems more acceptable. Among the traditional, "The

Twelve Days of Christmas" is the only recorded ballad which has such a definite day-naming at the very first.

Therefore we may believe that this unfinished ballad is not an old one that has been lost nor a precise reference which may be used in dating the first performance, but instead that it is a familiar one with a changed first line. This changed line would be in character for Sir Toby, and yet the ballad from which it was taken would be distinctly appropriate for a play called Twelfth Night. The audience, on to the joke when Sir Toby started singing the line (for the tune would give the joke away), would enjoy another example of the Tobian mistake.

Notes

The Dryden Troilus and Cressida Imprint: Another Theory
by
Paul S. Dunkin

Recently Mr. Fredson Bowers called attention to the fact that there are six different states of the imprint of Dryden's Troilus and Cressida (ist ed., 1679).[1] It is a tantalizing puzzle, and Mr. Bowers warned that his quite plausible reconstruction of the history of the printing must be only tentative because no solution can be proved beyond a doubt. It may be of some interest to look into the possibilities of a somewhat different theory as to what may have happened.

Each of the six imprints is introduced by the phrase "London, printed for", names Jacob Tonson and Abel Swall as publishers, gives their addresses in the same wording, and closes with the date, 1679. The two main forms of the imprint differ in that one names Tonson first and the other names Swall first. Mr. Bowers classifies the Tonson-first imprints as T1, T2a, and T2b; and the Swall-firsts as S1a, S1b, and S2. The distinguishing features of each are shown in the following table:

         

	T1	T2a	T2b	S1a	S1b	S2
Rule	A	B	A	A	B	A
London	A	A	A	B	B	B
Tonson	A	A	A	B	B	B
Swall	A	B	B	A	A	B

There are two different settings of type for each of the following elements in the imprint: the phrase "London, printed for" (London); Tonson's name and address (Tonson); and Swall's name and address (Swall). Swall A is followed by a period; Swall B, Tonson A, and Tonson B are each followed by a comma. Swall B has the same line ending in T2a and T2b, but it is better spaced in T2b. Also the rule above the imprint may consist of a 97 mm. piece (Rule B) which begins at the left margin but does not reach the right margin, or it may be extended to the right margin by an additional 12 mm. piece (producing Rule A).

Mr. Bowers' reconstruction of the history of the printing may be outlined as follows:

• (1) T1 is printed first. Swall A period is placed before the date correctly and by choice.
• (2) Required number of Tonson copies is printed.
• (3) S1a is formed from T1 by removing London A and Tonson A, setting London B, moving up Swall A to follow it, and then setting Tonson B to follow Swall A. Swall A period is overlooked and remains now by error because it is followed by Tonson B instead of by date.
• (4) S1a begins printing Swall copies.
• (5) S1b results when the short piece of rule drops out leaving only Rule B.
• (6) Need for more Tonson copies is discovered while S1b is printing. T2a is formed by using idle London A and Tonson A and setting Swall B.
• (7) S1b finishes printing the required number of Swall copies. S1b is replaced by T2a. Printing of the second batch of Tonson copies begins.
• (8) T2b results when the small piece of rule is again inserted producing Rule A, and Swall B is better spaced.
• (9) Need for additional Swall copies is discovered while T2ab is printing or when it is about to be removed.
• (10) T2b finishes printing the required number of copies in the second Tonson batch.
• (11) S2 is formed from T2b by replacing London A with London B, removing Tonson A, moving up Swall B to follow London B, and adding Tonson B at the end.
• (12) S2 prints required number of second batch of Swall copies.

There appear to be several difficulties with this hypothesis.

It is, for instance, not impossible that the Swall A period came by mistake from the comma box; the comma box lay in the case just above the period box and it would be easy enough to drop a period into the comma box

while distributing. Although a period before an imprint date is not uncommon, T1 is the only Troilus and Cressida imprint so punctuated. Possibly the Swall A period does not represent the compositor's intention in T1 any more than in S1a and S1b where it does, indeed, seem to be an error. If so, the period would have no value as an indication that Swall A was first used in T1 because the compositor who would not bother to remove the period from S1a and S1b where it was in error would scarcely bother to remove it from T1 where it would probably not offend.

Again, in step 3, it would seem that a simpler procedure and less time consuming would be merely to rearrange the type already in the forme for T1. Instead, the compositor pulls out London A and Tonson A and sets new London B and Tonson B to take the place which they might have occupied. This would be necessary if London A and Tonson A had pied, but they reappear unchanged later in T2a and T2b. Nor did he do it because he wanted to avoid shifting sections of the imprint; London A which was removed need not have been shifted at all, and Swall A which was left had to be shifted to a position following London B.

A similar objection seems to apply to step 11. Here again there is already in the imprint all the type needed, and only a rearrangement would be required. The compositor need not even do that. At step 7 he had replaced S1b entirely with T2a; in the same way he could now replace T2b with S1b. Instead, he removes only part of T2b, and shifts what is left so that he can insert part of S1b. It is, of course, unlikely that the printer of Moxon's day was completely efficient in everything he did; at the same time it is not impossible that he was as eager as any other man to get out of as much work as he could and that whenever he came across something which saved time he might tend to repeat it.

