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The Printing of the Plays in the Jonson Folio of 1616 by James A. Riddell
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149

Page 149

The Printing of the Plays in the Jonson Folio of 1616
by
James A. Riddell

In the Folio edition of Ben Jonson's Workes of 1616, the order of the plays as they appear in the volume does not fully coincide with the order of their being printed. That is, the first play, Every Man In His Humour, was printed in part after the sixth play in the volume, Volpone, was completed, and in larger part after the two remaining plays and a portion of Epigrammes were through the press. The general order of the printing of the plays has been known for some time: as long ago as 1957, Johan Gerritsen accounted for Every Man Out of His Humour being "quite the most heavily corrected [play] in the volume" because it was the first one Stansby printed.[1] In this paper, I intend to bring together some details about the printing of all of the plays, but with particular attention to that one.

Every Man Out and the next two plays to have been printed, Cynthia's Revels, and Poëtaster, all appear with two kinds of title-pages, "in compartment" and "plain."[2] The compartment is title-page border number 224 in McKerrow and Ferguson, first used by Stansby for these three Jonson plays.[3] The title-pages for Every Man Out are the most various of those for the three plays, and, when considered in conjunction with their conjugate pages, reflect what must have been a fair degree of uncertainty in Stansby's shop as he undertook the printing of the Jonson Folio. The title-pages themselves (sig. G1), as identified by Greg, appear in four variants, two in compartment


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(Stansby alone [4] and Stansby for Smithwicke [5]) and two plain (also Stansby alone and Stansby for Smithwicke). Their conjugates (sig. G6v) appear in three variants ("a," original, "b," corrected, and "c," reset; the last follows the corrected state but is distinctly inferior). As Greg recognized, but was not able satisfactorily to explain, it is through correlating the various states of G1 and G6v that the order of printing can be established.

Unfortunately, the work of Herford and Simpson has impeded rather than advanced our understanding of the matter. Because they were convinced that the large-paper sheets of all of the gatherings of the Folio were printed after the small-paper sheets,[6] they made assumptions about the printing of sig. G6v that have proven to be misleading. This is compounded by their failure to understand fully the distinction between the corrected version and the reset one (H&S, textual notes to lines 103 — 146 of Every Man Out; IX, 55 — 56).[7] That large-paper sheets of the volume were not invariably the last to be printed has been demonstrated by Kevin Donovan in his study of the printing of the masques.[8] As to the distinction between the corrected and reset versions, there are variations that did not come to the attention of Herford and Simpson. For instance, in the first line of G6v the word "metaphor" appears in three different forms: original, "Metaphore"; corrected, "Metaphore"; reset, "Metaphore" with a swash "M",[9] the last two


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not differentiated by Herford and Simpson. Although they recognize that there is both a corrected and a reset state, they sometimes conflate the two, in the service, so to speak, of the large-paper reading.

They fail, therefore, to come to the conclusion that the penultimate line on the page should read (corrected, but not reset): "Squeeze out the humour of such spongie soules." And the reading that appears in their text is that of the inferior (H&S, "large-paper") reset version: "Squeeze out the humour of such spongie natures" (Induction, line 145). For a reason that they do not explain (it most likely is mere oversight), they reproduce the original and corrected form of "O, 'tis more than most ridiculous" (Induction, line 114)[10] rather than the reset form that, judging from their reliance on the authority of the large-paper version, they would have thought superior: "O,it is more then most ridiculous" (with no space between the comma and "it" in the reset). They declare that "For this play [Every Man Out] we have also collated Mr. H. L. Ford's 'A' copy on large paper" (IX, 53). However, the Ford copy is cited only in their accounting of quire G, none other; for G3.4 it is the sole source for variant readings. There are three, related, difficulties that inhere in this assessment. Why was the Ford copy not cited for any signature but G? Why do the Ford readings not agree with the other two "large-paper" readings cited by Herford and Simpson? Why are the Ford variants in G3.4 present in five small-paper copies, of twenty-three that I have recently examined, but not in the Grenville[11] or two additional large-paper (Clark and Huntington)? The three questions are answered in one explanation: the Ford copy was not, in fact, printed on large paper, which can be inferred from the physical evidence that Ford himself supplies and which can now be confirmed by an examination of the volume (see below, note 14). Ford seems to have judged that it was large-paper by size alone.[12] He describes his "premier copy," the one consulted by Herford and Simpson, in his Collation of the Ben Jonson Folios, 1616 — 31 — 1640, as measuring 11 ⅛ x 7 ⁷⁄₁₆˜.[13] But this is not "larger" than other small-paper copies; it is no taller


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and is perhaps but ¼ inch narrower[14] than a copy in the Huntington Library (shelf-mark 62100), which at one time was certainly larger than at present, as now all edges are gilt. On the other hand, large-paper copies are significantly taller.[15]

The question of why quire G (here particularly G1.6v) was reset provokes several possible answers, a couple of which will be entertained merely to dismiss them. It is possible that after the printing had begun it was decided that large-paper copies should be added to the small-paper; but this issue must have been long since decided, as large-paper stock would need to be acquired for the purpose, and, much more to the point, some large-paper sheets, for instance, G3.4, are printed with the original settings. A second reason for G1 being reset might be that originally there had been no provision for a title-page of Every Man Out with Stansby's name only in the imprint; but as will be seen below, this cannot be the case. The most obvious, and the most reasonable, answer is that Stansby, or Stansby and others, decided to enlarge the press-run. Evidence gathered through examining the variant title-pages and their conjugates can pretty well establish the printing order of the title-pages, and once that is established, conjecture about Stansby's practice can be narrowed. Until now there have been understood to be, in Greg's words, "four variant titles — — with and without a border and with and without Smethwick's name as publisher." Greg further observes:

The title is on G1, and G6v, the other page of the forme, is found in three states of correction. These are consistently linked with the variant titles, and appear to establish the order of printing quite definitely as ["w," "x," "y," and "z"[16]]. This, however, appears wholly unreasonable, and the descriptions [of the variant title-pages of Every Man Out] have been given a more logical order as above [i. e.: "w," "y," "x," "z"]. (I, 266)


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In fact, there are two more variants than are set out by Greg or noticed by Herford and Simpson; that is, there are two distinctive states of plain, Stansby alone and two distinctive states of plain, Stansby for Smithwicke. The order is as follows:

  • (1) in compartment, Stansby alone;
  • (2) plain, Stansby alone;
  • (3) plain, Stansby for Smithwicke;
  • (4) plain, Stansby for Smithwicke ("Hor." in margin);
  • (5) in compartment, Stansby for Smithwicke;
  • (6) plain, Stansby alone.[17]
The difficulties that Greg encountered when he tried to reconcile the four title-pages and the three variant states of G6v led him to change the "wholly unreasonable" order for a "more logical" one. These difficulties vanish when the two additional variants are recognized. But a certain amount of explanation is required.

