University of Virginia Library

The first quarto of 2 Henry IV was set by a single compositor. This can be demonstrated from several typographical and spelling peculiarities, but most forcefully by a single idiosyncrasy not generally observed in books of the period. When the compositor of an Elizabethan dramatic text set speech-prefixes, whether abbreviated or unabbreviated, it was usual for him to put a stop after the prefix, thus setting it off from the following text. An examination of the dramatic texts printed from manuscript in the three years 1599, 1600, and 1601 illustrates the general acceptance of this convention. There were 28 plays[1] printed for the first time in these years, 22 of them by printers other than Simmes. Prefixes without stops after them did occasionally appear: there were two in Two Angry Women of Abingdon, and two more in Jack Drum's Entertainment. In two of the plays where numbers were used as prefixes, there were occasional unstoppedtags.[2] No other unstopped prefixes appeared in the 22 texts.

In the first quarto of 2 Henry IV, printed in Valentine Simmes's shop, this convention was completely reversed; in almost every case where a full name is used as a speech-prefix there is no mark of punctuation after it. Unabbreviated prefixes appear in 69 of the 80 pages of the text; there are 335 such prefixes and in all but five of these occurrences there is no stop after the prefix. The speech-prefixes occur in the text as follows:

       

	A2	v	3	v	4	v	v	B1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	C1	v
Abbreviated:	--	4	3	3	4		6		10	12	18	2		8	10	6
full, unstopped:	--	3	4	4	2	1	2	3	8	3		5	8	1		8
full, stopped:		1

       

2	v	3	v	4	v	D1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	E1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v
9	7	13	5		2	3	3	3	5	10	8	13	13	13	6	8	8	8	16	13	13
7		5	15	9	14	11	19	4	3	4	2	2	1	3	9	10	7	5	1	1	1
														1		1

       

F1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	G1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	H1	v	2	v	3	v
22	18	16	12	7	2	2	4	5	4	3	3	7	4	7	8	2	8	3	2	9	11
2	5	1	2		3	6	3	3	1	2	3	8	7		7	1	4	3	2		7
										1

       

4	v	I1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	K1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	L1	v
6	1				5	7	10	11	5		1	8	14	9	7	14	7	8	--
5	3	1		1	7	7		5	3	1		8	9	10	6	3	2	8	--
															1

There are other typographical features in this text which, in their uniformity, both attest to setting by a single compositor and exhibit some of his typographical characteristics. We note first that the compositor does not distinguish names, titles, or territories by setting them in a contrasting type-fount. Thus the body of the text is in roman with no italic type introduced into it (except for four Latin words), and on the other hand the speech-prefixes and stage directions are set wholly in italic.

In 2 Henry IV there is a sparing use of emphasis capitals and of parentheses: both are found where a reader would expect to find them in a modern text. The result is that the type-pages have an even and regular appearance; the body of the text is set in a single fount unbroken by the interspersal of italic type or superfluous capital letters. It is always a neat and well planned page.

The stage-directions are treated in a regular way. Apart from exits, there are 58 stage-directions in the text. Forty-two are centred on the page, and in all but two of the centred directions the initial letter is a capital. Where the directions are flush right, half have capitals and half have lower-case initial letters. All directions end with periods.

There are 17 exits in this text, all in correct Latin. They consist of the words exit or exeunt (occasionally abbreviated) and sometimes the names of the characters concerned. No exits are centred; most (13) are placed at the end of a line, but four are set slightly in from the right-hand margin. Only three exits do not end with stops. Whereas the centred stage-directions almost invariably begin with capitals, the practice with exits is to use a lower-case 'e.' Only one exit begins with a capital.

The catchwords are notable for brevity. Only one word is used as a catchword, and in the one instance where the rather long word,

"inuincible" is to be the catchword, only the first two syllables, "inuinare" given. As often happens in a dramatic text, speech-prefixes form many catchwords; in no case is the first word of the speech also given in the catchword.

The signatures are regular throughout the book. They consist of a roman capital, arabic numeral, no stop, and a narrow quad between letter and number. The signature is always set with the catchword on a separate line, but there is no set positioning of the signature in relation to margins or the beginning of the catchword.

