University of Virginia Library

III

The remainder of this account deals with the proof corrections on the basis of the copies at the Huntington. Volume 3, the first obtained, was discovered in Quaritch's basement by Jerry D. Melton, a Holinshed buff. Having purchased the volume, he carefully correlated the marked corrections with another of his copies, sometimes two, and recorded nearly 6,000 instances, a record on deposit at the Huntington (along with the volume itself which it later purchased). In most cases the corrections called for were made, the vast majority having to do with spacing, punctuation, and replacement of defective type and wrong founts. Though Volume 3 shows the hands of several correctors, some corrections can be recognized as Fleming's, for example, when he shows honor to the deity in altering secundum Deū to secundũ Deum and to himself in substituting a marginal statement of four lines by John Cheke with one of his own of three lines (this not made in all copies that I have seen). As a result of Melton's having written up an account of his findings, Volumes 1-2 (bound as one) amazingly surfaced, and these the Huntington purchased at auction; the pre-sale estimate of the number of corrections was more than 2,000 even though some pages have no marks.[20]

Their number may seem extraordinary (but compare Hinman's projection from Antony and Cleopatra cited in n. 4). Even more extraordinary is their overall quality, which may be termed "finicky" in their emphasis upon typographical excellence. Some, very, very few, relate to clarity of expression as in the following two most conspicuous examples from Volumes 1-2:

A vast number relate to punctuation, which of course also contributes to clarity. For much popular literature casualness may have held the day, but

for writing in Latin its importance was clearly recognized; Moxon, too, it may be remembered, declared that a corrector ought to be very sagacious in pointing.[21] Fleming obviously concurred. Many of the corrections have to do with inserting commas and colons, which are marked for spacing before and after insertion, and correcting terminal punctuation. Many have to do with the esthetics of the page; thus broken line endings are regularized most fastidiously (see Fig. 1), with the spelling adjusted to compensate for insertions, or to end a sentence at the end of the print-line, or to improve hyphenation. Marginalia is repositioned to accord with the text and preferential spelling (horsses, towards, there for ther, and advise (as a noun) indicated. Except for those indicating transposition of words or phrases, the proofreading marks would be intelligible to any corrector today.

Though I have only spot-checked the more than 2,000 corrections of Volumes 1-2 with other copies, such examination shows that the compositor was not only conscientious but even long-suffering: for a letter written by a Scot he was asked, for example, to open the inner forme in order to insert the expected Scottish "u" in five words (prison, condition, consumption, etc., 1.256.a.4-31) that had been set without it in the 1577 edition (1: 371-2). All five words have it introduced, including "consumptioun". In some cases the lack of correction was no doubt inadvertent: for example (in the History of England, 99.b.29) the correction within the text calls for substitution of a question mark followed by a capital. This was made in two of the three copies at the Huntington, but the parallel marginal correction calling for the substitution of a final j for the second i in "Gregorii," in accord with typographical convention, was ignored in all three copies. Given then the type of correction being made—no substantive matters but only "typographical infelicities," as McKenzie puts it (p. 46)—one concludes that the proof copies represent the later stage of correction that Moxon describes.

A further point of interest about these copies is that, not surprisingly, they duplicate the castrated version of the text. Clearly the syndicate, including its printer, would not risk preserving materials that the Privy Council had ordered excised. Some few copies, in fact, did survive, but in the eighteenth century the noted antiquarian Thomas Hearne had seen only two, and the Huntington Library's Longden copy includes only Volumes 1-2, none of 3.[22] In the castrated copies some few pages did escape excision (for example, in 3: 1328-31 [6M3-4] should have been cancelled and replaced by

a substitute paged 1328/30, but in the Huntington Library's Bridgewater copy, the Ringler copy formerly on deposit, and Melton's two copies pages 1328-31 were not excised).

Evidence for Fleming as learned corrector is shown by the following telltale notations. In the address to the "Readers studious in histories" which introduces the history of England from earliest times (Vol. 1), he comments on the difficulties of antiquarian research, a task not "for everie common capacitie, naie it is a toile without head or taile even for extraordinarie wits, to correct the accounts of former ages so many hundred yeares received, out of uncerteinties to raise certeinties, and to reconcile writers dissenting in opinion and report." Above his name in typography comes the written inscription O quicquid donatur ingratis dilapidatur. (Whatever is given to ingrates is put down), followed by the abbreviation for "quoth", (Fig. 2), on sig. Y6.

This holograph inscription appears again at the bottom of the title page to the Description of Scotland, again at the bottom of the title page to the History of Scotland, and for a fourth time at the end of the Index to that history.

The second telltale sign is not holograph but printed; this, as mentioned earlier, served as a personal mode of identification for Fleming and appears at least ten times at the end of indices "gathered" by him from 1583 to 1589, and (apart from the presence or absence of a comma) is invariably set up to indicate a punning contrast: FINIS propositi, laus Christo nescia FINIS, which may be rendered "The end of the undertaking (but) to Christ be praise unending."[23] It appears in Volumes 1 and 2 at the end of each of the three tables he prepared (but not at the end of the one for Irish matters prepared by Hooker) and again at the end of the table for Volume 3, the table itself prefaced by the truculent statement: "If the reader be not satisfied with this table, let him not blame the order, but his owne conceipt."

At the end of the Chronicles proper, there is a bibliography of sources, identified as compiled by Francis Thynne, followed by a prayerful epilogue, this surely by Fleming. After duly commending history as the most valuable study next to that of the word of God, he concludes by invoking His blessing on the queen and her kingdom, beseeching that He protect her from the "pernicious practices of satans instruments," and to save her as the "apple of his eye."

With the completion of his onerous chores as editor, indexer, and certainly

main proof corrector of the first two volumes of Holinshed, Fleming's religious fervor won out, and in 1588 he took holy orders. Except for the translation of the Virgilian items published in the following year and the re-ordering of Cancellar's prayer-book in 1591, as mentioned earlier, he gave over his long and hardworking connection with London printing houses, but he continued to remain "Londoner," serving as chaplain to the Countess of Nottingham and rector of St. Pancras Soper-lane. After his ordination he delivered eight sermons at Paul's Cross; somewhat ironically for one so actively involved in publication, no one of these was printed.[24]