My evidence is derived from sixty-seven copies of the Folio which have title pages for Every Man Out (not all copies do[18]). Title-pages (1) (one copy[19]), (2) (three copies[20]), and (3) (nineteen copies) appear with the original (a) form of G6v. Title-page (4) appears only with the corrected (b) variant of G6v (six copies), as does title-page (5) (twenty-three copies). Title-page (6) appears only with the reset (c) variant of G6v (nine small-paper and all six of the large-paper copies that I have seen). If this sampling can be considered a representative one (I am aware that it may not be), and if the reset sheets do indeed reflect Stansby's increasing the size of the press-run (I shall present supplementary evidence in the next few paragraphs), we can estimate that it was enlarged by as much as twenty-five to thirty percent. First, the differences between title-pages (2) and (6) need to be explained, as do the differences between (3) and (4). Title-pages (3) and (4) are derived from (2). Title-page (6) is a resetting. The imprint of title-page (2) reads: "London, | Printed by William Stansby. | [rule] | M. DC. XVI." This imprint was altered to produce (3), in the following manner: most probably without being removed from the press, the chase was unlocked, the period after Stansby's name was removed (it would be strikingly inappropriate), the rule was lowered, and "for Iohn Swithwicke."[21] was inserted between Stansby's name and the rule; the original G6v was left unaltered.

There are three immediately recognizable differences between the two


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plain, Stansby alone imprints, (2) and (6), the latter, as has been mentioned, a resetting. In the reset plain, Stansby alone (6): after the word "Acted" in line six, a comma; "servants" in line eight set in large and small caps; "London" in the imprint set in the same font as Stansby's name. In the original plain, Stansby alone (2): no comma after "Acted"; "servants" set with an opening capital and then lower-case; "London" set in a smaller font than Stansby's name. These last three characteristics remain unaltered in (3) and (4), though other changes were introduced, rendering (4) easily distinguishable from (3). I set out what seems to be the most likely chain of events that led to the creation of (4) from (3). As a number of corrections were to be made to G6v, the chase was removed from the press. At that time the printer took the opportunity to make two alterations to the title-page. He replaced the "M" in "MAN" because in (2) and (3) the letter was some-what unsightly, the upper left serif wanting. He also inserted "Hor." into the right-hand margin to indicate the source of the epigraph.[22] The run was then continued. It is not clear whether the plain title-page was left standing while the in compartment title-pages were machined or whether the printer continued to machine the plain title-page until he turned his attention once again to the title-page border; the latter does seem more probable. But with the order of (2), (3), and (4) established, the place of (1) can be fairly well determined. Because (3) is derived from (2), and (4) is derived directly from (3), and because (1) shares the same setting of G6v as (2) and (3) but not the same as (4), (1) is almost certainly antecedent to (2). Although Stansby's men could have run off (1) at any time before G6v was corrected, the order I have suggested seems the most likely one.

Apparently at some time during the machining of quire I, it was decided that the press run should be made larger than originally intended, for no full quires of Every Man Out after I were printed short and only one third of quire I was. It may appear that two separate issues are involved here: first, the condition of there being original (and corrected original) and reset sheets in gatherings G, H, and I; second, the question that arises from that fact, "Why?" But the two issues are really one. The reset sheets exist. Where they exist offers a pretty good explanation of why. The most likely reason for their appearing in a significant number in the first three gatherings of the first play printed (but only sporadically in the rest of the volume) is that the press-run was augmented.

An examination of the running-titles, and thereby the skeletons, employed in the printing of Every Man Out provides evidence about the printing of quires G, H, and I. In quire G only G5v, G6, and G6v have running-titles. The other pages of the quire are devoted to an integral title leaf, preliminary matter (including the "Characters" of figures in the play), and the first page of the dramatic text. One running-title is used for the original


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(and corrected) G5v and G6 and a second one for G6v (in both original and corrected states). Both of them, paired with yet other running-titles, appear in skeletons throughout the rest of the play: four of them through H and I, and a fifth skeleton that first appears in K. The running-titles always read "Euery Man out of his Humour." but there are enough variations in the letterforms to render each running-title distinct. The five skeletons remain intact throughout, except for a slight alteration in the running-title that was paired with the one for G6 and G6v: at P3, a new running-title is brought in.[23] It is the same one that is used three times (G5v, G6, G6v) in the reset quire G. Yet although the running-titles themselves are identical, the rules on each of those four pages are different. This suggests that the running-title from P3 was placed between new rules for the printing of G5v (where the page number would be at the left margin, not the right), and then as each forme was composed the running-title was simply moved along. A page-for-page resetting can be prepared in any order, but it seems as though Stansby's men followed what would otherwise be their normal practice of beginning with 3v.4, then 3.4v, and so on, until they came to the final outer forme, 1.6v. At least part of that sequence can be documented, for G5 (p. 81) and G2 (p. 75) have the same rules and the same page number, 81, suggesting that G5 was run off first and the headline then transferred to G2 without the necessary modification. The inner forme G5.2v would therefore have been printed before the outer forme of that sheet, G2.5v.

