University of Virginia Library

In the course of the researches which have been summarized above, it was necessary to carry out thorough bibliographical analyses on most of the works mentioned. Not all the results obtained are of equal value, and some have already been stated; but though they will of necessity make much less of a coherent whole than what has gone before, some of the more significant data obtained may perhaps be detailed here. It will be thought by some that they might better have been utilized for a series of scattered notes, but for ease of reference as well as for their evidential value in the present context it has been thought preferable to record them here, and to arrange them under the titles of the books examined.

LOVES MISTRESS. This edition was obviously set from the genuine 1640 edition, but the manner in which is peculiar — though our knowledge of the ways in which compositors worked together is perhaps too scant to justify the word. The book was set in two different pica founts which alternate as follows: A3-4v, B1-3v , B4-C3v, C4-D3:30, D3:31-F1:15, F1:16-F3v , F4-G3, G3v-4. G4v was set in long primer in order to get the text into this sheet, and the same smaller fount was used to print a song in two columns on F3v-4. In terms of the original edition printed from, the division of copy becomes hardly any clearer: A3-4v, B1-4v:23 thou, B4v:23 finde-D1v:23, D1v:24-E2:20, E2:21-G2:18, G2:19-H1v:15, H1v:16-I2v:2, I2v:3-4v . Neither division corresponds, on the whole, to clear units of the book or the text, though in the latter part of the work scene divisions do seem to play a part. If this book was cast off, and set by two compositors simultaneously, the stints would not be too unequal, but the division of the copy remains curious, especially when it comes in the middle of a line. The headlines also do

not suggest a clear-cut division of work. There are eighteen of them, and they come together in formes in an apparently haphazard manner, but a manner seen in several of the plays under discussion. Though no solution is here offered, the facts seemed worth calling attention to.

THE MAIDS TRAGEDY. This looks like an entirely regular production, set by two compositors, and printed on two presses, each using two skeletons. Two founts are in evidence. The mixed fount prints in sheets E-G and I, another fount, of similar face, prints in A-D and H. Of four sets of headlines, each larger than text, two print once each in sheets E-G and I, the two others in sheets A-D and H. No headline wanders into another skeleton, and there is very little switching about of headlines within the skeleton, during reimposition, although each page has a complete headline.

THE TWO MERRY MILK-MAIDS. For reasons of typography and watermarks this play and Loves Mistress must have been printed at much the same time. Besides the links already noticed, the two are set up in the same two founts and in the same manner, and they use almost exactly the same number of headlines — seventeen in this case. There is the same free wandering of headlines in reimposition, although the Milk-Maids split the headline over the opening. The division of founts is as follows: B1-C1, C1v-D1v , D2-3v, D4-E1v , E2-3v, E4-I1, I1v-3v, I4-K2, K2v-4, K4v , i.e. 46 pages in the one fount and 26 in the other. Both start with 9 and then 4 pages, but no clear pattern emerges.

PHILASTER. Ostensibly a straightforward job, set in a single fount, and with a headline pattern much like that in The Maids Tragedy. But there are some curious headline linkages, such as the spelling PHILSATER in one headline when it prints on B4, F4 and G4, but not when it prints on C1v, D4, E3v, H3v and I1v. One such anomaly might be explained away as a coincidence, but another headline presents an exclusive B4v-F1 link, while two others agree in linking outer C, D, E and I to the exclusion of B, F, G and H.

THE PRESBYTERIAN LASH. Possibly the wildest job of all, this play uses 19 headlines for eight formes, of which three are in larger-than-text type. Three, possibly four founts are in evidence, B4:8-32 being difficult to assign: A3-B2v, B3-B4:7, B4:8-32, B4:33-C3:20, (C3:21-C3v in small type), C4-D1v:19, D1v:20-D2:18, D2:19-D3:13, D3:14-D4. The last three changes in fount occur at scene divisions. There is clear evidence of casting off, A3 and 4v being set very widely, and B2v ending one line short, though B3 starts with a one-line speech.