A spelling analysis of this text yields results which support the view that it was set by a single compositor. Where two or more compositors are at work in a text, spellings peculiar to each man tend in analysis to separate out and occur mainly on the pages set by that workman. In 2 Henry IV the spelling variants occur at random throughout the text and fail to conform to any bibliographical units. An examination of the verse passages alone also produces a random scattering of variants; ten words occur in this text in which the spelling variations make little or no difference to their length, but these again provide no recognizable pattern.

Another method of attempting to distinguish compositors by spelling habits is to examine classes of variants which are subject to habitual treatment. This is especially valuable in a prose text, where large numbers of variants will form a definite pattern. Three classes of variants were examined: the use of a final letter 'e', -ie/-y variants, and -ll/l variants.

An examination and tabulation of all variants in these classes shows that throughout this text there is a marked preference for one form of the variant over the other. In the cases where the final 'e' could be retained or dropped, the preference was to drop it; this was observed in 296 out of 441 cases, a 65% preference for the shorter form. With -ie/-y the preference again is for the shorter form. Final '-y' was used 115 times and final '-ie' 52: a 69% preference for the '-y' variant. With -ll/l on the other hand, the longer form is preferred with even higher consistency. Single '-l' is used 115 times and the double form 340. The percentage preference is 74%.

There is a slight pattern exhibited by some of the variant classes, but none is very pronounced. With the final 'e' variant there is a slight tendency for the longer form to be more prevalent in prose than in verse passages. A faint pattern emerges with the -ll/l variant. Occasionally in verse passages there is a tendency for the '-ll' form to drop slightly. The -ie/-y variants show no pattern.

The spelling analysis of this text does not show a pattern of two or

more compositors, but rather shows that in the three classes of variant a preferential pattern pervades the entire text, supporting the hypothesis that one man set the entire play.

On similar evidence the first quarto of Much Ado about Nothing can be assigned to one compositor. As the points observed coincide exactly with those observed in 2 Henry IV, it is almost certain that the same compositor set both plays.

Again unabbreviated speech-headings give the strongest evidence. Unabbreviated headings appear on all but four pages of text; there are 489 of them, and only two have stops after them. The speech-prefixes occur as follows:

       

	A2	v	3	v	4	v	B1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	C1	v
Abbreviated:	9	13	13	13	10	9	7	2	7	6	3		4	20	6	3
Full, unstopped:		2	5	2	6	9	7	6	6	6	12	10	14	4	9	11
Full, stopped:

       

2	v	3	v	4	v	D1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	E1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v
1		9	3	6	4	6	9	10			6	1		1	10	11	11	3	1	11	14
6	15	8	10	6	3	6	5	7	17	9	1	7	6	10	6	9	8	13	13	6	1
					1

       

F1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	G1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	H1	v	2	v	3	v
8	11	13	11	6	2	5	1	5	1	1	13	23	9	8			1		16	7	4
10	5	3	7	13	13	12	12	3	5	2	1		9	13	12	4	14	13	6	4	11
																					1

     

4	v	I1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v
8	2	14	11	14	2	13	13	15	5
6	4	3		1	8	5	4	2

This alone is conclusive evidence that the single compositor of 2 Henry IV set this play as well; all other evidence is corroborative.

Again there is no unnecessary mixing of roman and italic type in the text of Much Ado. Only when a Latin tag is used on F2 is italic type introduced into the roman text. Similarly there is no roman type used in the stage-directions. The same even appearance of the type-page due to sparing use of emphasis capitals and parentheses is seen here as in 2 Henry IV.

The regular treatment of the stage-directions (again excluding exits) is more pronounced in Much Ado than in 2 Henry IV. There are 43 stage-directions, 38 of which are centred and begin with capital letters. Of the five directions which are set flush right, four begin with capitals and one with lower case.

There are 24 regular exits in the quarto and their treatment is the same as in 2 Henry IV. Twenty-two of these begin with a lower case 'e'. Eight exits are at the end of a line, while 16 are slightly indented. Full stops are usual, appearing after all but five. In four additional cases the exit is treated as a regular stage-direction, centred and capitalized. This possibly reflects some influence from the copy.

Catchwords again are brief. Only one word is used as a catchword; the first word of a speech is never added when a speech-prefix forms the catchword. Again, as in 2 Henry IV, there are cases where long catchwords have been shortened: "mortifying" is cut to "mor-" and "Conuerting" to "Con-".

A complete spelling analysis again corroborates the evidence pointing to single-compositor setting. Variants throughout the text, variants in verse passages, and variants involving little or no change in the length of the word all appeared at random.