Because P3, in the final quire of Every Man Out, was machined before G5v, G6, and G6v, it appears that only after all of the play was printed did Stansby's men turn to resetting matter needed for the first quire, G. It is less clear when H and I3.4 were reset and machined, but some inferences can be drawn about them. The eight formes are set with the same two skeletons (one of them at one time altered), which have entirely new running-titles. It is the alteration of the one forme that provides some clues about the order of printing of reset H and I3.4. I shall call the once-altered skeleton "VI" and its running-titles "x" and "w." It appears in reset H three times, in the following configuration: 1(x).6v(w), 3(x).4v(w), 3v(w).4(x).[24] It must appear this way, if the skeleton remains intact, because the right side of the forme on the press must always be headed by w. In I3.4 it appears in both formes — — as 3(x).4v(w), but then, with the running-titles reversed, as 3v(x).4(w). The most reasonable assumption is that the shift of running-titles happened only once, either at the beginning or at the end of this group of formes. There is evidence to suggest that it happened at the end. A striking difference between the original I3 and the resetting is that in the latter the last line of the original is moved to the top of I3v. Because it is much more likely that a line would be dropped from the end of a page than that a line from the bottom of one page would be accidentally set at the top of the page


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following, there is some reason to think that forme I3v.4 was composed after I3.4v, and that the three relevant formes of H and the outer forme of I3.4 were printed before inner I3.4, rather than inner I3.4 before the others. So, it seems that reset G, or at least a portion of it, was composed at about the time of, or just following, quire P; a bit later reset quire H and then reset I3.4 were composed, thus producing all of the sheets needed for the full press-run of the plays.[25]

The evidence of the watermarks supports some of this conjecture, and provides grounds for a bit of further speculation. (In the discussion that follows, I employ numbers for watermarks that I have previously assigned; as any such numbers must be somewhat arbitrary, I have thought it not worthwhile to create "new" numbers for this essay). Paper with watermark 3 (two-handled pot with elongated letters O P, topped by grapes and flower) seems to have come into Stansby's shop (or, perhaps, merely began to be used) just as the last sheets of quire O were being machined, as 3 appears in one sheet (O1.6) of one copy of twenty-three. It then appears in P1.6 in all copies but one, and in subsequent quires until 2Z; it is in all five copies of reset G1.6. All reset sheets of G2.5 have either watermark 1 or 2, both being common throughout Every Man Out, but rarely present later in the volume. Also in all copies of the original G3.4 which I have noted, the watermark is either 1 or 2. In the reset G3.4, however, the watermark is 11. Except in seven copies of 2H3.4 (which I do not yet know how to account for), watermark 11 (two-handled pot with the letters TI[?], topped by grapes) does not appear until quire 3G, the fourth quire of The Alchemist. But G3.4 are the pages of "Characters," and nothing else — it would have been easy to print such a discrete portion of the quire (the pages do not even have running-titles) at any time. Thus, taking into consideration the evidence of the running-titles, it seems that G1.6 and 2.5 were set right after quire P, and that G3.4 was set at about the same time that the last two plays, The Alchemist and Catiline, were going through the press. Of the five copies I have referred to that have reset quire G, only four have reset quire H and I3.4. All of these four copies of quire H have yet another watermark (I have designated it as 37 [two-handled pot with the letters RUM, topped by grapes]), which I have not found elsewhere in the Folio. It is, therefore, of no particular use in determining when the reset quire was printed. However, all of the sheets of reset I3.4 have watermark 11, and because the skeleton that was newly composed for quire H was also employed in the machining of I3.4, it is reasonable to suppose that those four sheets were run off more or less together, probably at about the same time as G3.4.


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When pages are present in the three states of original, corrected, and reset, as they are in the cases of G6v, H3v.4, and I3v.4, it will be found that the reset is based upon the corrected state. This can be seen particularly in punctuation marks that were introduced in the corrected state, such as the question mark after "this" on G6v, and the exclamation points after "above" and "edifice" on I4. It will also be found that the printer was often careless in his composition of the reset, whether it was set from the original or, if there was such, the corrected state. Here, for instance, are some obvious errors: on G4 (original and reset), from "Fungoso" to "Fungosa"; on H2 (original and reset), "Insula Fortunata" to "Insula, Fortunata"; on H3v (corrected and reset), "foode." to "food" (when the word unmistakably comes at the end of a sentence).

After Stansby's men had completed Every Man Out, they printed the following plays of the Folio, from Cynthia's Revels to Catiline, in the order in which they appear there. It is the coherence of that order, in conjunction with a brief disruption of it, that I wish to establish in this section of the essay. The plain title-pages for Cynthia's Revels are the same for both large-paper and small-paper and retain the imprint from title-page (6) of Every Man Out, which was left standing: "London, | Printed by William Stansby. | [rule] | M. DC. XVI." The imprint was retained intact for the large-paper title-pages of Poëtaster, the next play in the volume. For the small-paper plain copies it was modified to read: "London, | Printed by William Stansby, | for Matthew Lownes. | [rule] | M. DC. XVI.", with a comma substituted for the period following Stansby's name. In other words, the Stansby alone (which appears only in large-paper copies) imprint was first machined, then modified for the imprint with Lownes. Then, with the comma following Stansby's name still in place from the small-paper Poëtaster title-page, titles for Sejanus (both large- and small-paper) were machined, reading "London, | Printed by William Stansby, | [rule] | M. DC. XVI." For Volpone a new imprint was composed, with the following identifiable characteristics:[26] 1) "London" with a distinctive "dot" (no doubt caused by an air bubble when the letter was cast) near the bottom of the vertical of the letter "L"; 2) in Stansby a new "t", the horizontal no longer tilting up to the right; 3) a longer rule (fifty-two millimeters rather than forty), between Stansby's name and the date; 4) in the date, a new "X," with a bulge at the bottom of the left foot. This imprint was left standing for plays six and seven,[27] Volpone and Epicoene. It appears also on the title-page of Every Man In His Humour. As this imprint became altered during the printing of play eight, The Alchemist, we can infer that at least the first part (in fact, the first gathering) of Every Man In was printed about the same time as Volpone (which runs from 2O4 to 2X4v) and Epicoene (from 2X5 through 3D5v).