THE SCORNFUL LADY, Greg 334g. On the basis that Greg 334f is the genuine 1651 edition it is possible to work out the textual relationship between the three editions with that date on the title-page. A complete collation, though showing, as always, some anomalies (none of them at all

disturbing) due to coincidence, shows very clearly that 334g was set from 334f for sheets A-D, from 334h for sheets E-H. Though the number of variants is not large, it is yet too large to print the full collation here, but excerpts should be sufficient to illustrate the trend of the evidence:                        

		334f	334g	334h
A4v	1. 4	posthorse	posthorse	posthorse,
	7	labours	labours	labors
	11	laught at	laught at	laught at at (correct)
B1	6	kisse	kisse	kiss
	15	with you	with you	you with (correct)
1v	1	neere	neer	never
E1	32	Lovelesse	Loveless	Loveless
	35	you, indeed I	you indeed, I	you indeed, I shall.
		shall. Travel,	shall Travil,	Travel, (wrong)
	41	Lady	Lady	Ladie
1v		faith. Will . . . sir, your	faith, will . . . Sir? your	faith. Will . . . sir? your (wrong)

Since these are excerpts from a complete collation, and since evidence from spelling is always to be regarded with caution, at least in isolation, not all variants are equally illuminating, but the two in the earlier excerpt where 334g follows 334f in error against 334h's correction, and the two in the second excerpt where 334h is followed in error, though 334f is correct, are significant. One possibility, of course, must still be eliminated, but it is easy to show that 334g was printed from 334h (in its latter half) and not the other way round. Thus 334h is consistent in its proper names throughout (except for erratic lapses) when it uses a different spelling from 334f, as Loveless for Lovelesse, Abigal for Abigail, but in A-D 334g agrees with f, in E-H with h. And a particularly illuminating variant occurs at F2v l. 9:  

Coach: the

Coach. the

Coach· the

To assume that a turned point would be fortuitous at a point where the other text introduces a variant would be asking rather much of coincidence.

Though the textual situation thus admits of clear exposition, it does not make the typographical situation easier to understand. Perhaps it will be simplest to set out the data:

             

Collation: 4°, A-H4.
A-C watermark: grapes	running-title: The Scornful Lady.
type: 20/79 mm.	measure 102-3 mm.
D-E watermark: name band	running-title: The Scornfull Lady.[*]
type: 20/80.5 mm.	measure 99-100 mm.
F-H watermark: grapes	running-title: The Scornful Lady.[τ]
type: 20/81 mm.[§]	measure F, H 98-9 mm, G 99-100 mm.

The headlines agree with the typographical division but have their own peculiarities. Sheets A-C have a distinct headline for every page, which makes 19 in all, all of them in larger-than-text type. It is perhaps simplest to assume that the headlines were set up with the text, but that does not tell us why. Sheet D occurs with two different sets[10] of headlines, of which the present writer has so far only seen one, repeated in E.

THE SCORNFUL LADY. Greg 334h. This book presents several resemblances to some of those already dealt with, and if it seems possible to work out the printing history here, it should yet be borne in mind that certain basic assumptions are made, assumptions which we have become more or less accustomed to make when dealing with seventeenth-century printing, but which the books so far cited might tend to show are not perhaps so generally valid as we should like to think.

The collation is the same as for the edition just described (4°, A-H4), the watermark is the same throughout, and so are the printer's measure and the running-title. Two type-founts are in evidence as follows: A, B1-4, B4v-D1v, D2, D2v-4v, E, F, G, H: i.e. about two sheets more were printed in one fount than in the other. In the copy seen (Folger) B4 and 3v were misimposed in one another's positions.

The imposition scheme, numbering headlines in the order in which they occur in the book and recording them as they appear in the formes, runs as follows:

             

	(o)		(i)		(o)		(i)		(o)		(i)
A	--	3	.	2	1	D	2	13	.	7	4	F	6	4	.	7	8
	--	--	.	--	--		11	6	.	3	12		13	11	.	3	1
B	7	1	.	9	8	E	5	14	.	8	6	G	10	8	.	9	10
	2	4	.	5	6		9	10	.	10	9		5	9	.	12	14
C	13	10	.	13	3							H	8	5	.	7	12
	12	3	.	10	11								10	9	.	13	14

The presence of 14 headlines argues for more than one press, and the presence of two type founts argues for two compositors, which, in its turn, argues for two presses as the eighth edition of a play (and a piracy at that) would hardly be printed in a small impression needing two compositors to keep up with one press.