An examination of the three classes of variants — final 'e', -ie/-y, and -ll/l — shows again a strong preference for one form of the variant over the other. In 73% of the variant cases the final 'e' was dropped, in 75% the longer '-ll' was preferred to '-l' and in 77% of the variant forms '-y' endings were preferred to '-ie'.

The second quarto of The First Part of the Contention was printed by Simmes in 1600 from a copy of Q1, which had been printed by Creede in 1594. Since most of Q2 exhibits the same typographical features as 2 Henry IV and Much Ado, we may infer that most of it was set by the same compositor, but that formes A outer, A inner, and B outer were set by an alternate workman.

Again the speech-prefixes provide the strongest argument for identifying the compositor. On B inner and from sig. C to the end of the text there are 338 unabbreviated speech-prefixes, of which 276 are unstopped and 62 stopped. On three pages of the text there is no evidence as no unabbreviated prefixes appear. The distribution of prefixes is as follows:

       

	A2	v	3	v	4	v	B1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	C1	v
Abbreviated:	--	2	2	6	3	2	4	1	5	1	6	9	2	2	6	10
Full, unstopped:	--					1		3	6		1	5	4	1	4	5
Full, stopped:	--	8	2		2	2	4	2	3	3	7	1	2	4	4	1

       

2	v	3	v	4	v	D1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	E1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v
15	7	8	4	1	3	2	6	8	3	4	1	5	5	4	5	4	4	8	6	3	1
7	25	6	5	2	2	5	8	3	3	6	5	3	3	8	8	2	6	3	2	2	3
	1				2		1			1		2			1	2				1	1

       

F1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	G1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	H1	v	2	v	3	v	4
3	5	11	12	1		3	4	1	1			3	5		3	4	1	7	7	4		4
3	5	5	1	9	16	8	7	7	7	7	10	4	2	6	5	6	8	9		3	3	1
1				7	4	5	2	2		2	5	1	5	2	1

It should be pointed out that in this text the compositors were working from printed copy, and were sometimes influenced by it. The speech-prefixes in Q1 were all stopped, except for three tags on C3.

Signature A and the outer forme of sig. B are distinguished by stopped prefixes. In sig. A there are 15 unabbreviated prefixes, 14 of them stopped. In outer B, 18 of the 20 unabbreviated prefixes have periods; by contrast inner B has 26 unabbreviated prefixes and the pattern is reversed, only 8 being stopped and the remaining 18 unstopped.

Other evidence indicates a change of compositors between B inner and outer. In 2 Henry IV and Much Ado the exits are usually begun with a lower-case 'e'. In sig. A and outer B of The Contention there are eleven exits, seven of which begin with a capital 'E'. In inner B and from sig. C to the end of the text there are 54 exits, and all but one begin with a lower-case 'e'. The single exception can be dismissed as it is the beginning of a lengthy stage-direction.

Both 2 Henry IV and Much Ado are characterized by the use of a single fount of type in the body of the text, without any use of a contrasting fount for names or titles. This practice is followed consistently in inner B and succeeding sheets, and is a deliberate departure from the copy-text where names are regularly set off in a contrasting typeface. In sheet A and outer B italic type is introduced into the roman in setting 25 names.

Throughout this text the treatment of the stage directions and catchwords follows the patterns seen in 2 Henry IV and Much Ado. Most stage-directions are centred and begin with capitals; both compositors occasionally follow their copy and set stage directions in roman. Catchwords are brief, and again there are cases where a single word has been cut: "Prefageth" to "Prefa-", "Warwicke" to "War-", and "Immortall" to "Immor-".

Enough evidence has now been adduced to support the inference that two compositors were at work in Simmes's shop. The workman in 1600 who set all of 2 Henry IV, Much Ado, and most of The Contention and whom we have distinguished through his unusual habit of leaving unabbreviated speech-prefixes unstopped, may be referred to as Compositor A. The workman who set sig. A and outer B of The Contention may be referred to as Compositor B. Although only three

formes of his work, involving ten pages of text, have been examined, his work can be distinguished from that of Compositor A by his tendency to capitalize his exits.