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For well over thirty years Dr. Gerritsen has been aware that "the first quire [of Every Man In] was printed off roughly concurrently with the first quires of Epicoene."[28] Gerritsen bases his conclusions on evidence he derived chiefly from the headlines in the volume, although how, precisely, he does not explain. Other evidence, that of the watermarks, can be brought to bear, although it is only somewhat helpful in determining when quire A of Every Man In may have been printed. I have made a chart of all the watermarks (there are more than three dozen of them) in twenty-two small-paper copies of the Folio. A watermark I have designated 12 (two-handled pot with the letters PLS, topped with grapes) appears the most frequently of any in the Folio, but, except in Every Man In, not before the third play, Cynthia's Revels. Watermark 5 (one-handled pot with the letters OLC[?] and the date 1613) appears several places in the Folio, but most frequently in the fifth play, Poëtaster, then in Epicoene and the first two quires of The Alchemist; it also appears very often in A3.4 of Every Man In. Both the imprints and the watermarks, then, are consistent with Gerritsen's opinion about the printing of quire A. The evidence of the watermarks is much more compelling (which is just as well because, so far as I know, there isn't much other evidence) as it concerns the printing of the last five quires of Every Man In. My watermarks 6 and 7 (difficult to describe — each in its own way a misshapen pot) do not appear at all in the Folio until Epigrammes,[29] which follows the last play, Catiline. Those two watermarks appear often in the last five quires of Every Man In, though never in the first.

The imprint of Volpone, Epicoene, and Every Man In appears in the title-page of The Alchemist in some copies of the Folio. However, part way through the printing of that play the period following Stansby's name went missing,[30] perhaps pulled out by an inking ball, and is not to be found in most copies. For Catiline, the imprint was somewhat changed. A new period (somewhat flattened on the bottom) was installed after Stansby's name, the "y" at the end of Stansby's name slipped down (at the same time that the period was replaced?), and the space between the lines (the one above "London" and the one between Stansby's name and the date) was reduced to thirty-four millimeters from thirty-nine. However, the "L" with the distinctive "dot" was retained, as was the "X" with the bulge at the bottom of the left foot. There are four printed title-pages in the remainder of the volume, for Epigrammes (with which The Forrest appears), for Part of the King's Entertainment, for the Entertainment . . . at Althorpe, and for Masques at Court. Stansby's name appears on none of these title-pages. All bear the imprint: "London, | [rule] | M. DC. XVI.", which small fragment seems to have been left standing for the printing of all four.


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Stansby's men, it would seem, left standing as much matter as they could for the printing of the volume, even if that matter amounted to very little, perhaps no more than a few words. Their practice has proven useful for this study, as the evidence uncovered through a close look at the standing type confirms the order of the printing of the plays. A good example is the fragment "The Author B. I.," which remains unchanged on all of the plain title-pages from Every Man Out to Epicoene and Every Man In. Depending upon the heaviness of the inking, the serifs at the bottom of the letter "A" in this bit of standing type are flat at the base and are scarcely separated at the middle of the letter; even when the inking is relatively light, there is usually a "shadow" between them. Different type is used for "The Author B. I." on the title-pages of The Alchemist and Catiline, which can be determined also by the letter "A." The "A" of "Author" in the title-pages for the last two plays has serifs which are clearly separated and which have slight, but quite discernible, curves in the base. The practice of leaving small portions of type standing began early on in the printing of the Folio, but not, apparently, from the outset. The dramatis personae page for Every Man Out is headed by "The Names of the Actors" (sig. G2v); this is altered for all of the following plays (including Every Man In) to "The Persons of the Play," obviously altogether different. Not so obvious are the differences between various versions of the latter. For Cynthia's Revels, "The Persons" is distinguished by a "dot" about one-third down the vertical of the letter "T," very much similar to the "dot" in the letter "L," discussed above. One can say with a fair degree of certainty that the type was distributed, for the same distinctive letter appears in "THE END" at the conclusion of the play. A different "T" is found in "The Persons" of Poëtaster. This one is not particularly distinctive, but it is clearly different from the "T" of "The Persons" of Sejanus, in which the left part of the horizontal slants slightly downward and the right part wants the downturning serif which, more often than not, is a part of an upper-case "T." Such a serif is to be found in "the Persons" for Volpone and for the plays printed afterward, including Every Man In. Indeed the type seems to have been left standing for the printing of the last four plays.[31]

There are several examples of the same standing type being used for the final pages of some plays.[32] Details of type face, of punctuation, and of upper- and lower-case type vary enough that patterns can be detected in the printing of these final pages; one such pattern provides further evidence that the last part of Catiline was printed within some proximity of the last part of Every Man In. The heading that was fashioned for the final page of Every Man Out became the model for all of the rest of the plays in the volume: "This Comicall Satyre [or 'Comoedy' or 'Tragoedy'] was first |


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acted in the yeere | 1599 [or other]." The type for the heading of the final page of Every Man Out was distributed. A new setting, worded just the same except for the date, was made up for Cynthia's Revels. It was decided, however, that a headline with a page number should be added[33] and that a comma was needed after "acted," which punctuation was retained for all of the rest of the plays. That Stansby's men did not simply insert the comma and retain the rest of the type can be seen in the "w" of "was." In that for Every Man Out, the second of the four strokes distinctly curves back toward the beginning of the letter. In that for Cynthia's Revels, the stroke is perfectly straight. This heading was left intact for the final page of Poëtaster. Indeed, virtually the entire page was left standing, the only alterations required being a change of date and a change of the names of two (of six) actors. Some newly set type was required for the final page of the next play, for Sejanus is, of course, a tragedy, not a comical satire. It is worth noting at this point that the "Tragœdie" is here set with a ligature "œ" in a smaller font than that for the rest of the word. Also, the second element on the page had to be set anew. "By the then Children of Queene | Elizabeths | Chappell." served for both Cynthia's Revels and Poëtaster; for Sejanus and for the next play, Volpone, it reads: "By the Kings Maiesties | Servants." It is at least likely that this is the same type, for in each case the capital "M" is a swash letter. The heading for the final page of Volpone ("This Comœdie was first | acted, in the yeere | 1605") was altered. It had originally been set with the same ligature "œ" as that used in "Tragœdie" on the final page of Sejanus. Early in the run, apparently, the ligature was replaced with separate letters of the correct font.[34] Save for a necessary change in the date, the entire heading seems to have been left intact for The Alchemist.

