PILGRIMAGE OF THE SOUL
In E. Gordon Duff's Fifteenth Century English Books
(Bibliographical Society, Illustrated Monograph No. XVIII, 1917), one finds the
following note appended to his description of No. 267:
There are two issues of this
book: in the original issue (B.M.) the two inner pages of sheet f3 have been imposed
wrongly, so that what should be on f3
b is
on
f6
a and what should be on f6
a is on
f3
b, and the whole book is in type 4. In the second issue
(Britwell) this whole sheet has been reprinted in type 4
*, so as
to read correctly.
[2]
Of the six copies that have survived to our day,[3] the British Museum is the only one to have sheet f3.6 in
the original state,[4] the
remaining copies all belonging to the later "issue" (contrary to the opinion expressed
in STC 6473).
Since it is absolutely certain that the Museum copy belongs to the earlier state, one
may well ask how it compares with the "corrected" later form of sheet f3.6? The ready
answer to this query is that the resetting (though corrected so far as the imposition is
concerned) is much the more inferior text. Not only does the reprint contain eleven
misprints to seven found in the original setting[5] but it also omits nineteen words found in the
original— a fact of much greater significance. To be exact, twenty words are
omitted by the reprint but, by way of partial compensation, one word[6] not found in the first setting
is added by the second.
Almost half the words wanting in the later sheet are clearly omitted because of
careless type-setting. The compositor of the reprint, although he was setting type from
printed copy, did not follow his original line for line.[7] On the verso of signature f3 (of the reprint) he
departed so far from his copy that when he reached the bottom of the page he found that
he had less than half a line to accommodate a full line of the original text. By making
radical omissions, the compositor succeeded in having his page end at the proper place
but not without doing violence to the text. In the original state (f6) the passage in
question reads:
. . . And leue || it wel yt though the
passiō of crist profite not these innocēts to their || ful
saluaciō yet it profiteth them so moch yt sathanas lyeth
loken in || the depthe of helle / so that he ne may not ne none of his
mynystres || [f4] annoyen ne tormenten none Innocent / as their malyce
wold / ne || harmen none persone / but by his owne assent . . .
In
the reprint, the same text (f3 verso) appears as:
. . . & || leue
hit wel that thong (sic) the passion of Jhesu crist prouffite
not || these innocentes to their sauacion / yet it prouffiteth them soo
|| moche yt sathanas lyeth lokē in helle
yt none of his mynystres || [f4] annoyen ne
tormenten none Innocent / as their malyce wold / ne || harmen none
persone / but by his owne assent . . .
In making these omissions the compositor
succeeded in having his text end with the correct word, but in order to achieve this
both sense and grammar were sacrificed to expediency.
Apart from this instance, the textual differences are slight and occasionally reflect
no more than the spelling habits of two different compositors;[8] for example, the British Museum state has "nought"
eight times where the reprint has "not." In those cases where a choice can be made,
however, the British Museum setting is always the better. Thus where the soul asks the body "how hast thou lost al thy queyntyse" (BM, f3v, l. 33), the reprint offers "how thou hast lost al queyntyse."
Clearly then, instead of seizing upon the opportunity to improve the text, a careless
compositor has permitted the text of the reprint to deteriorate.
Curiously enough, the reprint exhibits a technical—as well as a
textual—deterioration. Concerning the use of "guide-letters" or "directors,"
Konrad Haebler[9] observes that
in order "to lighten the rubricator's work, the custom was gradually adopted of printing
in small type (usually in lower-case), in the space left to be filled in by hand, the
initial which the rubricator was to add in colors." This had been common practice on the
Continent from as early as 1471-2, and directors appear in books printed at Caxton's
press even in the days of its activity at Bruges.
[10] In the
Pilgrimage, guide-letters were used throughout the volume including the first
setting of sheet f3.6, but directors are not present in the reprint of this sheet. Thus
the reprint demonstrates the return to a more primitive practice of type-setting where
such reminders were not considered necessary for the benefit of the rubricator.