Since one of the headlines used in A (2) does not occur after D (o), we may assume that A was printed first, not last. As compositor 1 (making the assumption of 2 compositors from the two founts) set two sheets more than compositor 2 (though A was of course a small job) and was able to help compositor 2 over B by setting B4v (compositor 2 subsequently reciprocating by setting D2 — there is no indication that setting was by formes), we may think that A was finished well before B, so that press-work

began well before B. Assuming that a logical sequence was followed, we should then conclude that the two formes of A were machined concurrently, since the A(o) headline next occurs in a forme machined on press 1 (i.e. the press for which compositor 1 is assumed to have worked) and the two A (i) headlines in a forme machined by press 2.

This would mean that the formes of B were machined concurrently with those of C, those of D with E, those of F with G, and, ideally, the two formes of H again machined together. In fact we find that the headlines on C, both inner and outer, exclude the possibility that its formes were machined concurrently with any others than those of B or A(i). Further, though no such general exclusions exist for the other formes, we find that the formes of D and E are mutually exclusive in their headlines, and those for F and G equally so except that F(i) and G(o) cannot have been at press together, as both use headline 8. But the two formes of H are again mutually exclusive, and H(o) is in fact imposed with the last skeleton worked on press (2) although it had been set by compositor 1.

The printing can then be reconstructed as follows: G(o) and H(o) are from the same skeleton, so G(o) would have immediately preceded H(o). G(o) shares half its skeleton with G(i) and three-fourths with E(i) and E(o), but probability would choose G(i) as the preceding forme. Since G(i) shares three-fourths of the skeleton with E(o), and E(i) again three-fourths with B(i), there is some reason to suppose that the order of printing was B, E, G, H(o), inner forme preceding outer. A(i) would then naturally take its place before B(i), where both its headlines reappear. We might reverse the order in B, which is immaterial.

If this sequence is taken as established, certain consequences follow. C, as we have seen, must have been printed concurrently with A(i) and/or B(i,o), so that we might tentatively place A(o), C(i), C(o) parallel with A(i), B(i), B(o). The order in C is again immaterial, but we may think that D(i) has (12, 3) together because they were together in C(o), though on similar grounds (13, 11) we might advocate C(o), C(i), D(o), D(i). But we also note that F(o) takes over three headlines from D(o), including 6, which also appears in E(i), and that since F(i) has 8, it would have been printed before G(o) and after E(i), while F(i), having (7, 3), would have been printed after D(i), and D(i) — (7, 4) —after B(o). The only way of meeting these conditions is by positing an order D(i), D(o), F(i), F(o), printed concurrently, forme for forme, with E(i), E(o), G(i), G(o). We are then left with H(i), which may reasonably be placed after F(o) on press 1, to give each press eight formes and make them finish together:

           

	A(o)	C(i)	C(o)	D(i)	D(o)	F(i)	F(o)	H(i)
1	--	3	13	3	13	10	7	4	2	13	7	8	6	4	7	12
	--	--	10	11	12	3	3	12	11	6	3	1	13	11	13	14
	2	1	9	8	7	1	8	6	5	14	9	10	10	8	8	5
2	--	--	5	6	2	4	10	9	9	10	12	14	5	9	10	9
	A(i)	B(i)	B(o)	E(i)	E(o)	G(i)	G(o)	H(o)

We may be surprised at the setting up of headline 14 as late as E(o), when headlines 1, 8 were left on the bench (presumably D(i) had not yet been broken up), but then 12 was set up for C(o) when 11 must have been available (or vice versa if we reverse the order). A convincing answer to this riddle, which is anything but unique at this time, were a thing devoutly to be wished — but until we have one for 12 we had better not worry over 14.