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Notes
Apparently the first such suggestion was made by Frederick Fleay, followed enthusiastically by H. H. Furness in the New Variorum ed., Much adoe about Nothing (1899), pp. xviii-xxi.
New Cambridge ed. (1923), pp. 93-107 et passim. Earlier feeble attempts at bibliographical analysis had been quite unsatisfactory in explaining the anomaly; see Furness, pp. 207-208.
Dorothy C. Hockey, "Notes, Notes, Forsooth . . .," SQ, VIII (1957), 353-358; Geoffrey Bullough, Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, II (1958), p. 76; Graham Storey, "The Success of 'Much Ado About Nothing,'" in More Talking of Shakespeare, ed. John Garrett (1959), pp. 128-143.
Greg, The Shakespeare First Folio (1955), p. 279 et passim; Chambers, William Shakespeare (1942), I, 230-232, 335-338, 386-387.
"The Compositors of Henry IV, Part 2, Much Ado About Nothing, The Shoemakers' Holiday, and The First Part of the Contention," SB, XIII (1960), 19-23. I have reached the same conclusion by a different method, based on R. B. McKerrow's still-accepted assumption that after impression types were normally distributed into the cases from which they had been taken (An Introduction to Bibliography [1928], p. 24). The types which I have identified interlock all but a scattered handful of pages as having been composed out of the same cases, and two compositors would more likely have worked out of different cases if they were working simultaneously.
Charlton Hinman, "Cast-off Copy for the First Folio of Shakespeare," SQ, VI (1955), 259-273; George W. Williams, "Setting By Formes in Quarto Printing," SB, XI (1958), 39-53; and several studies by Robert K. Turner, Jr.: "Standing Type in Tomkis' Albumazar," The Library, 5th ser., XIII (1958), 175-185; "The Printing of Philaster Q1 and Q2," The Library, 5th ser., XV (1960), 21-32; "The Printing of Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy Q1 (1619)," SB, XIII (1960), 199-220; etc.
Portions of this paper were read before Group G. T. 8 (Bibliographical Evidence) at the Modern Language Association Convention in Chicago in December, 1961. For invaluable criticisms I am indebted to Professors G. Blakemore Evans, Fredson Bowers, and Robert K. Turner, Jr. Naturally, these scholars must not be held accountable for my conclusions. I am grateful to the University of Illinois Library for permitting me to use its Hinman collating machine.
Proved by the types on the title-pages: "Except for the first two lines and different leads, the [title-pages of these two plays were] printed from the same setting of type" (Sir Walter Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration [1939], no. 168, I, 274).
The above summary is based on James G. McManaway, "The Cancel in the Quarto of 2 Henry IV," in Studies in Honor of A. H. R. Fairchild, Univ. of Missouri Studies XXI (1946), 69-80. See M. A. Shaaber, New Variorum ed., The Second Part of Henry the Fourth (1940), pp. 464, 472 ff.
Because E3-6 were imposed in two formes, the equivalent of one standard gathering, the outer forme includes E3, 4v, 5, 6v; the inner E3v, 4, 5v, 6. Thus I1 was used in MA G(i), Hen. E(i), MA H(o); T1 in MA G(i), Hen. E(o), MA I(i); m2 in MA G(i), Hen. E(o), MA I(o). The running-title u discussed below was used in Hen. E(i), MA H(o). If Hen. E3-6 were printed after MA G, and if as seems likely they were cast off and composed by formes, the inner forme may have been precedent; but the evidence is too sketchy for certainty.
The relative shortage of W in Sims' cases is indicated by the substitution of 28 VV's for W's in 2 Henry IV Qa, which made heavier demands on the compositor's W's. It should be added that several roman and italic types occur in adjacent sheets of the Henry Q: e.g., b on Clv, l. 29 (bid), and D4v, l. 18 (Canibals); B on A2v, l. 21 (Bard.), and B4v, l. 28 (Bard.); e on Elv, l. 29 (wheele), and F4, l. 17 (Then); and h on B1v, l.7 (then to), C4, l. 8 (there), and D4v, l. 35 (what).
