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First Stage
Capitals. Uniform Y-face capitals appear in Eld's section (AB, GH, K) except for a few foul-case S-face capitals. The presence of both S-face and alternate-face capitals in C-F, I, approximates the pattern of extensive replenishment in Purfoot-Y, and at first glance suggests a single font. The single major discriminant occurs in the oversized (height: 2.9mm, 96mm letter), awkward, right-leaning 'W' in EF, but its cogency is undercut by four appearances (F1:16, F4:12,32, F4v:20) of the normal 'W' found in CD, I, which raises the possibility of two sets of cross-contaminated cases rather than two independent fonts. Similarly, the few alternate-face symmetrical 'M' cut across the possible CD, I, and EF boundaries (C3v:18, E1v:19, E4:21, E4v:14, I2:32). However, two anomalies are limited to CD, I: three appearances of a Guyot 'G' (C2v:14, D2v:21, I3:18) and the 76mm 'Y' in D and I (D2:34, D4v:15,16,17, I1:21, I2v:25, I3v:2), which could be interpreted as transient fouling (see later discussion) of one of two cases. Alternate-face letters 'E K R V Z' are lacking in CD, I, and 'O S V Z' do not appear in EF, but these omissions must be viewed cautiously as supplemental evidence, since non-appearance does not prove non-existence. Both S-face and alternate 'I T' occur in roughly equal proportions throughout. In general, the evidence of capitals clearly indicates
Punctuation. Fouling with italic query and black letter colon, query and period can be dismissed as insignificant, since these occur throughout the text; similarly, S-face query occurs throughout C-F, I. Eld's section uses the Y-face query consistently. An obvious discriminant occurs in the exclusive appearances of Y-face query in CD, I, and the large Guyot query in EF.
Ligatures. Uniform Y-face ligatures occur in Eld's section. The evidence is ambiguous in C-F, I, since S-face and alternate-face variants occur in the ligatures. The S-face ligatures are obvious, but given the printing quality of Fools, it is improbable that the double variants (excluding S-face) in several ligatures would be detected at this stage, since examination in an original is necessary.
Lower-case. Again, Eld's section uniformly uses Y-face letters fouled by about a dozen S-face letters. The evidence is ambiguous with respect to further subdividing C-F, I, since most obvious variants seem to appear throughout. Except for some S-face g1 (CD, I) and g2 (EF), differentiating other variants requires examination in an original, including the bold variants of 'b d f h', condensed and wider variants of 'k p u v x y', the oversized 't,' the squarish w4 and the bowed outer-stems w3, the Y-face (CD, I) and Guyot (EF) 'g', and S-face k1 (CD, I) and poorly-printing or damaged EF-face k1-k2 (EF). Overall, the lower-case evidence as seen in a reproduction could easily suggest a single font in C-F, I.
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