Except for the heading, after Volpone was printed, most of the type for the final page was distributed. The second element of Epicoene, which had been performed by the Children of the Revels was, of course, different from that of Volpone. Although for The Alchemist its wording was the same as that for Sejanus and Volpone, one can easily see that the type is different because the "M" of "Majesties" is not a swash. The final page of Catiline was set entirely new. The heading reads: "This Tragoedy was first | Acted, in the Yeere | 1611." The lower-case "a" for "acted" in all earlier plays is now upper-case. The second element is: "By the Kings Maiesties | Servants." "Kings" is in roman type and a swash "M" has again been employed. There is yet another piece of evidence that the entire page has been newly set. The last element on each of the final pages is a single line of type,


161

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invariably reading: "With the allowance of the Master of Revells" In the case of Every Man Out, for which all of the type on the final page was distributed, there is, as one would expect, a clear dot over the single "i." In Cynthia's Revels, the "i" in "With" is different from that of the earlier version; on the final page of Cynthia's Revels the "dot" is a mere fragment in a piece of slightly broken type (in some copies it prints so faintly that it can scarcely be seen). And in the final pages of the plays following, from Pöetaster through Volpone, the "dot" is missing altogether. The newly set final page of Catiline and the final page of Every Man In have two details in common, the upper-case "A" in "Acted" in the heading and a dot over the "i" in "With" in the bottom line. That is, the word "Tragœdy" was removed from the first line and was replaced by "Comoedy," and the date was changed to 1598. The second line, "Acted, in the Yeere," seems to have been left intact. One cannot be absolutely certain that "Acted, in the Yeere" was unchanged or that the bottom line was. But given the practice of Stansby's shop, at least in the production of the Jonson Folio, the assumption is a reasonable one. Thus, it makes sense to conclude that the final pages of the last two plays were printed within some temporal proximity of each other. As the evidence of the watermarks seems to confirm that the last quires of Every Man In were machined after the printing of Epigrammes was begun, it is very likely that those quires were the final parts of Jonson's plays that Stansby printed.

Appendix I: Skeletons in the original and corrected sheets of Every Man Out of His Humour.

                                           
Quire  Sig.  Running-Title  Sig.  Running-Title  Skeleton 
—   6v   —  
1v   —   —  
—   5v   —  
2v   —   —   —  
—   4v   —   —  
3v   —   —   —  
6v  
1v   II 
5v   IV 
2v   f1   III 
4v   II 
3v  
f1   6v   III 
1v   IV 
5v  
2v   II 
f1   4v   III 
3v   IV 
6v   II 
1v   IV 
5v  

162

Page 162
                                                                                             
2v   f2   III 
4v  
3v   II 
f2   6v   III 
1v   II 
5v   IV 
2v  
f2   4v   III 
3v   IV 
6v  
1v  
5v   IV 
2v  
f2   4v   III 
3v  
6v   IV 
1v   II 
5v  
2v   II 
4v   IV 
3v   f2   III 
6v   II 
1v   IV 
5v  
2v   IV 
4v  
3v   f2   III 
f2   6v   —   —  
1v   —   —  
5v   —   —  
2v   —   —  
[35]   4v   —   —  
3v   f2   III 
Reset G  —   6v   †  —  
1v   —   †  —  
—   5v   †  —  
2v   —   —   —  
—   4v   —   —  
3v   —   —   —  
Reset H  6v   VI 
1v   VII 
5v   VII 
2v   VII 
4v   VI 
3v   VI 
Reset I3.4  4v   VI 
3v   VI (alt.) 


163

Page 163

The difference between f1 and f2 is that in the former the is of His is two separate letters; in the latter, is is a ligature. Otherwise, the two running-titles appear to be identical.

Quire P comprises the last eight pages of Every Man Out and the preliminary matter (i. e., title-page [verso blank], Dedication, and Persons of the Play) for Cynthia's Revels.

Appendix II: Variant readings in quires G, H, and I3.4 not noticed in Herford and Simpson (H&S format).

G2, p. 75

         
Original   Altered Original   Reset   Corrected Reset  
Ded. 18  use-full  use full  use-full  use-full 
19  For so  For so  For, so  For so, 
it:  it:  it.  it. 
20  gowne  gowne  gowne,  gowne, 

The Altered Original always appears with the fourth (last Original) variant of G5v (see below). The single change in it is the result of the disappearance of the hyphen from "use-full" in line 18, which must have occured during the machining of the forme, for in one copy (of nine) of this variant, the hyphen is present.

The headline from the reset G5, with the page number "81" mistakenly left in place, was used for the headline of the reset and corrected reset of G2.

Gerritsen points out (p. 53) that the largest block of italic type (the body of the Dedication) was not reset, which is almost correct. The first two lines were, in fact, reset; there were several alterations in punctuation later in the text.

G2v, p. 76

In their "Survey of the Text," for line 13 H&S fail to italicize "their servant" (IX, 53) but do get it right in the play (III, 422). For line 23 they note in the "corrected" state: "Rustici" (above "Fungoso"), which also appears in their edition of the play. I have not been able to find this variant anywhere, including in the Grenville copy at the British Library, which is cited in their notes (IX, 53). This ghostly fragment may be similar to a couple noted by Parker in his edition of Volpone (p. 358).

             
G3, p.77  Original   Reset  
Char. 10  falls  fals 
16  singularity  singualaritie 
27  de- | formity  de- | formitie 
G3v, p.78  41  Hee  He 
43  neede  need 
44  marchant  merchant 

164

Page 164
                       
63  Lady  Ladie 
CW  Sor-  Sor. 
G4, p. 79  67  Al- | manacks . . .  Al- | manackes . . . 
felicity  felicitie 
70  Fungoso  Fungosa 
75  aimes  aymes 
79  Gentleman  gentleman 
84  Souldier  souldier 
94  he. . . . He  hee. . . . Hee 
G4v, p. 80  112  discreet,  discreet 
G5, p. 81  [H&S seem to have noticed all variants.] 
G5v, p. 82  Ind. 56  friends.  friends, 

There are at least five states of G5v, four in the original and one in the reset. The stage-direction, between lines 51 and 52, "Here hee makes address to the People," appears at "the left extending into the outer margin, . . . [and at] the right, extending to the inner margin" (H&S, IX, 54). In at least one copy the stage direction at the right is broken off after the first letter of the. The page also appears without the stage-direction, both in the original and in the reset. The most likely order is this: The stage-direction at the left was thought unsightly and it was moved to the inner margin; when the stage-direction broke, it was removed and several lines of the page were re-spaced, "giving the page an irregular look" (H&S, IX, 53). When the page was reset the lines were spaced evenly.

