University of Virginia Library

The Direction Line as Bibliographical Evidence: Sheet K in Crowne's City Politiques, 1683
by
B. J. McMullin

In the first edition of John Crowne's 'Plot' play City Politiques, a quarto published in February 1683, sheet K is found in two states, the order of which is not readily to be determined. The variants in readings are confined to K(i), though the re-arrangement of type pages necessitated by the changes carries over into K(o); the pages affected are K1v—4r (pp. 66-71). Of the 37 exemplars known to have survived, 17 have K in one state, 20 in the other, so that the weight of numbers cannot be brought to bear on the problem of priority. Nor is there any apparent 'literary' or 'aesthetic' argument which would indicate the direction of change. Even when the direction can be shown from bibliographical evidence, the reason for the changes remains unexplained.

The major difference is that the 17 (group [a]) have 11 lines (K3v, l. 32-K4r, l. 2) not found in the other 20 (group [b]), which in turn have 6 lines (K2r, ll. 26-31) not in the other 17:

• (a) Pod. The Lord Treafurer's place; I am to be Lord Treafurer,
  Boy,] ſo the Whigs are all to go to Pot, and the Court to
  win the Game Boy, which they had done long ſince, if they
  

  ---

  179

  
  
  
  had put one Black Rook into the Bag where they put me;
  but the Games their own in getting me, they'l pick up t'other
  men apace; the Doctor's a deſperate black Knight, skips over
  Rooks, Biſhops, nay, the Queen her ſelf, and checks the King,
  but he'l be ſnap'd.
  Cra. Why do you call the Doctor a Knight?
  Pod. Becauſe a Knight's notch'd in the Crown, and the Do-[K4r]
  ctor's a little crack'd there, but he and all the Whigs will be
  ſnap'd ---- And hey then up go we. [Sings and Dances.
  
• (b) Dr. The Viceroy is a pure Canary-Bird, I'le have him turn'd
  out of his place, I'le prove he is a Mahometan, he was Circumciſed
  at Bar-bar-badoes.
  Pod. I believe you mean Barbary, Doctor.
  Dr. Why, ay, Barbadoes is the Latin name for Barbary. I
  love to ſwear like a Scholar, and a Doctor, as I am.
  

In essence, during the printing of K(i), the 'black knight' lines (and several lines elsewhere) were deleted in favour of the 'canary bird' lines (and several lines elsewhere); alternatively the 'canary bird' lines were deleted in favour of the 'black knight' lines. If the former was what occurred, the line-count was reduced by three; if the latter, it was increased by three. Both episodes are at the expense of the by-now-discredited Titus Oates, the Doctor of the play. The chess analogy, culminating in the commonplace reference to the refrain of 'The Whigs' Exaltation', is apparently Crowne's invention. And the 'canary bird' lines are largely concerned with Oates's attempt to have Adam Elliot convicted as a Jesuit (Oates claimed that Elliot was also a Mahometan and therefore circumcised, a claim which Elliot was able to disprove conclusively). In seeking to explain the deletion of the 'black knight' passage one might argue that the lines were objectionable at Court, ascribing to Oates the power to incapacitate Charles II; on the other hand one might argue that the 'canary bird' passage was equally objectionable, implying—with the reference to circumcision (a treatment for venereal disease) —that the King was poxed. As it is, neither passage is obviously preferable to the other, and neither is dramatically essential. Both passages are independent of their surroundings, making it impossible to understand why the deletion and addition did not occur at the same place, since the procedure adopted involved the destruction of part of the already-printed sheets.

The other variants are these:

The spacing in (a) is even, whereas in (b) there is greater space before and after 'I will'; but whatever the direction of change, it has been obscured because the line has been rejustified. The context favours 'I will' as the preferred reading: Craffy is about to swear against his mother, but is required by law to look at the accused while giving evidence as a prosecution witness in a criminal case, which figuratively he is—hence the Podesta's following injunction. ('ſhould I' constitutes Craffy's questioning of his father's order to say whether he saw his mother and Florio together, certainly a defensible reading.) The spacing of l. 39 varies: either the original poor spacing of (b) was corrected in the course of altering l. 40 or the original proper spacing of (a) was disturbed in the course of the alteration. The latter is more likely, but not demonstrable. The actual picking of the lock does not occur until K3v (p. 70): it could be argued that the reference to the picklock was deleted for various 'dramatic' reasons, and just as forcefully that it was inserted for other 'dramatic' reasons. The close spacing of (a) contrasts with the wide spacing of (b). The evidence of spacing inclines towards (b) as the later state, but it is not conclusive, since the spacing varies greatly from line to line on this page. The inclusion of 'have' avoids a possible ambiguity, though it is the third occurrence of the word in the sentence and therefore a possible candidate for removal. The change in l. 25 is inseparable from the addition or deletion of the 'canary bird' lines. The space at the end of l. 25 in (b) suggests that it is the earlier state, since a change from (a) to (b) would have required only a change of punctuation sorts, whereas a change from (b) to (a) would have required re-justifying the line to make it occupy the full measure. The speech prefix 'Bri.' is not significant in (b) l. 32: both forms appear in this part of the play.

