APPENDIX II
The following charts are intended to provide a simplified graphic
summary of some of the more important evidence for the distinctions
proposed in this essay. Some kinds of evidence are much more important
and reliable than others, and
some preferences much stronger than others, but the charts do convey at a
glance the patterns discursively described in the necessarily-complex
foregoing argument. Statements as to preference are based on computer
concordances for all compositors.
The number of different preferences distinguishing each compositor from
every other can thus be further summarized:
| H1 vs I : 6 |
H1 vs J : 7 |
H1 vs H2: 1 |
| I vs J : 8 |
I vs H2: 5 |
J vs H2: 6 |
(Thus, the best-supported distinction is between J and the compositors in
Troilus,
Henry VIII, and
Hamlet;
the
least-supported is that between H1 and H2 in
Troilus itself,
resting almost entirely on the psychomechanical evidence of spaced medial
commas.)
(In addition, there is I's uniquely high tolerance for
-nes, and
uniquely high preference for
-y over
-ie.)
(J uses
heere and
here 33 and 50 times,
respectively; C prefers
heere 185 to 78)
Again, the best-supported identification, on a purely numerical count,
is that of J. But in all five plays the evidence is incompatible with any
previously-known compositors; even if, for some reason, the spaced medial
comma test should prove unreliable in Troilus, so that H1 and
H2 are indeed identical, there can be no doubt that the x-case pages in that
play were set by someone other than A, C, D, or F.