Mr. Bowers, it may be noted, was aware of these objections but he felt that even so his hypothesis provided the most reasonable solution of the problem. He was convinced that the Swall A period was used deliberately and correctly in T1. He rejected the idea of a complete new imprint in step 3 because this would mean to follow T1 with S2, and he thought it impossible to work out a convincing order for the remaining imprints if this were done. He suggested that the compositor may have intended to use a new imprint at this point, but delayed setting it until it was too late and then made the alteration in what may somehow have seemed to him the simplest manner even though it does not seem so today. Finally, he recognized that in step 11 the printer failed to use the lesson of step 6, but he felt that it is not necessary to force the compositor always to follow the same procedure in meeting an unusual situation.

The following hypotheses are offered as illustrations of what may be done with a somewhat different approach.

This approach involves two theories: (1) Both compositor and pressman would have saved time if while one imprint was being used at the press another imprint were set up complete and ready to replace it in the forme as soon as the required number of copies had been run off. The type of T1 is entirely different from that of S2, and T2ab is entirely different from S1ab. In either pair one imprint could replace the other with minimum delay. (2) The switch in parts of the two imprints first used might have resulted if, after the first batch of copies for Tonson and for Swall had been printed, one or more portions of a then idle imprint had been removed for use in some other book naming only one of the publishers.

Whatever the sequence, however, it seems necessary to make two assumptions: (1) T2b followed T2a because Swall B is better spaced in T2b. (2) In any two consecutive but typographically entirely different imprints the rule probably (but not necessarily) remained the same; otherwise the short rule was lacking two or more times instead of just once during the printing.

A schedule such as (A) or (B) below might be satisfactory. (It may be worth noting that Hypothesis B agrees with Mr. Bowers' feeling that the Swall A period had to appear first in T1.)

Hypothesis A

• (1) S1a is printed first. Swall A period is taken from comma box and never corrected.
• (2) S1b results when the short piece of rule drops out leaving Rule B. Before S1b is finished printing T2a is set.
• (3) Required number of Swall copies is printed. T2a replaces S1b and begins printing Tonson copies. S1b is tied up or left in a galley.
• (4) T2b results when short piece is put back in rule producing Rule A, and Swall B is better spaced.
• (5) Required number of Tonson copies is printed. T2b is left in the forme or tied up with undistributed title-page type.
• (6) Swall B is removed from T2b in title-page type to be used in another book.
• (7) Need for additional Tonson copies is discovered.
• (8) T1 is made up from what remains of T2b (London A and Tonson A) plus Swall A from idle S1b. T1 begins printing.
• (9) Need for additional Swall copies is discovered.
• (10) S2 is made up from what remains of S1b (London B and Tonson B) plus Swall B (now finished with other job).

---

189




• (11)T1 finishes printing second batch of Tonson copies. S2 replaces T1.
• (12) S2 prints second batch of Swall copies.

Hypothesis B

• (1) T1 is printed first. Swall A period is placed before date by accident because it is taken from comma box, or possibly by choice. Before T1 is finished printing S2 is set.
• (2) Required number of Tonson copies is printed. S2 replaces T1 and begins printing Swall copies. T1 is tied up or left in galley.
• (3) Required number of Swall copies is printed. S2 is left in the forme or tied up with undistributed title-page type.
• (4) Swall B is removed from S2 for use in another book.
• (5) Need for additional Swall copies is discovered.
• (6) S1a is made up from what remains of S2 (London B and Tonson B) plus Swall A from T1. S1a begins printing. Swall A period is overlooked and remains now by error because it is followed by Tonson B instead of by date.
• (7) S1b results when short piece drops out during printing leaving Rule B.
• (8) Need for additional Tonson copies is discovered.
• (9) T2a is made up from what remains of T1 (London A and Tonson A) plus Swall B (now finished with other job).
• (10) S1b finishes printing second batch of Swall copies. T2a replaces S1b and begins printing second batch of Tonson copies.
• (11) T2b results when short piece is returned making Rule A, and Swall B is better spaced.
• (12) T2b finishes printing second batch of Tonson copies.

Notes

Proposals of Nine Printers for A New Edition of the Journals of the Continental Congress, 1785.
by
Edmund P. Dandridge, Jr.

In August of 1785 the Continental Congress of the United States, feeling that there should be a cumulative, indexed edition of its Journals, authorized the Secretary of Congress, Charles Thomson, to advertise 'for proposals from the Printers to publish a New Edition of the Journals in folio, Congress

taking 1000 copies.'[1] Accordingly Thomson inserted the following notice in newspapers in the principal cities of the young republic:

Nine printers replied with proposals that fulfilled all, or almost all, of Thomson's requirements.[3] From the replies a number of interesting facts about the printing trade in America in the late 18th century may be ascertained. All of the bidders were concerned, of course, with costs of the printing of the job; some mentioned costs of indexing and binding. Most of them spoke of paper and its availability, and had something to say about type. One or two referred to proofing, and almost all gave some idea of the speed at which they hoped to be able to work. All but one of them submitted specimens of type and workmanship.

I.

