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Perhaps the single most important distinction to be drawn in attempting a new compositor-analysis is between passages set in verse, and those in prose. Unfortunately, this distinction is not as easy to draw as might appear at first glance. D. F. McKenzie has demonstrated that "indenting the stick" was a common way of aiding justification of verse lines in plays of this period.[8] Examination of The White Devil shows clearly that this method was used extensively. The evidence is a little tedious to resume, but as it has a bearing on the compositor-analysis, it will be necessary to do so. The stick was set at 23 ems, giving an approximate line-length of 96 mm. The usual short line, or indented line, was 19 ems, about 77-78 mm. Naturally these metric figures vary depending on the amount of shrinkage in the sheet of paper as it dried, but the use of a block 4 ems wide was clearly the handiest way of achieving an indentation and thus saving quantities of quads.

An examination of The White Devil reveals that in far more pages than McKenzie found in Lear, some such aid to justification was employed. In the following tabulation, "prose" is to be taken to mean that there is some prose on the page, not that the entire page is prose; there are some pages in the play wholly in prose—B3v and B4r are instances—but usually the page will contain a mixture. The following pages show no abnormalities: B1v, C1r, C1v, C4r, D1v, D2r, D4r, G4r, M1v; in addition, the following pages show no abnormalities other than that they contain prose: B1r, B4r, B4v, E2r, F2v, G3v, I2v, K2r, K2v, K4v, L1r, M2v. These pages have therefore been excluded from the Table. Thus, of the 84 pages of text in the play, only 21 reveal no

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sign whatever of adjustment of the width of the type-line, or of some greater or lesser anomaly in connexion with line-widths.

Table 1 Line Widths

If "prose" is not indicated, the page contains verse exclusively. The signs '+' and '-' after the number of ems indicate a line slightly longer or shorter than the norm, the difference almost certainly owing to variation in shrinkage of paper rather than to a re-setting of the stick. Where lines have to be turned up or down at the end, this is noted; "optional" means that the compositor had the choice whether to go up or down; "forced" means he lacked such a choice as the line above or below as the case may be was already full. "s-d" means stage-direction; "cw" means catchword.
B2r 23+ ems, prose.
B2v 23+ ems, prose.
B3r 23 ems, prose. The top of the page is some 3 mm. wider than the foot.
B3v 23 ems, prose. The top of the page is some 3 mm. wider than the foot.
C2r S-d line 7 set flush to 19 ems, also line 9.
C2v Up to line 24 only one line longer than 19; 2 s-ds also flush to 19.
C3r Line 8 s-d flush to 19; only 2 lines on page longer (line 34, almost full-measure, and tightly-spaced, and line 36). At lines 16-17 there is an inked mark at the 19 em point which looks like the edge of a block. Immediately above there is a damaged period.
C3v Line 13 only long line in first two-thirds of page; last five letters are disranged (as is final "r" of "thunder", line 17).
C4v Block of verse, lines 16-23, justified to 19 ems; lines 28-31 justified to 18 ems—an obligatory question-mark omitted in line 30.
D1r Cf. C3v; last two words of line 9 disranged, break at c. 19 ems. In lines 15-24 five lines are justified to 19 ems, and only three lines on the page are longer than 19 ems. However, one of them (line 17) breaks the 19-em sequence in lines 15-24, so that quads rather than a block must have been used for justification.
D2v 23+ ems, prose (but s-d in line 11 set flush to 19 ems).
D3r S-d in line 11 set flush to 19 ems. A mark of something inking is visible opposite lines 29-33; there are two ampersands used in line 30.
D3v Something left an ink mark straggling over five lines or so in the top right corner, perhaps the irregular face of a large block improperly seated. At line 25 an exit-direction is set to 19 ems, and the line above, and lines 26, 28, 29 following are justified to 19 ems, as is line 36.
D4v There is an ink-mark at the 23 em line opposite lines 20-23; lines 20-21 are justified to 19 ems, but the surrounding lines are shorter. There are inking spaces in the bottom left corner.
E1r There is a turn-up at line 34 (an 18-syllable line!) which could easily have been avoided if the compositor had re-arranged the s-d at lines 24-25 to fit on a single line, for which there was ample room. The s-d at line 20, however, is set flush to 19 ems though lines in the vicinity are longer.
E1v 23+ ems, prose.
E2v 23 ems, but there is serious misalignment in line 5, the break occurring at the 19 em point; the s-d above is similarly affected, from which it is possible to infer the use of a block, imperfectly squared, to the right of lines 6-10. The second line of the s-d at lines 1-2 ends 3 mm short of flush-right, in order to give it a roughly "centred" appearance.
E3r 23 ems. As on previous page, the s-d ends on line 10, 3 mm short.
E3v No line longer than 19 ems until line 24; lines 6, 8, 10 justified to 19 ems.
E4r Line 6 turned up (optional).

