(2) The Two 1692 Editions of Otway's Caius Marius
The first edition of Thomas Otway's History and Fall of Caius
Marius, listed in the Woodward and McManaway Check List
as no. 880, was published by Thomas Flesher in 1680. The Check
List follows with no. 881, an edition for Robert Bentley in 1692, which has a
long "s" printed in the word "eft" on the title-page; no. 882,
with a short "s", or "est" in the quotation on the title,
thereupon follows in the listing as "another issue" of no. 881, with the same date and
publisher. This listing as an issue is in error, for no. 882 is throughout
in a completely different typesetting from 881, and is the true third
edition of the play.
[2]
The order 880, 881, and 882 is readily established by collation. Nos. 881 and 882
agree in their makeup (a slight condensation of 880), one being a paginal reprint of
the other. That edition, therefore, which derives directly from 880 must be the
earlier. Various substantive readings point to the agreement of 880 and 881 in cases
where 882 differs.
- 880-881: Lay my gray Hairs low (page 8, line 4)
- 882: Lay my gray Heirs low
- 880-881: This Dæmon (page 8, line 15)
- 882: The Dæmon
- 880-881: its most dear-bought Honours (page 11, line 29)
- 882: its more dear-bought Honours
This same line of derivation is clearly exemplified by the accidentals, as well:
- 880-881: my wish'd-for Peace (page 9, line 4)
- 882: my wish'd for Peace
- 880-881: Sh'has bin with Sylla (page 10, line 46)
- 882: Sh'has been with Sylla
The second instance is especially good evidence, for although "bin" is the invariable
spelling of 880, "been" is the normal form in 881; hence, the few cases in 881 of
"bin" reflect its copy-text, and 882 quite naturally normalizes the form to
"been."
The whole trend of the evidence demonstrates this order without question, and the
expected few cases of agreement in accidentals between 880 and 882 against 881,
resolve themselves without difficulty into normal corrections by the compositor of
882.[3]
The seventeenth-century history of this play may be continued by remarking that no.
883, listed as a 1692 issue for Flesher, is a "ghost," the single recorded copy, that
at Northwestern University, being in fact no. 882. No. 884, a 1694 edition reported by
Montague Summers but without confirmation, has no recorded exempla and very likely
does not exist. Finally, collation establishes that no. 885, the 1696 edition for
Bentley, is a reprint of no. 882, a fact which points to 882 as an authorized edition
and not a piracy.
Homer Goldberg