Since all of the printers did not quote specifically on all the financial aspects of the task and none gave any final quotation for the whole edition, it is impossible to make any comparisons of their estimates for the complete job. It is, however, possible to examine their quotations for printing and for the cost of paper.[4]

The two highest bids for printing were made by John Dunlap of Philadelphia, founder of the Pennsylvania Packet and for several years prior to 1785 one of several public printers to the Continental Congress, and by Isaac Collins, printer to the state of New Jersey. They both estimated $12 per sheet for the printing of one thousand copies. Dunlap added $6 for 'two perfect Reams' of paper; and Collins requested an advance for two hundred thirty-three reams at $3 a ream. Dunlap noted that 'the above Price has been made moderate, in the Expectation that the Number of Copies, which will be printed above those ordered by Congress, may sell so as to make Amends, by a small Profit to the Printer.' Another high bid was made by Charles Gist of Philadelphia, who had the backing of Timothy Pickering, then Quartermaster-General of the United States Army and later Secretary of State, in a letter recommending his work and his personal qualifications to Congress. Gist's price of £6.10 ($17) included the cost of the paper.

Francis Childs of New York, a protegé of Benjamin Franklin, quoted £6 in 'New York Currency' (about $15) in Pica, or £5.10 (about $13.70) in English, including the cost of paper, and noted that 'if the Journals should make 5 Volumes in English—They would only make 4 in Pica.' When Samuel Loudon, a Whig printer of New York, offered his estimate of $8 per sheet for the printing, he suggested three grades of paper priced for two reams and two quires at $4.25 for 'middling,' $5.50 for the 'best,' and $7 for the 'finest.'

The low bids were sent in by Bennett Wheeler, publisher and bookseller of Providence, Rhode Island, and public printer to his own state, and Colonel Eleazer Oswald of New York, one-time public printer in Philadelphia and founder in that city in 1782 of the Independent Gazeteer: or the Chronicle of

Freedom. Both bids, Wheeler's at $8 and Oswald's at $8.50 per thousand sheets, included the cost of the paper. Oswald, however, submitted his bid by the single sheet, rather than on the basis of 1000 sheets as the others had done, and gave quotations for three different sizes—Law Folio, Demy Folio, and Royal Quarto, at three farthings, seven-eighths of one penny, and one penny half-penny per sheet, respectively, 'Pennsylvania currency.' The corresponding dollar values were about $8.50, $9.60, and $16.60 on the basis of 1000 copies.

One bidder, James Adams, the first printer in Delaware, who had attempted unsuccessfully, a few years earlier, to establish a newspaper at Wilmington, declined to mention specific sums of money, but included in his proposals the following remarks about how his bid could be determined: 'Now, Sir, my Proposals concerning the above mention'd Business, are as follows, viz. That after you fix on the Type you would have the Work printed on, and the Size of the Paper, the Printer or Printers who proposes to do the Work should inform you what his Price by the Sheet, for one thousand Copies will be, exclusive of the Paper, as there is no other Way with Certainty to come to the Knowledge what the printing of the Whole will come to, as it is not known how much it will make; and if he is a Person of good Character in his Profession, I hereby promise, to do the Work considerably cheaper, Provided you will allow me to carry it on here in Wilmington. . . .'

Concerning the cost of forming and printing the index, the comments of the printers were varied. Dunlap stated that 'A person of unquestionable Abilities will be employed to make out a complete Index, the Cost of which cannot be ascertained until it is finished, but Care shall be taken to have it done on reasonable Terms. . . .' Childs offered to print it 'in a small neat type at £5 [$12.50] per sheet,' while Gist estimated the cost at £9 ($24.00) per sheet, paper included. Wheeler and Oswald estimated the cost for the index to be the same as for the text of the Journals, Oswald further noting that there would be no charge for forming and arranging the index. Isaac Collins considered the forming of the index as quite separate from the printing, saying, 'The INDEX to be printed in smaller Type . . . for Twenty Dollars by the Sheet; the forming of which to be a separate Charge, the Expense whereof it is impossible at present to ascertain with precision.'

The only other mention of expense in the proposals was concerned with the cost of binding the completed volumes, and only six printers referred to the matter at all. Loudon said he could bind the Journals 'in Folio Volumes, in blue boards [for] about half a Dollar each,' and Kollock quoted the same figure for binding volumes of eight hundred pages. Gist would bind them for 5/ (66ç) in volumes of 600-700 pages, or for 6/3 (84ç) for 1000 pages. Childs' bid of 6/ (80ç in his currency) did not refer to the number of pages;

and Wheeler wrote that the cost of binding would have to be regulated by the size of the volumes. Adams, also, said that no estimate could yet be made, but added, '. . . as I carry on Bookbinding as well as Printing, [I] hereby promise to bind them cheaper than any other Binder will do them.'

Unfortunately no accurate estimate can be made of the final and total cost of the new edition of the Journals, for only one printer, Charles Gist, was willing to venture a prediction of how many pages would be in the completed work. In his proposal he guessed, as a basis for establishing his cost per sheet, that the whole work including the index was 'supposed to amount in the type as per Specimen Y No. 1 to about 3000 pages or 750 sheets folio . . ..' His total quotation for printing and paper at the rate of $15 per sheet would therefore have been in the neighborhood of $11,250, but his bid of $12.50 per sheet for the index would have lessened that figure somewhat. At 80ç per volume for binding, $800 would have been added to the cost of printing and paper, resulting in a final estimate of close to $12,000 for the edition. But when one considers that the Journal entries for 1785 in Fitzpatrick's 1933 edition are in the twenty-ninth volume, each volume in the edition containing between three and four hundred pages, it is reasonable to believe that Gist may have under-estimated the total number of pages that would have been necessary to print the whole from the beginning to the first Monday in November, 1785.