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E4v Only three lines longer than 19 ems; lines 3, 6, 8, 18, 21, 36(s-d) are justified to that width, none exceptionally tightly.
F1r First half of page 19 ems; lines 2, 11, 13, 19 justified to that width; last sixteen lines are longer, including two (34, 37) full-measure; line 34 is turned down. There is an ink-mark at 23 ems opposite line 5.
F1v Here the upper half of the page has longer lines (none full-measure), and the lower shorter. There is some evidence that an imperfect 5 em block was used, since the last letter of line 23, and the period at the end of line 25, which both slightly exceed 18 ems, seem to have slipped. Lines 34 and 37 are also set to 18 ems.
F2r Lines 2, 10, 11, 18 set to 19 ems.
F3r S-ds at line 23 and line 34 indented 2.5 and 3.5 ems respectively; 28 is on the same line as dialogue; 34 has its own line but is not centred and is incomplete anyway; it reads Enter the French; the word Ambassador is missing.
F3v Line 28 exit s-d set to 20 ems, as is line 29. A 4 X 3 em block would fill the gap nicely.
F4r S-d at line 34 is set an en-space short of flush-right, in a line where the dialogue approaches the direction closely.
F4v Much seems to be set to 19 ems: lines 1-3, 11, 16, 17, 22, 24-25, 28 are justified to this width, including s-ds in lines 25 and 28; line 11 is especially tightly punctuated, and lines 16-17 tightly squeezed. Only lines 4, 5 and 31 are longer than 19 ems: 4 is set to 22; 5 to 20, and 31 to 21 ems, indicating that these lines were also justified.
G1r Three lines full-measure, all showing inking shoulders (3, 5, 18). Three lines (20, 22, 28) are justified to 19+ ems; in 28 the spacing is extremely tight, a tilde is used, and the usual en-space preceding a speech-prefix at the beginning of a line is reduced to a mid-space. Something is inking against the outer edge of the lower half of the page, perhaps a really big, narrow block turned sideways—which would account for the reluctance to re-justify line 28.
G1v All set to a maximum of 19 ems, including two s-ds, except the cw.
G2r Several lines justified to 19 ems, including the s-d at line 36. Except the cw, no line is justified to 23 ems; even line 10, which contains an exit-direction, is not set to that measure. A small piece of ?inverted type (not pica) has left an impression at the 23-em point in line 28.
G2v All 19 ems, save lines 30, 37 (and cw); lines 22, 24, 28 have s-ds justified at 19 ems, but no lines are particularly tight. There is a mark opposite lines 11-12 in the outer margin.
G3r 23 ems. Two s-ds, lines 7 and 12, set respectively 13.5 and 15 mm short of flush-right.
G4v Ink-marks in lower right corner, no sign of any special justification.
H1r 23 ems; no real sign of 19 ems; line 20 however is very tight, abbreviated by use of a tilde and ampersand (though a VV for W occurs at the beginning—an upper-case W occurs eleven lines below), yet there seems to be ample space for a turn-under. So perhaps a block was used to fill out lines 21-27.
H1v 23 ems; there is a forced turn-up at line 22. No sign of 19 ems.
H2r 23 ems, prose; a rule or reglet is inking at top right.
H2v A s-d located to the right of lines 9-12 has its left margin justified at 19 ems, the right margin is irregular.
H3r The compositors liked to squeeze a whole verse line into a single line of type wherever possible. Note, in consequence, the problems encountered in lines 1-4 on this page:
Ser.
Vittoria my Lord.

