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Notes
For the publishing history of the first five books of Hooker's Lawes, see The Folger Library Edition of The Works of Richard Hooker (1977), 1:xiii-xxvii, cited below as FLE. For a description of the 1597 volume, see W. Speed Hill, Richard Hooker: A Descriptive Bibliography of the Early Editions: 1593-1724 (1970), item 2.
For a description of this manuscript, see FLE, 2:xvi-xxiv. Material in this article which appears in the textual introduction to vol. 2 is used here by permission of the publisher, the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
'Proof-Reading by English Authors of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries', Oxford Bibliographical Society, Proceedings & Papers, 2 (1927-30):20-23, rpt., Proof-Reading in the Sixteenth Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1935; rpt. 1970).
The Judicious Marriage of Mr. Hooker and the Birth of 'The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity', The Sandars Lectures for 1938 (1940; rpt. 1974). Thomas Fowler, The History of Corpus Christi College with Lists of its Members (Oxford Historical Society, 1893), p. 426, notes that 'Ben. Pullen.' is listed on the college register as 'Subsacr. Feb. 26, 1579'.
See W. H. Bond, 'Casting Off Copy by Elizabethan Printers: A Theory', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 42 (1948):281-291, and Charlton Hinman, 'Cast Off Copy for the First Folio of Shakespeare', Shakespeare Quarterly, 6 (1953):259-273. Hinman gives the best exposition of printing by formes in The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare (1963), 1:47-51, 69-89.
For an analysis of the foliation of the MS, see FLE, 2:xvi-xvii and n. 3. The evidence that substitute folio 140 was used for setting type is a second series of numbers (1-84) used to enumerate a division of copy between two compositors; f. 140 is numbered 4 in this subsequence. Folio 228 is unnumbered.
In attempting to follow the exposition, the interested reader will be aided if he has open before him a copy of the 1597 edition or a facsimile (Scolar or Da Capo), but short of securing a photographic facsimile of the entire Bodleian MS, he will have to take the bulk of my references to it and its hieroglyphics on faith. Volume 2 of the Church and Paget revision of Keble's edition (1888) has a collotype of f. 111r (facing p. v), Simpson reproduces f. 226v (1935, facing p. 78), the illustrations in vol. 2 of the FLE supply generous samples of the printer's marks, and a reproduction of f. 60r accompanies this article. Even so, many of the marks on which the following analysis is based are invisible except by reflected light, for the compositor's pencil has left only a dint, creasing the fibers of the paper, and others are covered by tape or lost in the gutter. However, the relation of MS to print can be approximated by following the two series of references—to the foliation of the MS and to the signatures of the printed text—in the FLE. I am particularly grateful to Georges Edelen, who has read several versions of this paper against a photocopy of the Bodleian MS, for many constructive suggestions throughout its preparation. My analysis should be compared with his of Windet's 1593 folio of the Preface and Books I-IV, 'The Composition, Printing, and Proofing of the 1593 Folio', Appendix III, vol. 1, FLE.
See frontispiece, FLE, vol. 2, and caption; in frontispiece of vol. 2 of Works (1888), a '—20' is clearly visible after line 5 in the right-hand margin.
The second compositor sets in a different line measure (125 vs. 128 mm), uses a different case (foul case—italic for roman, roman for italic, especially in caps—is virtually systematic), and has a level of textual error five times that of his colleague. For a census of the printing errors in 1597, see Appendix II.ii, vol. 2, FLE. I have found no evidence that a second compositor was at work in quires B-P, with the possible exception of quire B; however, a second workman did aid in imposition, as the MS is occasionally marked in ink, not the pencil characteristic of A.
There is reason to believe $B was cast off, but because the characteristic markings are not present in the margins, it has not been counted. See text, below. Bracketed figures are not visible in the manuscript.
See Kenneth Povey, 'The Optical Identification of First Formes', Studies in Bibliography, 13 (1960):189.
In the illustration of f. 60r accompanying this article, l. 10 shows the actual break, l. 14 the cancelled break, between H3r and H3v. See also illustration 4, vol. 2, FLE, of f. 12r: a cast-off break is marked at the beginning of line 1; the actual break fell in the middle of line 2. For other examples, see illustrations 2, 5, and 8; see also n. 21, p. xxv, FLE.
I have no iron-clad explanation of why the line standard drops from the 47 lines of quire B and the first two pages of C to 46 lines for the remainder of Compositor A's stint, but I offer the following suggestion: if the master had set the initial ratio as 47 lines of type to 60 lines of copy, Compositor A may simply have elected to drop the ratio to 46:59 in order to secure greater flexibility. If the absolute upper limit was 48 lines, 46 obviously gave him the leeway of two extra lines into which to fit cast-off copy.
On the priority of formes, see Kenneth Povey, 'Working to Rule, 1600-1800: A Study of Pressmen's Practice', The Library, 5th ser., 20 (1965):13-54.
Illustration 5, FLE, vol. 2, of f. 22r shows the compositor's problem. The original cast-off break is marked in line 1 at a punctuation mark, 'catechismes. | With religion'. Immediately to the right, in the margin, is his signature mark, 'D5', for D3r. Having set 2v before 3r, he marked his copy at 'this | daie' where actual composition stopped and cancelled the first mark. The two notes, h and k, falling as they do at the end of the chapter, occasioned the non-standard, 50-line page, for they had to be got in before the end of the chapter.
A lengthy addition to a quotation from Thomas Cartwright at the foot of f 24v in Hooker's hand was not set at all, nor was provision made for it in casting off D4v: evidently Hooker continued to work over the MS even while the 1597 folio was in press, and the printer was unable to insert this addition in proof; see illustration 3, ibid.
Church and Paget reproduce the folio; see frontispiece, Works (1888), vol. 2. A '—20' is visible in the right-hand margin below the 'given?' of line 5; the marked break is visible in line 29 (ignoring Hooker's insertions) at 'voyde. | qTertullian'.
For example, it is generally assumed that one can infer the order of composition from the order of the formes through the press. But the case of signature H, analyzed above, suggests that this inference, while probable, is by no means certain. Knowing that the inner forme is printed first, one can assume that it was composed first as well and that copy was cast off to make this possible. But the contrary is not true: If the outer forme is printed first, it does not indicate that copy was not cast off.
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