II.

In addition to estimating costs of printing, paper, indexing, and binding, the nine printers mentioned other items of interest in connection with early American printing practice. Only two of them risked an opinion as to how long the entire job would take, Loudon hoping 'to complete the whole in about a year,' and Gist figuring two years at the outside. But several of them were able to estimate the amount of work they could do in one day or one week. Collins and Oswald assured composing and printing of one sheet every day; and Adams, who must have had the smallest shop of them all, thought he could do 'four or five Sheets a Week . . . on a Fools-Cap Size Paper, in the Letter called Pica and Small Pica.' Gist 'positively engage[d] to deliver one Sheet per day, correctly printed, but should greater despatch be wanted, he will as soon as a sufficient number of expert and steady hands can be procured set another press to work.'

Similarly Loudon intended to use two presses for the work, a fact which would probably indicate that he expected to print at least two sheets each day. Dunlap also assured two sheets per day, and Kollock said that 'Twelve sheets will be struck off weekly.' Bennett Wheeler in Providence must have planned to print on three presses at once, for he noted that his establishment

would print '12 Pages per day—and more if necessary, as I could hire more hands.'

Most of the printers must have thought that Thomson's plan to do the proof-reading himself was a good one and would save them work and responsibility, for only two mentioned doing the proofing in their own shops. In his proposals, set in type as part of his specimen offering, Collins assured the Congress that 'the proof-sheets [would be] conveyed to and from the Secretary by the post-riders,' but in a handwritten letter he noted that he could have the proofs read in Trenton 'by Mr. Houston who has been used to and is excellent at the Business.' Adams, hoping to advance one more reason why he should do the work at Wilmington, said that he could have 'the Assistance of a Gentleman, (now principal Master of our Academy) who has been Corrector in one of the principal Offices in London in revising the Proof-Sheets. . . .' He further pointed out that he would thus 'be relieving [the Secretary] of a great deal of Labour, as it appears you intend to revise the proof sheets yourself—.'

A problem in which the printers evinced considerably more interest, however, concerned paper and its availability. Loudon hoped that there would 'be no hindrance on account of Paper,' and Dunlap said he would only be able to commence work after the paper had been made. Kollock would put the work 'to press as soon as a contract for paper can be accomplished, which shall not exceed four weeks,' but Gist felt that he would require at least six months to procure paper and other materials for the job. Adams cautioned that the paper should 'be contracted for without Delay, as the large Quantity that will be wanted will require a considerable Space of Time to finish it.' Only Wheeler, state printer to Rhode Island, seemed to be confronted with no delay; he stated that he would use the same paper as that upon which he had that summer printed the Journals of Assembly for his own state.

Apparently the paper manufacturers were particular about prompt payment because Dunlap asked for an advance for 200 reams of paper, and Collins requested money for 233 reams at $3 per ream. Adams wrote, in addition, 'If I should be favoured with the Work, I expect to have Cash advanced to pay for Paper, as our Paper Maker does not incline to spare a single Ream without it.'

III

Of the specimens of type, paper, and workmanship submitted with the proposals, those of Charles Gist were the most comprehensive. He offered as a sample of his printing abilities a sheet of the Journals of Congress set in Pica, and a sheet of Congressional accounts set in a smaller type that he

planned to use for the index. A third sheet was a sample of paper, but he said in his letter that the paper he would use for the job would be 'rather of a better colour.' Finally he submitted a large sheet containing short paragraphs set in forty-three different type styles, half of them Roman and the other half Italic, ranging in size from 'Two Lines English' to 'Pearl Italic.' At the top of the sheet was the information that the types were all 'cast in the Letter Foundry of Dr. Alex. Wilson and Sons. Glasgow. 1783.' Bennett Wheeler offered a copy of his newspaper, the Providence, R. I., United States Chronicle: Political, Commercial, and Historical, for Thursday, Sept. 29, 1785, containing four pages, on the last of which there was a reprint of Thomson's advertisement to the printers. In addition he submitted half a dozen pages of the 'Journals of Assembly (which we printed this summer).' Francis Childs included a sample of a Latin paragraph in Pica with a note saying that it was 'Composed in Latin to shew a greater diversity of types.'

Childs in his proposals made certain that his connection with Benjamin Franklin should come to the attention of Congress, for he wrote, 'The subscriber from a Letter received from Doctor Franklin, since his arrival, expects, in the next French packet, a Variety of Types—the Matrixes of which were designed by the Doctor and cast under his direction.' To bolster his credentials he later sent to Thomson that letter itself and another one from Franklin expressing an interest in assisting Childs to establish himself in the printing business in New York. Shepard Kollock also relied on Franklin's eminence as a help in procuring the favor of Congress. For his specimens he submitted both his own proposals and an address to Congress set in Pica, and pointed out that they had been 'printed with a new and elegant Type . . . cast under the immediate supervision of that great Typographer, Doctor Franklin.' At the end of his proposals he noted, 'The superior talents of Doctor Franklin, in the typographical art, in which he is so familiar, flatter the publisher with producing a work which will attract the admiration of Congress; and from which he will derive a proportionate share of the credit.'

