II. Analytical Techniques
The techniques available for the kind of analysis undertaken here will
be familiar to those acquainted with Professor Hinman's work on the
Shakespeare First Folio or with earlier studies of the Beaumont and Fletcher
Folio's printing.[7] Generally
speaking, the reliability of the analysis depends upon the correlation within
a temporal framework of three kinds of evidence: that pertaining to the
order of the printing (derived usually from an examination of skeleton
formes and related typographical matter), to the identity of the compositors
(from spelling evidence), and to the order of composition and distribution
(from type recurrence data). There are several conditions which may
substantially aid the cause, the most important being (1) the exhibition of
pronounced and contrasting spelling preferences by all the compositors, (2)
the reappearance within quires of enough recognizable type to establish that
a distribution was made, (3) the continued
association of types with the typecases whence they originate, and (4) the
devotion of the compositors and their equipment to the uninterrupted
production of only one book at a time. Fortunately, all these conditions
need not obtain for the analysis to succeed: (1) Although their spelling
characteristics barely distinguished them, Hinman was able to show in
certain parts of the Shakespeare Folio that because
two typecases were simultaneously in use two compositors must have been
setting type.
[8] (2) By progressive
deformation of components of the skeleton formes and by alteration in the
components' disposition, we can frequently establish the order in which the
formes imposed in a particular skeleton were printed. But if more than one
skeleton was employed, we cannot tell without other evidence the order of
the skeletons with respect to each other. An assumption of the regular
alternation of the skeletons will not do, particularly if there were cessations
in the printing of the book under study during which other work was
accomplished. The other evidence most commonly available is that arising
from distribution. For example, let us assume that the evidence from the
skeleton formes establishes the printing order I and I' and II and II'; if type
from I reappears in I' and II' and type from II reappears in II' but not in
I', we may conclude, other evidence
agreeing, that the order of printing and of composition as well was
I-II-I'-II'. The actual situation may be more complicated, but the principle
is capable of extension. Even if no types reappear within the quire, we may
be able to deduce the correct sequence of the formes on embossing or other
evidence, although under these conditions the relationship between
composition and presswork can be extremely difficult or, if the evidence is
elusive, impossible to ascertain.
[9] (3)
Hinman found that in Jaggard's shop, as a general rule, a type set from a
certain case would later be distributed into that case. In William Wilson's
shop, however, this practice seems not to have been followed consistently;
there a compositor who needed type for new work distributed into the case
at which he intended to set whatever wrought-off type was at hand,
regardless of the case from which it originated. Thus types could migrate
from case to case, and if they do, the only
way to identify the case from which the new work was set is to discover
among its types some from the same source as other types known to have
been distributed into a particular case. If we can demonstrate, as happens
to be true of Section 1, that type used to set B3 was distributed and then
used again to set B4 from a case we will call Case B and if we then find B3
types on C2
v, it follows that C2
v was
also set from Case B,
assuming the page to have been the unit of distribution. In other words, in
order to know from which case any new quire was set, we must have a
linkage with the preceding quire of the same sort as the linkage within
quires which permits us
to say that any new page was set from the same case as a preceding
one.
[10] If there is no linkage between
quires, however, we may seem to be in a desperate situation, for we cannot
be sure that the new material is not being set from a hitherto unemployed
case into which old types have been distributed. Faced with this difficulty,
we must appeal to probability: if it can be shown that generally two and no
more clusters appear on the graphs and that generally linkages associate one
cluster with Case A and the other with Case B, we can assume that any new
cluster should be associated with one of the known cases rather than a third.
Thus, at Quire E, for example, since E1-3
v are linked
with each other
and with Case A, we should not be unduly concerned that
E4-4
v are
not definitely linked with Case B.
[11]
The matter is not crucial in any event, provided that spelling evidence
makes the compositors' division of labor
sufficiently clear.
(4) Obviously some relationship must hold between the order of a
book's printing and the order of its composition. As Hinman demonstrated,
the type distributed into a certain case from a wrought-off forme will
necessarily be the type used to compose the next material set from that
case, for the types last distributed will lie on top of those previously
distributed. This fact establishes a temporal connection between printing and
composition, which is extended by the practical necessity for newly set
material at some point to be printed off not only because that was the main
object but because the number of types in the fount was finite and some had
to be recaptured through distribution in order that composition continue.
The general rule governing the significance of type recurrences is that "no
forme has type in common with either the forme immediately preceding or
that immediately following it" (Hinman, I, 81). This is a general rule,
however, and it is subject to the same
exceptions as the general rule that skeleton formes alternate. Types do
sometimes appear in consecutive formes, an indication of the fact that the
printing of the book has
been discontinued for a time.
[12] In
fact, if we see the same types in consecutive formes, we know that an
interruption must have occurred, and it is difficult to conceive of work
being suspended on one book, the types being used to print some other
matter, and then these same types reappearing in subsequent pages of the
book under study in such an orderly way that we never suspect the
suspension to have occurred. The odds would seem to favor there being
some trace of the interruption, such as a spate of damaged types hitherto
unobserved or, more likely, a failure of the type recurrence data to
correlate with the testimony given by the skeleton formes as to the order of
printing. Moreover, the intervening employment of the type will confuse the
relationship between the witness of the graph with which we are
immediately concerned and that of the graph for the quire preceding, for the
source of the newly reappearing types will not be the columns of the
earlier quire but the pages of some unknown book. When the intervening
work has employed the Folio types, the evidence upon which we ground
our analysis is likely to go in some measure haywire, and, although we can
probably detect the suspension, we must be cautious in interpreting the
disturbed data.