G6, p. 83

Herford and Simpson seem to have noticed all the variants between the original and the reset page. In their assessment of the reasons for the changes, however, they are wrong, misled by their belief in the authority of "large-paper" (including "Ford") copies. They contend that "one change on pages 82 and 83 of the Folio . . . corrected a printer's error in the setting of the verse. Jonson liked his lines to be marshalled in even column, and he kept strictly to the verse-arrangement when a speech did not begin the line" (III, 416). It is much more likely that the printer was rearranging lines so that the page of the reset would end at the same place as the original.

         
G6v, p. 84  Original   Corrected   Reset  
Ind.103  Metaphore  Metaphore   Metaphore (swash M
138  Worthy  Worthy  Worthie 
139  this,  this?  this? 
145  crush . . . soules  squeeze . . . soules  squeeze . . . natures 

Herford and Simpson note: "This quire [G] shows a corrected state in lines 103, 139, 140, 142, and 145. The readings found in M1, Ford, and S3 [the copies that they consider to be large-paper] alone are a resetting." Broadly speaking, they are right, but they do not deal with the most significant implication of what they say. The corrected readings, as noted above, are always to be preferred to the reset — when the distinction can be made.


165

Page 165

                                                                                                 
H1, p. 85  Original   Reset  
151  ready  readie 
153  censors,  censors 
154  liberally  liberally. 
163  several  severall 
172  'Tis  Tis 
H1v, p. 86  [219  Arte (swash A Arte
[237  Acts (swash A Acts
H2, p. 87  240  fall  fal 
259  kinde  kind 
265  elegancie  elegancy 
268  bee  be 
273  Insula   Insula,  
278  seas  Seas 
282  countries  countreys 
286  auditorie  auditory 
291  staid a little |  stayed a lit- | tle 
H2v, p. 88  298  necessity  necessitie 
305  How?  How, 
307  did or |  did | or 
308  but 'twill not |  but | 'twill not 
310  pro- | logue  Pro- | logue 
311  poyson'd  poison'd 
312  two-penny  two-pennie 
326  him,  him 
327  well-timberd  well timbred 
330  said. . . . cup  saide. . . . cuppe 
331  diamond  Diamond 
H3, p. 89  337  mary  marie 
342  do'  do's 
344  withall  with all 
345  He  Hee 
346  Man . . . humour: Sbloud  man . . . Humour: Sblood 
347  humour hee . . . mee  Humour he . . . me 
348  Gentles  Gentiles 
[350  No   No (swash N)] 
351  be thirsty  bee thirstie 
353  play  Play 
354  Cordatus?  Cordatus. 
356  He  Hee 
363  varietie  variety 
367  he  hee 
368  Atheistical  Atheisticall 
369  hee'le ap- | peare  hee'le | 
I.i  Viri est   Viriest  
[ferre (swash e ferre
Stoique  Stoicke 
every  everie 
cor'sive  corr'sive 

There is one alteration in the original: "GREX." (following line 353) and "Act I. Scene I. | Macilente" are in some copies off center, to the left, but in other copies are centered.


166

Page 166

                                                                                                             
H3v, p. 90  Original   Corrected   Reset  
14  [My (swash M My (swash M My
minde   minde   minde  
15  hungrie . . . foode.  hungrie . . . foode.  hungry . . . food 
21  third,  third,  third 
27  eye-balls  eye-balls  eye-bals 
34  incutitq   incutitq   incutique  
I.ii  Nay . . . Carlo  Nay . . . Carlo  Nay, . . . Carlo  
(dropped)  Car. A . . .  Car. A . . . 
resolution.  resolution. 
CW  Car  Sog  Sog. 
H4, p. 91  tay- | lors  tay- | lors  Tay- | ors 
20  Sogliardo  Sogliardo  Sogliardo  
21  you | affect to be  you | affect to be  you affect | to bee 
22  qualities, |  qualities, |  qualities, hu- | mours 
24  signior  Signior  Signior 
27  me- | dicine  me- | dicine  medi- | cine 
29  you, and  you, and  you, & 
32  Macil.  Macil.  Maci. 
39  city  city  Citie 
42  trunks  trunks  trunkes 
43  conju- | rer . . . be  conju- | rer . . . be  con- | jurer . . . bee 
44  the spring |  the spring |  the | spring 
45  behaviour | in all:  behaviour | in all;  beha- | viour in all; 
[49  As   As   As (swash A)] 
49  are a are a are | a  
52  he . . . choose  he . . . choose  hee . . . chuse 
53  gentleman  gentleman  Gentleman 
H4v, p. 92  59  boot;  boot, 
60  else | as  else as | 
68  city  citie 
69  marchants  Merchants 
72  suppe  sup 
73  hire | a  hire a | 
74  be  bee 
77  kins- | man   kinsman
78  there | (while  there (while | 
79  enquiry . . . health, or | so)  enquirie . . . health, or so) one | 
80  carry . . . breakes | it  carrie . . . breakes it up | 
81  publikely  publikly 
82  you | must  you must | 
83  Mi- | stris  Mistresses | 
84  hot | grace  hot grace | 
88  this.  this: 
106  policy  policie 
111  credi- | tor  cre- | ditor 
115  pliant  plyant 
118  new-yeares  new-yeeres 
H5, p. 93  124  tragedies  Tragedies 
125  Mary  Marie 
128  feare,  feare 
130  penny  pennie 
136  lye  lie 
137  [Mercuries] . . . me  [Mercuries (swash M)] . . . mee 
138  they had | not  they | had 

167

Page 167
                                                               
146  citie  Citie 
152  Signior  signior 
153  i'faith  if'aith 
160  wild  wilde 
166  al . . . straies  all . . . strayes 
169  pitty  pittie 
H5v, p. 94  177  Sir  sir 
185  tell  tel 
193  ordinarie  ordinary 
194  beene . . . readie  been . . . ready 
198  well. . . . we  wel. . . . we 
205  that.  that: 
212  he  hee 
213  chap- | falne  chop- | falne 
219  he be  hee bee 
220  him,  him. 
223  and I, |  and | I, 
224,  citie, wee | . . . meet  citie, | we . . . meete 
H6, p. 95  225  shun  shunne 
229  devill  divell 
I.iii.  14  yeere. . . . see,  year. . . . see 
17  xxi  xxj 
19  xxvi  xxvj 
23  xxxi. . . . S'lid  xxxj. . . . Slid 
24  saies | he  sayes he | 
26  here's . . . rogue,  her's . . . rogue. 
H6v, p. 96  35  fortie  forty 
38  bee  be 
44  daies  dayes 
61  booke,  booke. 
63  me  mee 
75  skin  skinne 

In the original and corrected quire H, very often the lower case "w" is set with two "v"s, but almost always with the single "w" in the reset.