Oswald and Dunlap submitted sample pages of the Journals of Congress, which they had printed in earlier years while they were serving as public printers. Adams offered samples of Latin paragraphs in three kinds of Roman and Italic sizes, Pica, Small Pica, and Long Primer, and spoke admiringly of his type supply as follows: 'As I have lately imported from London a general Assortment of Types, Specimens of such as I suppose you will have the Work printed on you have here enclosed, think there is not a Printer on the Continent better provided for that Work—If a larger Size Letter than you have here inclos'd might be pitch'd on, I have such.' Samuel Loudon offered no specimens, but suggested 'Lawsize' paper and English type, or 'Demy' paper

set in English or Pica. He added that 'The whole (should it be my lot to print them) shall be done with new Types, experienced Compositors and Pressmen.'

The proposals of the nine printers afford thus a unique cross section of information about a number of aspects of the printing trade in the young American republic. From them can be made comparisons of costs of printing and paper, prices of indexing and binding, and estimates of the length of time necessary for the completion of the job. With the comments about type, paper, and proofing, and the samples of workmanship, the proposals constitute a collection of contemporary information of particular interest in any examination of early American publishing.

A final matter worth noting is that actually nothing ever came of Thomson's advertisement and the printer's replies to it. Evidently the total cost of the new edition would have been too great an expense for the Continental Congress to bear; for after the entry in the Resolve book authorizing Thomson to request bids, there is the following notation in his handwriting: 'On this the Secretary took order to publish for proposals, the proposals he laid before Congress, who referred them to a come.e. and the come.e. made report on which no decision is come to.'[5] Instead of the whole new edition originally planned for, Congress decided to satisfy itself with an index to the Journals that had previously been printed by various hands from year to year. On August 15, 1786, the following resolution was passed: 'That the Secy. of cong. take order without Delay to employ some person or persons to make an Index of the printed Journals of Congress. . . .'[6] There the matter rested.

Notes

Sir Thomas Browne: Early Biographical Notices, and the Disposition of His Library and Manuscripts
Jeremiah S. Finch

At the time of his death in 1682 Sir Thomas Browne had in his possession a great many of his own papers, some rather uncommon MSS, and a remarkable collection of books. Few men in England had touched so many aspects of the cultural and scientific life of seventeenth-century Europe. Such names as Sir Kenelm Digby, John Evelyn, Sir William Dugdale, Elias Ashmole, John Aubrey, Henry Oldenburg, Arthur Dee, Guy Patin suggest the

variety of his acquaintances and the range of his interests. His was one of those wide-searching, ample minds which turned with perfect ease from laboratory experiments to antiquarian studies or rich and imaginative expression in verse or prose. But as the century drew to a close, the cooler heads and more discriminating judgments of the new age were less and less concerned with the lives and achievements of the preceding generation. Even during Browne's lifetime Religio Medici had "grown stale",[1] and thirty years after his death memories had so faded that a brief Life prefixed to his Posthumous Works contained only scanty details. The few biographical accounts that have survived are therefore of some importance, and a word about them and the disposition of his library may be of interest.

The essential documents are these: two letters from Browne to John Aubrey in 1672 and 1673, Anthony à Wood's account in Athenœ Oxonienses (1691-92), an anonymous biography prefixed to the Posthumous Works (1712) which included John Whitefoot's "Minutes for the Life of Sir Thomas Browne," and a copy of a letter in the handwriting of Browne's daughter, Elizabeth Lyttleton. These are in addition to a signed pedigree drawn up in 1664 and later amplified by a Norfolk antiquary, the several posthumous publications of Browne's writings, and the Catalogue of the library of Sir Thomas and his son, Edward, sold at auction in 1711.

Browne's letters to Aubrey seem to have been replies to inquiries by Aubrey and Anthony à Wood about persons in Norfolk and Oxford, as well as about his own life. Browne mentions Aubrey's "courteous Letter and therin Mr. Woods his request."[2] Presumably Wood made use of Aubrey's materials in Athenœ Oxonienses (1691-92), supplementing the two letters Aubrey had obtained with information available at Oxford.

Thus far it is plain sailing, but with the anonymous Life prefixed to the 1712 volume of Posthumous Works, uncertainties arise. This account follows Wood in part, but it also includes some new details about Browne's early life as well as the "Minutes" by his old friend, the Reverend John Whitefoot. The question is: whence these additions? We know that the 1712 publication was a hastily gathered collection of Browne's miscellaneous papers, brought out by Curll, the publisher, probably to capitalize on the public interest aroused by the auction sale of Browne's library the year before. Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Tanner wrote to Dr. Charlet:

According to a note in a copy of the book in the Bodleian Library, the editor was John Hase, Richmond Herald, and the preface states that the manuscripts for the publication were supplied by Owen Brigstock, Browne's grandson by marriage. But the author of the Life is not identified, nor are his sources of biographical information.