(At this point the pages get out of step, so that the last lines are equated in this way:

• (a) K2r, l. 38 = (b) K2v, l. 7
• (b) K2r, l. 37 = (a) K2r, l. 31
• (a) K2v, l. 40 = (b) K3r, l. 7
• (b) K2v, l. 40 = (a) K2v, l. 33
• (a) K3r, l. 34 = (b) K3v, l. 7
• (b) K3r, l. 34 = (a) K3r, l. 27.)

It is not possible to show whether the change is a preparation for the incorporation of the 'black knight' passage or a consequence of its deletion.

(The last lines of K3v equate in this way:

The two texts agree from (a) K4r, l. 3 = (b) K4r, l. 1.) 'Craffy' is correct, but it is not impossible that 'Crafty' is the later state 'corrected' in conformity with a form that does appear occasionally, e.g. in a stage direction on I4v. In (a) l. 36 the spacing is even, whereas in (b) l. 34 'the Coin' is preceded by a space of 5mm., suggesting that the line in (b) embodies the corrected reading. The effect of the change—whatever the direction—is indifferent. The reading 'pay' in (b) l. 35 seems more appropriate than 'raiſe' in (a) l. 37, though it is not so obviously superior as to point to its being the later state.

The evidence for the direction of change is, up to this point, ambiguous: 4. favours (a) as the corrected state, 6. favours (b), and the remainder are inconclusive. The best that can be said is that the evidence of spacing and meaning tends to support the view that (b) is the later state of sheet K.

Despite the relocation of lines in pages 67-71 (K2r-4r), which leaves K2r, 3v and 4r either one line shorter in (b) or one line longer in (a), the height of the type pages (including catch-word)[1] remains unchanged. On K2r the difference of one line is accounted for by the increase/decrease in the space after the stage direction. On K3v the difference is accounted for by the space after the stage direction which occurs in (b) on this page but on K3r in (a). On K4r (a) begins with the final two lines of the 'black knight' episode, and the Governour's final speech occupies four lines—see 7. above; (b) lacks the 'black knight' episode, and the Governour's speech occupies five lines. But the type pages in (a) and (b) being the same height, the extra line of text in (a) is accounted for in (b) by an extra amount of white space before the second stage direction equal to one line of type, which thus distinguishes this stage direction not only from its appearance in (a) but also from the first stage direction on K4r in both (a) and (b). The deviation from the norm suggests that (b) is probably the later state, but the conclusive evidence is in the direction line.

In both (a) and (b) the last line of text on K4r appears in the direction line, which otherwise contains the catch-word 'Bri.', but only in (a) is it necessary that text appear in the direction line—i.e. (a) must be the earlier state of K4r . The presence of text in the direction line must have been determined by (a),[2] and the filling-out of a page one line short accomplished in (b) not by resetting in order to separate text and catch-word, thus creating two lines from one, but by the simple expedient of inserting spacing material of some kind before the second stage direction; had (b) been the earlier state of K4r there would have been no occasion for text to spill over into the direction line.

Since the (b) state of K4r is the corrected one, the (b) readings as a whole must represent the corrected state of sheet K.

Because the corrections to K(i) involved the re-arrangement of type-pages in both formes of K some sheets already printed off had to be destroyed. From the evidence of the uncorrected state of K, K(i) was the original white-paper forme. Perfecting must have started before the need for correction was recognized, K(i)(u)+K(o) allowed to stand, the unperfected sheets of

K(i)(u) discarded, and the edition total completed by printing afresh from K(i)(c)+K(o) undistributed and re-arranged.

Though the direction of the change is now demonstrable, the reason for the changes is no clearer. Whatever the reason for deleting the 'black knight' lines in the first instance and then not incorporating the 'canary bird' lines at the same point (or at least confining the movement of type lines to the same forme), it was important enough to involve the destruction of perhaps half the edition number of sheet K (and yet not important enough to involve its total destruction). The indifferent nature of most of the other changes is strong presumption that they are authorial, so that by association the major change is authorial too. The consequence for the editor of City Politiques is that the (b) readings should be accepted in toto over the (a) unless good reason can be shown for not doing so.[3]

This editorial obligation should be set against the practice of the only modern editor[4] of the play, John Harold Wilson, whose edition was published in 1967 in the Regents Restoration Drama Series. Wilson's text is based on a comparison of one exemplar of each of the 1683 and 1688 editions (the only editions prior to 1873), and in effect is a conflation of the two. The printer's copy for 1688 was an exemplar of 1683 with K in the uncorrected state, and Wilson's 1683 had K in the corrected state, so that 1688 appeared to him to supply lines omitted in 1683. His edition includes both the 'black knight' and 'canary bird' lines with only a record of their omission in the other edition, and it conflates 2. (a) and (b) and adopts 3. (a) without comment.[5]

The demonstration of the order of the states of K also reverses the example given by Professor Bowers when writing of the assistance that a bibliographer can provide the critic by recording the full and ideal form of the various editions listed in his bibliography:[6]

Professor Bowers's general position is not affected by the demonstration: 1688 remains 'a mere reprint', but the form it reprints is the 'unaltered', non-'expanded'.

It is perhaps unlikely that the direction line will provide crucial evidence in resolving textual problems in more than the occasional instance. But the positive results it affords in the instance of sheet K of City Politiques —when all other tests had proved inconclusive—do at least indicate its potential value.

Notes