Fran.
Wel: what of her? Ser. Is fled the Citty,Fra.Ha?

Ser.
With Duke Brachiano. Fra.Fled?Where's the Prince

Ser.
Gone with his father.
Giouanni

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Only line 3 would not have fit 23 ems, a thing the compositor might not have noticed at line 1. The consequent mislineation reveals clearly the workman's reluctance to re-set botched work. There is also an optional turn-down at line 15, and a s-d justified to 19 ems at line 25.
H3v 23 ems, no sign of 19 ems. However, the register of the first few lines (1 and 2 are filled out with a s-d) is disturbed at about the 20 em point, disturbance which can also be seen in lines 6 and 9. This suggests movement of a block below line 9.
H4r 23 ems, several lines set to 19 ems; turn-up (optional) at line 20.
H4v 23 ems, prose; the last 8 lines do not exceed 19 ems.
I1r 23— ems. Lines 6-21 are all less than 19 ems except for the last letter of line 20, which is either damaged or out of register. The s-d at lines 23-24 ends 8 and 13.5 mm short of flush-right.
I1v 23— ems, prose. S-d lines 9-10 ends on line 10, 8 mm short of flush; s-d lines 11-12 ends on line 11 10 mm short; the direction would have fit on line 11.
I2r 23— ems, prose. S-d lines 28-29 begins on 28, 2 mm short, ends on a line of its own, 9 mm short (and obviously, since 29 has nothing else in it, could have been entirely accommodated in 29).
I3r 23— ems, prose. In line 24, the second line of a s-d is 2 mm short.
I3v 23— ems, prose. S-d at line 19 is 1 mm short of full-measure.
I4r 23— ems, prose. The s-d at lines 11-13 ends 8.5, 11.5 and 15 mm respectively short of flush. The direction would have fit on two lines if it had been flushed. Similarly, a direction beginning in line 18, five lines long, has one line (21) 4 mm short of flush.
I4v 23— ems. S-d lines 15-16: line 16 ends 8 mm short of flush.
K1r 23 ems, prose. Something is inking in the top-right corner, where the longest line is 20 ems. There is a fairly clear impression of an en-space at the end of line 9.
K1v 23 ems, prose. S-d, line 7, set 2 mm short of flush; line 23 9.5 mm short (but this direction has been "centred", cf. E2v).
K3r 23 ems; an optional turn-up, line 4; a s-d set to about 20 ems, line 14.
K3v 23 ems; only one full-measure line (11, including a s-d); ten lines justified to 19 ems, including a s-d, line 13. There is an ink-mark in the lower right corner, opposite line 31.
K4r 23 ems; four lines justified to 19 ems, nothing longer than that measure between line 9 and line 26. An em-quad inks in the direction-line.
L1v 23 ems; s-ds set flush right; one turn-down (forced), line 15 (this occurs in a passage alternating between verse and prose, which even John Russell Brown mislines: prose begins at line 13 and continues until the beginning of the dirge).
L2r 23 ems, but only one full-measure line; s-d line 2 set to 21 ems, line 36 to 20 ems. One line (28) set to 19 ems.
L2v No line full-measure; 8 lines set to 19 ems, including 5 lines between 27 and 37; line 37 is abbreviated, employing a tilde, to make it fit. There is also a misprint in line 33 ("the" for "they") which may have been the compositor's unconscious response to his realizing that the line was going to be tight.
L3r 23 ems, but four lines justified to 19 ems.
L3v 23— ems; much of page is short, but only lines 14 and 36 set to 19 ems.
L4r 23 ems, prose; lines 4-5 set to 19 ems.
L4v 23 ems, prose; line 1 is spread out, to 21 ems, perhaps to match line 2, the same measure, but tightly set; there is a disarrangement in the near-full line 9 also at about the 20 em mark; lines 6, 11-12 are set to 19 ems; line 36 turned down (optional).
M1r 23 ems but only two lines, and direction-line, full width. No sign of 19 ems.
M2r 23 ems, prose; one s-d justified to 22 ems.