In all the following charts the figure to the left of the slash represents the normal italic B's; that to the right represents the substituted roman B's. The figures do not include a few lower-case b's used for common nouns (brother, bastard) where we might expect capitals. Two of these occur in the speech prefix brother on B3, another on B3v. On I3v a stage direction spells brother with a lower-case b. When bastard is preceded by the words Iohn the, it has a lower-case b in stage directions on A4v and B2, a capital B on E2. Some or all of the lower-case b's may have been substitutions (three of the four b's used in brother occur in formes having roman substitutions), but I suspect that they were caused by lack of clarify or actual inconsistency in the foul papers which were the copy. That the copy was unclear or inconsistent is indicated by some lower-case p's in stage-directions marking the entrance of prince (on B4 and D1): there was no shortage of P's in Sims' cases. 2 Henry IV Q also contains a number of mixtures of lower-case and capital s/S and w/W; but this evidence is ambiguous, for both S and W were inadequate for the needs in that quarto.
He had both plain and swash italic B's. Apparently they were in the same compartment, for they occur in no regular pattern. There must have been about the same number of each kind, for of 300 italic B's in the quarto, 148 are plain, 152 swash. In the following charts and in the type-chart at the end of the paper I have not distinguished the plain and swash italic B's. Incidentally, the failure to intermingle the two founts of "B's" in B(o), except for the one B on B3, may have been caused by a failure of the compositor to realize that he would not be able to make it through with his supply of italic B's; in later formes he was forewarned by his experience in B(o).
Although the ſ on H4, l. 3 (ſeale), is very similar to ſ1 (found on G1), careful comparison under magnification indicates that they are probably slightly different.
In addition, D1v has thirty-five lines of text plus two blank spaces separating the stanzas of Balthaser's song, II.3.73-74, and separating the song from the following speech. The beginning of the song, on D1, has no blank lines before it and no stanzaic separation. (The designation "The Song" might be thought of as occupying the blank line, but cf. I2v.) The shortage on D1v may be normal, but evidence presented in n. 18 indicates that the copy was being stretched; at least the spaces show that on D1v there was no need to compress the copy. I have ignored the shortages on A2 and I4v, the first and last pages of text.
That this was probably the case is indicated by evidence discussed below. I might note here the significance of the wording of the exit on C3: "exit Beatrice." Since it immediately follows a speech by Beatrice, "exit" alone would have identified her sufficiently, and "exit" alone might have been squeezed into the space following the last line of her speech. But the compositor, having too little copy for his page, placed the exit on a separate line and then, for the sake of appearance, added the name. Compare Dlv, l. 19, and Ilv, l. 10: In both cases a proper name unnecessary for identification was added to fill a long blank space, presumably for the sake of appearance. The former exit is on a separate line, whereas "Exit" alone could have been fitted into the space at the end of Balthaser's speech. (See n. 17.) The latter exit is in the blank space following Margaret's speech, but the last line of that speech is a short overrun and the blank space exceptionally long.
My explanation seems much more reasonable (and in keeping with the compositor's methods elsewhere) than Wilson's explanation of these directions (p. 99): that in the postulated older version the quarrel continued, "that Shakespeare in revising made an end of it here in order to shorten the scene, by scribbling 'come brother away' above the line and 'exeunt amb.' in the margin, and that he omitted to erase 'I will be heard' and 'Bro. And shal, or some of vs wil smart for it.'" Perhaps this crowding will also explain the absence of punctuation after "No" in V.1.108. (Folios after the First have an exclamation, and all editions since Capell's have a query.) The required query would have taken up one space and would have called for a space-consuming capital C on the following word—spaces which the compositor could not afford. Notice the additional space-saving in the abbreviated speech prefix ("Leo."); on the page preceding this one, the whole name was used in speech prefixes.
It should be noted, however, that F2 also has an entrance in the margin following a speech (l. 35). Perhaps the compositor stretched ll. 10-11 on this page because he forgot that he had already achieved an extra line on Flv he then had to re-adjust F2 by crowding the stage direction.
I have identified the types from collotype facsmiles of the Huntington Library copy: No. 791 in H. C. Bartlett and A. W. Pollard, Census of Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto 1594-1790 (1939). In the earlier comparison with types used in 2 Henry IV Qb, I used a microfilm of a Huntington Library copy (No. 341 in Bartlett and Pollard's Index). Because I have not had access to the original quartos, I have eliminated from the listing (and from my deliberations of the bibliographical problems) apparent identities about which I have had reasonable doubt.
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