                         
I3, p. 101  II.i  Original   Reset  
70  be  bee 
80  'Fore  Fore 
85  of an- | other  of | another 
86  to your |  to | your 
91  a ha- | bit  a | habit 
96  lie  lye 
97  muske-cat  musk-cat 
100  sweetnesse  sweetnes 
106  envy | this  en- | vy this 
107  yfaith. How |  yfaith. | How 
115  bounty  bountie 
CW  exceeding 

The last line of original I3, "I have heard this knight Pvntarvolo, reported to bee a gentleman of" is shifted in the reset to the top of I3v, where "gentleman" is altered to "Gentleman."


168

Page 168

                                                                         
I3v, p. 102  Original   Corrected   Reset  
124  hobby  hobby  hobbie 
129  he  he  hee 
133  he  he  hee 
137  hee  hee  he 
139  lady  lady  Lady 
141  gentleman  gentleman  Gentleman 
145  lady  lady  Ladie 
150  as | first,  as | first,  as first, | 
151  he has | his  he has | his  hee has his | 
152  shee . . . out, | and  shee . . . out, | and  she . . . out, and | 
153  hee . . . shee  hee . . . shee  he . . . she 
154  gentle- | men.  gentle- | men.  gentlemen. | 
163  saies  saies  sayes 
166  1Saies  1saies  1saies 
I4, p. 103  180  pleasing |  pleasing |  pleasing ob- | 
object  object  ject 
II.ii  enclosed  enclosed  inclosed 
above.  above!  above! 
eye  eye  eie 
11  retire  retire  retyre 
36  studied  studied  studyed 
38  play  play  Play 
39  e'en  e'en  e'ene 
40  edifice;  edifice!  edifice! 
I4v, p. 104  46  melancholy:  melancholy. 
55  'Slud  Slud 
53  twise  twice 
62  beyond-sea  beyond-seas 
65  back  backe 
68  hee goes | to church  he goes to | Church 
71  he  hee 
72  capacity  capacitie 
74  Shee  She 
77  qua- | lified  quali- | fied 
89  he does? | Looke,  hee does? Looke, | 
90  on: | and  on: and the dogge | 

Notes

 
[1]

Gerritsen, rev. of Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford and Percy and Evelyn Simpson, vols. IX — XI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950 — 52), English Studies 38 (1957), 121. All citations of Jonson are from this edition, 11 vols. (1925 — 52), referred to hereafter as H&S; i/j and u/v have been regularized to conform with modern practice. I am grateful to John Bidwell for his useful advice.

[2]

These succinct terms are those of W. W. Greg, in A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama to the Restoration (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1939 — 1959; rprt. 1970), III, 1071. For convenience, I shall use Greg's terminology where I can.

[3]

R. B. McKerrow and F. S. Ferguson, Title-page Borders used in England & Scotland, 1485 — 1640 (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1932). McKerrow and Ferguson, who do not note the Jonson title-pages, mistakenly cite for the first appearance of the compartment several of the subtitles in Stansby's "1617" printing of Hooker's Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie. Even though the Hooker subtitle for Book 5 bears the date "1616," it can be seen that the Jonson plays must have been printed earlier. The woodcut border sustained damage during its use; the crack "through the jewel at the foot on left" noticed by McKerrow and Ferguson (p. 177) began to appear as the in compartment title-page for Poëtaster was being machined.

[4]

"Alone" is Greg's term; it signifies that no other name appears with Stansby's in the imprint.

[5]

I follow the spelling of Smithwicke as it appears on the title-pages instead of the more usual spelling of Smethwick or Smethwicke, as found in Herford and Simpson, Greg, and the New STC.

[6]

At one place in Epicoene ("sheet Yy [Act I and Act II up to scene ii, line 64]"), to account for sloppy printing in all three of the large-paper copies that they consulted, they offer the following conjecture: "The dislocation in sheet Yy must have occurred when the edition was being printed off and after Jonson had passed the proofs. It was probably due to an accident in the printing-house — for instance, to a workman dropping the formes. It was reset without consulting Jonson. What would he have said if he had discovered a copy in this state can be but faintly imagined" (V, 148 — 149). See, also, IX, 40.

[7]

Herford and Simpson also mistakenly assume that the reset page 84 (sig. G6v) appears only in large-paper copies (IX, 56).

[8]

"The Final Quires of the Jonson 1616 Workes: Headline Evidence," Studies in Bibliography, 40 (1987), 119. See, also, J. A. Riddell, "The Concluding Pages of the Jonson Folio of 1616," SB 47 (1994), 147 — 154. Gerritsen has noticed several large-paper sheets in Every Man Out with the original settings (p. 54 in "Stansby and Jonson Produce a Folio," English Studies, 40 [1959], 52 — 55).

[9]

As Stansby's men, like others, used swash and "normal" italic letters indifferently, it seems most likely that those letters were distributed into the same compartments. McKerrow notes that "these swash letters, whatever may have been their original purpose, seem to have been used at all times absolutely interchangeably with the plain letters in all positions." He also notes that such use itself may be of interest in bibliographical investigation (R. B. McKerrow, Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927; 2nd impr., corrected 1928], p. 296). For a few more examples (on one page) in the Jonson Folio see: the penultimate line in the Prologue for Epicoene (sig. 2Yv, original and reset), the plain and swash "M" in "Muse"; two lines further on the same page, the plain and swash "A" in "Another"; fifteen lines further on the same page, the plain and swash "A" in "Act" (that the plain and swash letters were used indifferently can also be inferred from the fact that on both the original and the reset page there is one plain "A" and one swash, that is, they were merely exchanged between "Another" and "Act" in the reset). Throughout the volume swash and plain varieties of "A" are used willy-nilly in the word "Act." See, also, the discussion of swash and plain "M" in the final pages of the plays, below.