Nearly a century later a document came to light which reveals the basis for the additions to Wood's account. This was a copy of the letter by Elizabeth Lyttleton, published in the European Magazine in 1801. It was printed as a communication to the editor, and signed "C. D.", who explained that it was found in a copy of Browne's works in the handwriting of Dr. White Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, with the following prefatory note:

Thus, we have a copy by "C. D." of a copy by Bishop Kennet of a letter by Elizabeth Lyttleton which contained a copy of Whitefoot's "Minutes".

John Whitefoot, but five years younger than Browne, was for thirty years his intimate friend, and his name appears frequently in Browne's correspondence. He intended to write a full-length life of the physician, but apparently never produced more than the "Minutes", which Mrs. Lyttleton obtained at his death in 1699. In his prefatory note to Browne's Miscellany Tracts (1683), Thomas Tenison mentioned that "there is on foot a design of writing his [Browne's] life; and there are already, some memorials collected by one of his ancient friends."[5] Presumably the "ancient friend" was Whitefoot, and we may surmise that when the materials for the 1712 publication were being gathered, Curll, or Hase, the editor, naturally sought out the sketch Whitefoot was known to have drawn up.

The author of the 1712 biography had access to still other information.

Wood had asserted that Browne had settled in Norwich to begin medical practice by the persuasions of Dr. Thomas Lushington, his former tutor.[6] In the 1712 account, which follows Wood fairly closely up to this point, Lushington's name is omitted, and in its place is the statement that "by the Persuasions of Sir Nicholas Bacon, of Gillingham, Sir Justinian Lewyn, and Sir Charles Le Gross of Crostwick, he [Browne] retir'd to the City of Norwich."[7] Suspiciously, these three names appear at the top of a cancel sheet. The compiler of the biography must have had good grounds for this last-minute substitution, perhaps additional information from Elizabeth Lyttleton. Bacon, Lewyn, and Le Gross were contemporaries of Browne at Oxford, and in later years were his old and respected Norfolk friends. On the other hand, Wood, in mentioning "the persuasions of Tho. Lushington," may have been reporting faithfully information given him at Oxford. Lushington had gone to Norfolk with Bishop Corbett, and may well have had a hand in the arrangements.

From all this it would appear that the 1712 account may be accepted along with Wood's as fairly dependable, since the information in both seems to go back to Browne's own family, friends, or associates in Oxford.

Browne's Books and MSS

Browne's books and MSS passed into the hands of his son, Dr. Edward Browne, the author and traveler whose reputation as a physician exceeded that of his father, though his writings reveal little of the imaginative power or stylistic brilliance of Religio Medici or Urn-Burial. On Edward's death in 1708, the library became the property of his son, Thomas, the "Tome" whose doings at his grandfather's house enliven the family correspondence.[8] In two years this Thomas, the last male heir, died, and in January, 1711, Thomas Ballard sold the library at auction. The Catalogue printed for the sale, listing well over two thousand items in various languages, is now a very rare book, only four copies being known to exist.[9] In each of the copies are check marks, presumably indicating items the purchasers wished to bid for, but there is no record of the successful buyers at the auction.

The fate of Browne's papers and MSS is more definitely known. The title page of the sale Catalogue mentions "Choice Manuscripts," indicating that they were sold at the same time as the books, though individual items are not

listed. Curll had succeeded in buying the papers printed in Posthumous Works from Owen Brigstock, who also presented Richard Rawlinson with a copy of Browne's diploma from the College of Physicians.[10] Bishop Tanner possessed a MS of Repertorium, now in the Bodleian Library.[11]

The MS of Browne's Christian Morals, which was known to exist, was for some time in the hands of Thomas (later Archbishop) Tenison, having been loaned to him in a box with other MSS by Edward Browne. When the box was returned this MS was missing, and was not found until a special search was made in the presence of the Archbishop. In 1716 it was printed, with a dedication signed by Elizabeth Lyttleton.

Some other MSS found their way into the Bodleian Library through the medium of Dr. Thomas Rawlinson, but Wilkin in 1836 could not discover "how or when he obtained them." One item in the Rawlinson group is a "Catalogue of MSS. &c." listing those formerly in Browne's possession and probably drawn up just before they were sold.[12]

However, the bulk of Sir Thomas Browne's MSS was purchased by Sir Hans Sloane, the physician and bookman whose collections were brought together with the Cottonian and Harleian libraries to form the British Museum. "Sr. H. Sloan has all his [Browne's] & Sons MSS," noted William Stukely in his Commonplace Book.[13] This is not quite accurate, but Sloane did indeed acquire a great many, comprising over a hundred volumes. That he also secured some of Browne's specimens and antiquities is indicated by Curll's having printed, in the Posthumous Works, an engraving of an urn with the acknowledgement: "A Roman Urn . . . Now in ye Possession of Dr Hans Sloane."

Tempted by the possibility that Sloane might have purchased, in addition to MSS, some of Browne's printed books and that they might therefore be in the British Museum, the present writer in 1939 tried to run down some of the marked items in the Museum copy of the Browne sale Catalogue, on the chance that they represented Sloane's purchases. The copy of the Catalogue did prove to be Sloane's, and by good luck in the process of the search part of Sloane's own catalogue of his printed books was discovered.[14] But since the recovered portion of Sloane's catalogue contains few titles acquired as late as 1711 (the date of the sale of Browne's library) and since Browne does not seem to have been in the habit of putting his name in books, none of the

items examined could be positively identified as his. One suspects that a number of volumes now quietly resting in the British Museum were once to be found in the Browne residence in Norwich and were lovingly read by Sir Thomas and perhaps by his son and grandson—but so far, like the ashes in the funeral urns of which the old physician wrote so movingly, their identity remains obscured by the iniquity of oblivion.