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One of the most curious features to emerge from this survey is the practice of ending a stage-direction short of the flush-right margin. The practice is to be found on the following pages: F3r, F4r, G3r, H2v?, I1r, I1v, I2r, I3r, I3v, I4r, I4v, K1v, L1v, L4v?, M2r. The instances on H2v and L4v should perhaps be excluded, as the left margins of the directions on these pages are flush, so a different aesthetic principle is at work. For the same reasons, the directions on E2v and E3r are excluded, as the idea there seems to have been to centre the second line below the first. The other instances listed are clearly idiosyncratic, but they occur in both Compositor A's and Compositor B's work. Prior to F3r, entry directions were centred in their own line, or set flush-right. Exits are flush-right, as are descriptive directions—always allowing that "flush-right" means to the extent of the available space—i.e. 23 ems, or 19 ems, or sometimes some other figure. The emergence of a new way of treating directions in the middle of the play must be considered significant, especially as the commonest indentations (such as 8 mm) are not multiples of em- or en-spaces. The likeliest explanation is that it is a sign that the composition passed to other workmen than the compositor who had set the first four gatherings.

Some other typographical features of the quarto might be mentioned here. One such is the extremely heavy impression made by the headline and direction-line. It is relatively easy to see how the bottom of the pages could be over-impressed by a press with a warped platen (incidentally, there is no sign of this effect in the Pide Bull quarto of King Lear), but it is hard to see why the headline should be thus affected. For the record, spaces ink at the bottom of the page on B2v, 3r, 4r; C1r, 2r, 3r, 4v (i.e. the outer forme of C); D1v, 3r, 4r; E2v, 3r, 4r; F1v, 2v, 3r, 4r; G1r, 2v, 3v, 4r, 4v; H1v, 2v, 3r, 4r; I1r, 2v, 3r, 4r; K1r, 3r, 4v; L1v, 2r, 3v, 4r; M1r. The shoulder of a type also inks on line 35 on C4v. Naturally there is variation between copies, but this list represents the consensus of the three in the British Library. The effect this over-impression has on the determination of the skeletons will be mentioned below, in Part III.

The conclusion to be drawn from this investigation is that the use of blocks to fill out the stick, thereby saving quads, was common in the setting of this play. To the several instances of concrete evidence of this practice—the places where a block has left inked traces—we may add several very plausible inferences, where a line is set very tightly to 19 ems. Consequently, it is probably safe to assume that this method was used wherever convenient. In places blocks of other sizes seem to have been used, but it is not always possible to tell where a line was set to a predetermined length thanks to the presence of a block in the stick, and where upon imposition it was found possible to remove a large number of em-quads by inserting a block in their place.

The difference between the two methods is crucial. It has long been accepted, in compositor-study, that prose and verse are apples and oranges that cannot be directly compared nor mixed together to produce composite statistics. When a compositor sets a verse line, he will (so it is assumed) set a

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standard space between words, follow his habitual preferences in spelling and punctuation and the use of spaces, and then at the end of the line simply fill up the stick with the necessary spaces to justify the line.[9] In prose, by contrast, while the compositor may indeed follow his spelling preferences, he may also be induced to sacrifice some or all of them to the process of justification. His "verse-habits" of spacing will necessarily be abandoned, since spacing between words is the principal method of justification. Hence data drawn from prose setting is suspect, and most investigators either eliminate it from their analyses, or classify it separately.

However, it is clear from this study of the indentation of the stick in The White Devil that a substantial number of verse lines were justified as if they were prose: that is, the final character in the line comes hard against the right margin. This is true not only for full-measure (23-em) verse lines, which are easy to see, but for a number of lines set to 18, 19 (chiefly), 20, sometimes 21 ems. Indeed there seems to be something of a preference for justifying a line of verse to a specified number of ems if it exceeded 19 ems. But this is merely an impression, impossible to substantiate. What, then, has happened to our verse-line, supposedly the norm for compositor-determination? It has become a much less certain guide, one which is no longer easy to spot. The text must be gone through carefully (bearing the imponderables of paper-shrinkage in mind) to determine which lines are actually justified to a short measure; these lines must be removed from the "verse" count, and placed with the prose. The conclusion that one must come to is that far more of The White Devil is "prose" than a glance would suggest. This has been carefully borne in mind in the subsequent section of this article. But even in such "prose" lines one can frequently find the compositor retaining some of his more cherished habits. And the bibliographer's life has become harder again.