[10]

The textual apparatus for Every Man Out is silent on the matter; the "it is" for "'tis" which appears in the reset variant is ascribed in the apparatus only to the 1640 and 1692 Folios. The "it is" of the reset variant is recorded in the "Textual Survey" (IX, 56), where the implication is that only large-paper copies had the reset G6v sheet. In fact, it appears also in a number of small-paper copies.

[11]

British Library, shelf-mark G. 11630.

[12]

A greater bibliographer could make the same mistake. Jackson incorrectly identified the Elizabethan Club (Dent-Gott) copy as being large-paper (William A. Jackson, The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library, English Literature, 1475 — 1700, 3 vols. [New York: (The Merrill Press), 1940], II, 573, n.). Large-paper copies can most easily be identified by watermark. So far as I am aware, there is only one kind of watermark in the large-paper copies; it is characterized by a shield with three lions. I have briefly discussed this topic on pages 152 — 153 in "The Concluding Pages of the Jonson Folio of 1616."

[13]

Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1932, pp. 6 — 7. That it is the copy that Herford and Simpson consulted, see H&S, IX, 40.

[14]

Ford does not say how he measured the width of the page. He gives the width of the Grenville large-paper copy as 8 ⅖” and the Douce as 7 ¼”; I make them to be no more than 8 ¼” and 7”. After this article was completed, the Huntington Library was given by Mr. Kendrick Schlatter a collection of books that included 1616 — 1640 Jonson Folios, with the following in pencil on the free endpaper of the first volume: "Note these two volumes are | those chiefly mentioned in | Collation of the Ben Jonson Folios | 1616 — 31 — 40 — — Oxford 1932 — — | By H L Ford." The first of these is the volume that Ford calls his "premier copy," and an inspection of it reveals his method of measuring. He measured the vertical dimension off of a page (11 ⅛”); he measured the horizontal along the inside cover from the back of the spine to the front edge of the cover (7 ⁷⁄₁₆”). The volume is printed, as I had supposed, on small paper stock. There is confirmation that the volumes are those owned by Ford from the text of Vol. II. The "trial title-page" for Bartholmew Fayre, as described and illustrated by Herford and Simpson (VI, 4 and 9) is that present in the Schlatter set. Herford and Simpson identify the photo illustration on page 9 as coming from Ford's copy. The Schlatter copy is identical, including a distinctive small ink mark below the left-hand side of the epigraph and a smudge below the right-hand side.

[15]

Huntington, 12 ⅝”; Clark, 12 ⅜”; Grenville (British Library), 12 ¾” (as noted by Ford [I measure it as 12 ⅝”]); Crocker, 13 ¼” (as noted by Jackson).

[16]

Greg uses a set of symbols; I have translated the symbols into letters for convenience.

[17]

Greg's four title-pages and my six are reconciled thus: Greg makes no distinction between (3) and (4), but he does note a "variant: without Hor. in the margin," without attempting to account for it. He makes no distinction between (2) and (6).

[18]

On the other hand, a copy at the Folger (shelfmark 14751, copy 3) can boast two, one in compartment and an (added) plain.

[19]

The unusual, perhaps now unique, copy at the Bodleian (Douce, I. 302).

[20]

At the William A. Clark Library (shelf-mark PR 2600 / 1616), Harvard (Widener 60 — 1116), and Beinecke (1978 / +50).

[21]

Why Smithwicke's (or Smethwick's) name should appear at all is not clear, for as Greg notes, he "had no traceable interest" in the play (III, 1072).

[22]

The accounting of Herford and Simpson is, of course, only partial: "A minor variant is the omission of 'Hor.' in both forms of the title-page, its insertion in the right margin in some copies [i. e., number (4)], and the centering of it above the quotation in the large-paper copies [i. e., number (6)]" (IX, 20, n. 2).

[23]

For a chart of the distribution of the skeletons and a description of the alteration, see Appendix I.

[24]

Another skeleton, "VII," is used for the rest of the formes.

[25]

Some "mysterious resettings [on T2.5, 2X1.6, 3A1.6, and 3T1.6] made after the Folio had been published," perhaps about 1640, as suggested by Herford and Simpson (IX, 40), apparently do not bear on the present argument. It should be mentioned that all of these "mysterious resettings" derive from only one source, the "mysterious" Ford "A" copy. Gerritsen adds to the "reset" sheets of the Oxford editors Q3.4, 2M1.6, and 3L3.4, but thinks that all were printed much earlier than 1640 ("Stansby and Jonson Produce a Folio," p. 55). Whatever reset sheets there may be other than those for quires G and H and I3.4, they would have been reset for some reason other than enlarging the press-run.

[26]

Most likely the entire imprint was newly composed. These are the distinctive qualities that I could identify.

[27]

I number the plays in the order of their appearance in the Folio.

[28]

Johan Gerritsen, "Stansby and Jonson Produce a Folio," p. 54.

[29]

Except in two sheets (of a possible sixty-six) the misshapen watermarks do not appear in Epigrammes until about half way through the printing of that section, but after that they appear with great frequency.

[30]

It seems to have lasted through about ten or twelve percent of the press-run. Of twenty-seven copies that I have recently examined, including three large-paper, three (all small-paper) have the comma present.

[31]

It may well be that other small bits of type were left standing, for instance, "A Comœdie," as it appears on the title-pages of Epicoene and Every Man In, but in most cases the type is so regular that one cannot be sure.

[32]

I have not detected any variants in these final pages, and none is noticed by Herford and Simpson.

[33]

The page number is set within parentheses, between rules, in the center of the page. Such page numbers appear on all final pages of plays after Every Man Out.

[34]

R. B. Parker finds the ligature in three of the forty copies of the Folio that he collated for his Revels edition of Volpone (1983, p. 357). He also notes that Dr. Gerritsen had seen eight copies with it; I have seen it in two copies of twenty seven that I have recently examined. Parker calls it "State 3," although it should be considered to be the first of two states. Parker's "State 2" (with "Como die," missing the medial "e") is simply an error, one which I think I must have introduced when I corresponded with Professor Parker as he was working on his edition, some twenty years ago.

[35]

The dagger represents the running-title introduced at P3 and reused (though with different rules) three times in reset quire G.