Q2 of The Contention offers an opportunity of examining the work of the Simmes compositors more closely, as it was set from a copy of the first quarto of 1594, with which it can be collated. A collation reveals several tendencies shared by the two compositors. Both, for example, failed to reproduce emphasis capitals in their copy. This is a practice expected of them after the even, unbroken type-pages of 2 Henry IV and Much Ado. In Q1 of The Contention there are many words, such as Lord, Lady, Prince, and Crown, which are regularly capitalized. Just as regularly both compositors of Q2 replaced these emphasis capitals with lower-case, changing 278 in the course of the play. There are 31 cases in which capitals have been added, but these were mostly where punctuation changes demanded it.

Throughout the text punctuation marks were changed seemingly at the compositors' discretion. The following table records all changes in punctuation, indicating whether the changes were toward heavier or lighter punctuation, or in the case of changes in full stops, retained the same value. The first number indicates changes in A's stint; a second number denotes B's.

                 

HEAVIER
no stop to comma	109-20
no stop to colon	1
no stop to full stop	4
comma to colon	13-2
comma to full stop	17-1
colon to full stop	1
	—
	178

               

LIGHTER
full stop to colon	52
full stop to comma	42-4
full stop to no stop	4
colon to comma	5-2
comma to no stop	39-8
	—
	156

           

FULL-STOP VARIANTS
period to question mark	16-8
period to exclamation mark	6-1
question mark to period	1
	—
	32

There is a tendency here toward heavier punctuation, but it is cancelled out in large measure by the removal of stops or their reduction. The most obvious increase is that while 51 stops have been removed entirely, 144 have been introduced into the text, a net increase of 93. The colon and comma are the preferred stops, with a net increase of 60 colons and 112 commas. Q1 had been lax in its use of question marks, but Q2 supplied them regularly.

These observations help one give a qualified yes to Alice Walker's query, "Did Simmes normally pepper his texts with the heavy metrical pointing exemplified in the verse of 2 Henry IV and Much Ado?"[3] It is also important to an editor of a Simmes quarto to know that these compositors did take such a free hand with punctuation, especially with the less common colon.

Changes involving final 'e', -ie/-y, and -ll/l variations were made by both compositors. In 152 cases the compositors dropped the final 'e' of their copy, and 57 times they added it. The -ie/-y changes were more marked, for 71 times the -ie ending of the copy was changed to -y: only once was the opposite change made. Both practices are to be expected from the compositor who set 2 Henry IV and Much Ado. But the tendency in treating -ll/-l variants runs counter to the practice of the other texts. The shorter form is preferred to the longer, with 78 -ll forms being shortened and only 26 -l forms being lengthened to -ll. All three tendencies were noted proportionally in the work set by each compositor, thus reducing the value of ending-preferences in determining compositors. Although admittedly slim evidence, it is observed that Compositor B was responsible for slightly more than his share of added final 'e' forms, and was responsible for the single -ie to -y change.

Several spelling changes were made by the compositors, most of them modernizations. The most important are tabulated below. The number of times the change was made appears beside each variant. Where only one number is given, it denotes the number of occurrences in Compositor A's stint; where two numbers, the first represents A and the second B:

• eye(s) to eie(s) 8-3
• bene to bin 7
• bene to beene 8-3
• proud(e) to prowd 12-7
• blood to bloud 14
• cleare to cleere 4-1
• unkle to unckle 5
• honour to honor 7
• soldiers to souldiers 5
• troopes to troup(e)s 4

Distinguishing the two compositors is rendered more difficult because they had similar spelling habits, and both treated emphasis capitals, full stage-directions, and catchwords in the same ways. These similarities throw greater importance upon the treatment of speech-prefixes and exits as means of distinguishing them, and the evidence these afford must be backed up by any other idiosyncracies which occur in a particular text.

A fourth dramatic text set in Simmes's workshop in 1600 was the first quarto of The Shoemakers' Holiday. It was set by two compositors. One of the compositors was A; there is only slight evidence that the other compositor was B.

On the basis of the treatment of speech-prefixes, the following passages can be assigned to Compositor A: four speeches on B4, all of C1 and C1v, the bottom of G1v and the remainder of the inner forme of sheet G, and from sig. H to the end of the play. The remainder of the play was set by another compositor, with the possible exception of sheet A which cannot be assigned for lack of evidence.