Notes

Some Observations on the Philadelphia 1794 Editions of Jefferson's Notes
Coolie Verner

In his American Bibliography,[1] Charles Evans refers to the 1794 edition of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, printed in Philadelphia for Mathew Carey, as being "In two states, printed on thick, and on ordinary book paper." There are, however, other distinguishing features defining these two states[2] that give some insight into the printing-house practices of Mathew Carey's printer.[3]

Examination of copies[4] in the two states shows that the printers had apparently run the first three signatures (B, C, and D)[5] on thin, or ordinary paper, before the decision to add some thick-paper copies was made. The type from the six formes of these three signatures had by then been distributed. The reason for the decision to add thick-paper copies is not clear. The thick paper (watermarked AL MASSO)[6] is clearly superior to the ordinary book paper, but it cannot be stated with any finality whether the additional copies were for premium sale or simply to augment the edition. Augmentation

of an edition by the use of a different stock of paper would, even today,[7] involve some attention to the gathering of sheets for a given book from piles of similar paper stocks.[8] Disregarding the reset run needed for B-D, the remaining sheets would, therefore, have been run (whether for premium sale or simple augmentation) with a proportion of each sheet in each stock, not some sheets entirely in one stock and others entirely in another. Since both states can be found in contemporary bindings very similar in quality,[9] the true explanation is probably a combination of the premium sale and augmentation theories.

From signature E forward, the thick paper was worked in continuous printing with the ordinary paper, and interestingly enough the point at which the first three signatures were re-run can be determined with some nicety by an examination of the brackets around the page numbers. These page brackets were left by the imposer in the chase, skeleton fashion, though the numbers were, of course, changed for each forme. The brackets themselves are too uniform and were too frequently broken or pulled and replaced during the running of the formes[10] to be of much use as timetables, but their distance apart varied with the two-digit page numbers, the three-digit numbers in the 100's, and sometimes additionally with the three-digit numbers above 200. Measurements of the distances apart of the brackets show that all of the reset formes were run after the two-digit bracket spreads. More specifically, reset D was machined after outer O (pp. 97-104, the last forme to contain a mixture of 2-and 3-digit spreads, such as reset D has) and before P; and reset inner C (with an 18 mm. spread on C2r) followed inner Cc (the first with an 18 mm. spread; the only others to contain a similar spread are Gg, Ll, and Uu, the first two of these with the extra spread in the same position as reset C and Cc).

The thick-paper B-D signatures were completely reset by a different compositor from the one who set the original states of B, C, and D. The compositor

of the second state re-appears at other points in the book, [11] and seems to have been setting from the same cases[12] as the first compositor. The effort to find means of distinguishing special characteristics of two compositors in a late 18th-century American shop is instructive, but the evidence discovered is largely negative. Variations in the measure are negligible and certainly useless as distinguishing characteristics. This was, of course, in part caused by the fact that the compositor was resetting the same words in the same font[13] from probably the same case. Typographical variation in typesetting habits is extremely difficult to spot, the use of ligatures and of the long ſ being for all practical purposes identical between the two. Indeed the only observed variation, other than orthographic ones,[14] is in the space following a period at the end of a sentence. The spacing of the second-state compositor is often measurably larger than that of the first-state compositor. The first-state compositor justified his lines containing sentence breaks more amply between words than between sentences.

Proofreading before the presswork began seems to have been reasonably good, although once the formes were locked, very few changes seem to have been made.[15] Outer P was unlocked[16] for corrections in the tabular material on P2v (p. 108) and P4v (p. 112), where some states (NjP and NcD) have incorrect totals: "106" for "109" on p. 108, and "21" for "421" on p. 112. Ordinarily it would be assumed that such variations were clear evidence of

in-press proofing, but the incorrect states in their two located occurrences appear on both thick and thin paper. Unless, therefore, the two papers were run in a senselessly intermittent fashion, the error arose not from pre-proofed pulls, but from a press accident which straddled the paper change. This latter assumption is borne out by the alignment on page 112 of the erroneous "21" under a three-digit number, which clearly indicates that a "4" has dropped out.

Neither the map nor the folding chart seems to have been involved in the two-paper proposition. The map, however, has been found printed on two stocks of paper: heavy and ordinary. Both map stocks have been found with both paper stocks. This was probably due to the map's having been re-used repeatedly in other publications of Mathew Carey.[17] Most copies of the map with this edition are unwatermarked, although the ViU ordinary paper copy has a map watermarked HONIG. The folding table is found watermarked with (1) a crown, circle and bell, (2) with letters F B, and (3) with letters S L. There is no consistency in the way these watermarks appear in the several copies or in the two states, and since the chart is a half-sheet, it is assumed that of the two initial groups, one of them is a counter-mark.

