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II. Reprinted Sheets
Sixteen and a half sheets of the middle section occur in two printings. Most copies, including that reproduced in the Methuen facsimile, contain the original printing, the reprinted sheets having
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Discovery of the reprinted sheets (which for the sake of brevity I will hereafter call F5, since they constitute a fifth folio printing) would presumably have been deferred even longer were it not for an obvious clue. For some obscure reason the side rules and the foot rules were in the printing of the F5 sheets omitted.[4] Each
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The absence of the rules is the conspicuous difference between the two states of the sheets—the flag which gives notice of their presence. A further comparison shows that one state is a reprint of the other. Except for the rules they do not differ notably in general appearance, but upon close inspection innumerable small differences become apparent throughout. Collation reveals just such variants as we might except.[6] There can be no doubt as to which kind of sheets are the reprinted ones—the rules tell us that much. Collation of the original F4 sheets with the corresponding sheets of F3 (1663-4) and F5 give the expected results: F4 was printed from F3, F5 from F4. In F5 obvious F4 misprints are in the main corrected. Its text shows a marked tendency towards modernization of spelling and towards a regular use of the apostrophe in possessives. New misprints are about as numerous as corrections. None of the alterations point to the hand of anyone but the compositor.
The explanation for the reprinting is not far to seek. The distribution of F5 sheets in the six copies affected—with fifteen in Folger 28 and only one in NYPL Lenox—suggests that the printer of this middle section of F4 either carelessly or fraudulently under-printed these sheets. When the gathering of all sheets into volumes was nearly finished and the stacks were all getting low, a few stacks were exhausted or it was seen that they soon would be, leaving a stock of something more than two hundred different good sheets—how many of each I will explore presently. At what time in relation to the original printing the discovery of the shortages and the subsequent reprinting are likely to have taken place can be determined
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First, what significance can be attached to the omission of side and foot rules? The complete boxing in of type pages with rules was first commonly practised toward the end of the sixteenth century and became increasingly popular in the early decades of the seventeenth, until, by 1630, it was almost universal—though never quite so—in books printed in England. Soon after 1640 we begin to find unruled pages with increasing frequency. Charles Edmonds' Commentaries of Julius Cœsar, 1655, though a folio with double columns is entirely without rules. Burton's Anatomy, 1676, a folio printed in double columns, is ruled exactly as are the pages of F5—horizontal above and beneath the headlines, vertical between columns. The Works of the Learned Sir Thomas Brown, Kt., 1686, a folio in single columns, is printed with double head-rules only, except in the index, the pages of which are ruled exactly as those of F5 are. In fact I have found folios so ruled in every decade from 1600 to 1720. Clearly then the rules of the F5 pages cannot be regarded as direct evidence as to the date of printing. It does seem safe to say, however, that they do indicate either a date substantially later than the original printing in 1685 or a different printing house. For if Herringman had discovered the short count of seventeen or more sheets soon after their delivery to him he would presumably have demanded that the printer of the central section make the deficiency good, and it is scarcely conceivable that the same printer would then have produced reprints so strikingly different from the originals in appearance as these are. We may well ask why any printer at any probable time would have done so, and this is a question to which I can furnish no very satisfactory answer. That the printer did not have enough rules is out of the question. It must have been simply a mistake of some sort. Perhaps the workman actually responsible for the make-up of the formes, not fully aware of the nature of the job in hand, only followed the custom of the house for folio printing in two columns prevailing at that period. Had the printing been done in the shop that had produced the original F4 sheets, and with no considerable lapse of time, such an error would not be likely.
Evidence derived from watermarks leads to much the same
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Finally there is the evidence of spelling and the regular use of the apostrophe in possessives. The spelling shows a good deal of what might be called modernization: will for wil, Doll. for Dol., Country for Countrey, warlike for warlick, Lion for Lyon, and the like. The last decades of the seventeenth century and the early years of the eighteenth were a period of marked standardization of spelling—probably not to be matched in any like period before or since. This tendency did not begin in 1685; indeed it had no beginning, but was in my opinion accelerating more or less steadily in the second half of the century. Such changes as I have listed, with the possible exception of the use of apostrophes, would be expected, or at least would not be surprising, at any date after 1650. In fact the same sorts of modernization abound in F4, the actual count of spelling changes (from the F3 text) per
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It can hardly be said then that we have any clear direct evidence of a substantially later date for F5 than for F4. The most that we can say is that the absence of side and foot rules, the completely different watermarks, and a strong tendency towards modernization of spelling, taken all together, make it appear highly probable that F5 was printed either in a different shop or at a date a good deal later than the printing of F4. But the employment of another printer would in itself be strong evidence of the passage of time between the two printings. The two come to much the same thing.
And if I reconstruct the probable history of the sheets of the volume correctly it seems unlikely on the face of it that the need for reprinting would have been observed at once. The volume was issued with a variety of imprints—three in all:
- (1) LONDON, | Printed for H. Herringman, E. Brewfter, and R. Bentley, at the Anchor in the | New Exchange, the Crane in St. Pauls Church-Yard, and in | Russel-Street Covent-Garden. 1685.
- (2) LONDON, | Printed for H. Herringman, E. Brewfter, R. Chiswell, and R. Bentley, at the Anchor | in the New Exchange; and at the Crane, and Rose and Crown in St. Pauls | Church-Yard, and in Russell-Street Covent-Garden. 1685.
- (3) LONDON, | Printed for H. Herringman, and are to be fold by Joseph Knight | and Francis Saunders, at the Anchor in the Lower Walk | of the New Exchange. 1685.
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The only questions yet to be considered are how many copies of the good sheets of F4 remained and how many different sheets were underprinted. No precise answers can of course be given, but some calculations can be made on the basis of the table above.
While not attempting a census of extant copies, I have myself examined fifty-seven and have received reliable reports on nine others.[12] Six of these, or approximately ten per cent, contain one or more F5 sheets (if we count Folger 13, which, though its single leaf is not indigenous, represents a copy with a whole sheet). Sixty-six is a large enough number to be considered representative, and I therefore assume that something like ten per cent of all copies now or at any time existing would contain one or more of the F5 sheets. This means that the most deficient of the sheets of the middle section of F4—probably 2O3:4—was approximately ten per cent short. If this is substantially correct, then, supposing that the publisher's contract with each of the three printers called for two thousand copies, printer number two delivered only 1800 copies of 2O3:4. Even if the impression was only half this size there remained when 2O3:4 was exhausted one hundred copies of each of the good sheets. There could have been no question then of the profitableness of reprinting the short sheets, assuming that sales were still at an even moderately good level.
At least seventeen different sheets required reprinting. Were there probably more? The table gives us every reason for believing that there were and that others still exist and will be found.[13] Had Folger 28 perished or gone to another collection not seen by me I
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