Professor Bowers in his compositorial analysis of this play has noticed the spelling and speech-prefix evidence and used it in helping to assign some of the pages to an alternate compositor. He writes:

The four speeches in the middle of B4 are characterized by the absence of stops after the prefixes, and by some spelling changes which are in addition to those noted by Bowers. The usual 'Lord' is twice dropped to 'lord', the spelling 'Mayor' is introduced in place of the usual 'Maior', and 'Lacie' becomes 'Lacy.'

Bowers also correctly identifies C1 and C1v as the work of this compositor. On these pages there are ten speech-prefixes — all unabbreviated and unstopped. There is a continuation of the practice of setting names in roman, with 7 examples on C1 and 4 on C1v. 'Lacie' becomes 'Lacy' the four times it appears, 'Lord' is reduced to 'lord'

once, and once 'Maior' becomes 'Mayor.' The usage is not consistent as both 'Lord' and 'Maior' appear as well.

Compositor A began again at the foot of G1v. Bowers follows him to the end of G2, but the evidence of the unstopped prefixes takes up again on G3v and G4, thus completing the inner forme.

The last five speeches on G1v have unabbreviated unstopped speech-prefixes, but no further evidence. On G2, in addition to all of the 17 unabbreviated prefixes being unstopped, there is one name set in roman and the spelling 'Mayor' is used both times the word appears. Bowers points out the importance here of the Raph/Rafe spellings which seem to confirm a compositor change at G2/G2v. By the same evidence Compositor A took up again on G3v, for on G3 the spelling 'Raph' appears six times and on G3v 'Rafe' appears five, thus providing the pattern:

     

	G2	G2v	G3	G3v
Raph		5	6
Rafe	5			5

The three sheets, H, I, and K can be assigned to Compositor A on the evidence of speech-prefix treatment. There are 189 unabbreviated speech-prefixes on these pages, and 177 are unstopped, with only 12 stopped prefixes appearing sporadically. The pattern of speechprefixes for the entire text is as follows:

       

	B1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	C1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v
Abbreviated:	1		2													3
Full, unstopped:			1				4		5	6
Full, stopped:	3	2	5	5	11	10	8	6			3	9	11	15	9	7

       

D1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	E1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	F1	v	2	v	3	v
12	6	1			1	4	5	2	8	2	1	1	4	1			1	2		1	8
								1			1		1		1				1
14	13	10	10	12	9	7	3	6	11	4	10	12	10	11	7	9	9	4	13	7	9

       

4	v	G1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	H1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v	I1	v	2	v
7	5	8	1		3	4	1	2	5	3	7	7	6	8				4	4	9	10
			5	17	1	1	9	3		2	7	6	3	5	6	6	6	14	6	6	8
7	5	8	11		8	5		3	6	3	1	1	2				1		1		1

       

3	v	4	v	K1	v	2	v	3	v	4	v
5	2					5	6	2	1
7	7	11	10	7	7	10	14	6	9	12	1
1									1

The absence of abbreviated speech-prefixes in large sections of the play is due, of course, to the short names of Eyre and his apprentices, which are rarely abbreviated.

Spelling evidence in determining the compositors of this play is weak, as might be expected from the results in The Contention. A few preferences do stand out, however. Compositor A always uses the spelling 'Rafe' and it appears 41 times in his stint. The other compositor is not consistent in his usage, setting 'Rafe' 21 times and 'Raph' 20. Compositor A occasionally lapses into setting names in roman within a black letter text, doing so 26 times; the other compositor did this only once on B4v. Compositor A uses the spelling 'Mayor' nine times, although he preferred 'Maior': the other compositor spelled 'Maior' consistently.

There are marked preferences between the two compositors in their usage of -ie/-y and -ll/l. Compositor A preferred the -y form, employing it in 104 of 172 cases, a 60% usage. The other compositor preferred the -ie form, using it 126 times out of 214, a 41% usage of the -y form, markedly different from that of A. The two men were not as far apart in their use of -ll/l; both preferred the longer form, Compositor A using it 64% of the time, the other compositor 52%.

In the short passage of The Contention which had been set by Compositor B we noticed only one characteristic which might help in identifying him elsewhere. He capitalized seven of the eleven exits in his stint of The Contention. In Shoemaker there are 44 exits. The twelve which fall in Compositor A's stint are, with the exception of the final exit, begun with the customary lower-case 'e.' Of there 32 exits in the remainder of the text 13 are capitalized. This practice suggests slim evidence upon which it might be assigned to Compositor B.