For the sake of collectors interested in knowing the comparative rarity of the two states of the copies examined, the proportion is three[18] of the thick copies to thirteen of the ordinary paper copies. The edition has no textual importance, and it must be clear from the above discussion that neither state has priority except in the first three signatures, in which the ordinary paper was the earlier typesetting and impression. One might judge from the surviving copies that there were perhaps 1000 copies originally planned, and that perhaps this was upped by several hundred with the addition of thick paper. It is significant that three copies[19] are known bound with the separately printed appendix of 1800. These were evidently held in stock for 16 years by some bookseller who took advantage of Jefferson's election to the presidency to dispose of his remainder with newly-issued material.

Notes

The Cancels in Lockman's Travels of the Jesuits, 1743
Jessie R. Lucke

BIBLIOGRAPHERS have not hitherto observed that vol. 1 of the first edition in 1743 of John Lockman's Travels of the Jesuits,[1] printed in two octavo volumes for John Noon at London, contains two cancellans leaves found replacing sigs. H1 and 2C5, respectively. In each case the type for the cancellans has been reset, an indication that the discovery of the need for cancellation was not made until a relatively later time when the type for the original forme of each sheet had been distributed.

The first cancel leaf, sig. H1 (pp. 97-98), was printed simply to correct a printer's error in the original. A footnote on sig. G8v (p. 96) was intended to carry over and to conclude on H1r, but this carry-over was inadvertently omitted in the original printing. The cancellans supplies the 4-line remainder of the text of this footnote as follows:

However, this addition had to be made at the expense of other material; and, to fit it in, the cancellans omitted the final four lines of the first footnote to appear on sig. H1, substituting only the notation 'Ibid., pag. 17.' This deleted footnote text is here reprinted from the cancellandum: In the process of resetting the leaf for the cancellans, no other changes were made on H1r. On H1v a comma was added in line 2 after 'Colours', in line 24 'excessively' was substituted for 'piercing' before 'hot', and in line 29 'the' replaced 'we' before 'Europeans'. The lineation of the cancellans does not always conform to that of the original.

In contrast, the second cancel, that on sig. 2C5 (pp. 393-394), was made to delete certain opprobrious lines on the recto and to substitute a milder version. The second footnote on the cancellandum ended:

In the cancellans, these lines are replaced by: No other alterations appear on 2C5r, but on the verso (p. 394) a few minor changes may be recorded. Thus the cancellans removes the original capitalization of 'Native' in line 15, places the period outside instead of inside the quotation marks at the end of the first paragraph, alters 'infinite' to 'infinitely' in line 31, and substitutes 'more' for 'greater' as the first word of line 36.

A binder's error in the copy preserved in the University of Virginia Library reveals the position in which these two cancel leaves were printed and also offers other interesting information about the printing of the two volumes. The collation for vol. 1 is: 8°, i 4 A8 a4 B-G8 H8(±H1) I-2B8 2C8(±2C5) 2D-2H8 2I4; pp. [2] πi-vi, i-xxii xxiii-xxiv, 1-487 488[2]. In the Virginia copy, however, the cancellanda are still in place, and gathering 2I consists of eight leaves. The first and fourth folds, that is the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth leaves, constitute gathering 2I as it was intended to be bound in 4's. The second fold (the second and seventh leaves) is signed 'a' and 'a2' in italic and contains the table of contents for vol. 2 (missing in vol. 2 of the Virginia copy). The third fold consists of the two cancellans leaves, the third leaf signed 'H' and paged 97-98, and the sixth leaf unsigned but paged 393-394.

This method of imposition offers an excellent example of economy in printing. If the sheet were properly cut before folding and binding, one-half would be separated and would contain gathering 2I to be folded in 4's. If the remaining half-sheet were again sected, the two-leaf fold containing the contents of vol. 2 would be separated from the fold containing the cancellans leaves for vol. 1; and once these latter leaves were separated they could be substituted in their proper positions for the cancellanda. The evidence of the imposition is interesting as illustrating that in this book the full sheet 2I was intended to be separated into its parts before folding.

The fact that the table of contents for vol. 2, with its pagination references, was printed as an integral part of the final text gathering of vol. 1 indicates most probably not that the type for this gathering was kept standing until vol. 2 had been set and printed but instead that the two volumes were simultaneously printed. A study of the press-numbers, although the details are too complex for presentation here, confirms this conclusion. According to these numbers, three presses were engaged in printing the two volumes. It is significant that no press-numbers appear in the text sheets of vol. 1 until gathering N, indicating that one press (undoubtedly press 2) printed and perfected these sheets. From N to S the press-numbers show that presses 1 and 2 printed or perfected the sheets for each other, although sheets T and U were both printed and perfected by press 1. With gathering X, press 3 enters the printing, and thereafter the three presses irregularly print and perfect, with press 2 somewhat in the minority. Vol. 2 was printed by presses 1 and 3 except that press 2 entered once to print the inner forme of the penultimate sheet 2I. The evidence suggests, therefore, that while press 2 was printing sheets B-M of vol. 1, presses 1 and 3 had substantially printed vol. 2 and thereupon turned to assist press 2 in completing vol. 1. Hence when sheet 2I of vol. 1 (numbered by press 3) was printed, the contents for vol. 2 could be included economically to help fill out a full sheet containing the final vol. 1 gathering in 4's and also two leaves of cancellans.

Notes