University of Virginia Library

LINES PER PAGE, ENGRAVINGS, AND CATCHWORDS IN MILTON’S 1720 POETICAL WORKS

By Hao Tianhu *

John Milton’s Poetical Works published by Jacob Tonson II in 1720 is an important edition, not the least because Richard Bentley, "the greatest ever English classical scholar,"1 adopted it as the working copy for his "notorious"2 1732 edition of Paradise Lost. This lavish pair of large quarto volumes (with main sections of 590 and 527 pages respectively) included many engraved tailpieces, which placed special demands on the compositors. By analyzing material traces seldom examined—such as lines of text per page—we can infer with reasonable certainty how they operated. Along the way we may provide a rationale for some of the catchword errors3 by connecting these inconsistencies with the printing and publishing of the book, especially illustration.

The Tonsons were well known for publishing deluxe books. William Thomas Lowndes, an eminent bibliographer of the early nineteenth century, defined Caesar’s Commentaries brought out by Jacob Tonson I in 1712 as "the most sumptuous classical work which England has produced."4 The 1720 Milton is typically adorned with rich illustrations. Engraved vignettes open and conclude each of the books of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and the tragedy Samson Agonistes, finely framing the grand poems in pictorial art. Additionally, the first item in Poems, Lycidas, has a special headpiece. These thirty-five vignettes, plus eighteen historiated initials, help produce what Marcia R. Pointon calls "a splendid and expensive edition rather in the manner of the Venetian illustrated book of the

period."5 R. G. Moyles, another modern scholar, confirms it as "impressively beautiful ... a much-coveted book."6 Pointon compares Louis Chéron, the illustrator responsible for most of the decorations in the edition, unfavorably with John Baptist Medina, another early illustrator of Milton, but still admits that "Chéron’s illustrations are nearly always more skillfully composed than Medina’s and [that] the tailpieces and historiated initials make for a much richer general effect."7 The list of 334 subscribers in volume 1 indicates that the costly book was eagerly sought after by aristocratic and elite readers (dukes, duchesses, earls, lords, sirs, esquires, doctors, ladies, and the like).8

Clearly Tonson strived to meet the aesthetic demands of his prominent customers. The paper used (printing medium, 585 x 455 mm) makes a large and handsome object, and the 22-line page adds much elegance. Our count of lines of poetic text on a typical full page excludes the headline and the direction-line. The standard number of lines is 22, with occasional variations of 21 or 23. When a 23rd line occurs it crowds the page and sometimes includes both part of the text and a catchword. But this additional line occurs only in less important works—in Addison’s Notes in volume 1, and in Poems in volume 2, beginning toward the end of A Mask.9 All the major poems, Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and Lycidas, which are pictorially ornamented, contain no crowded pages. The different typographical treatment of the minor works and the major poems is dictated by, and also registers, the hierarchical status of the two categories of text. The publisher’s typographical intervention participates imperceptibly yet actively in the reception of the author and the construction of textual meaning.

The 21-line pages occur in the major works, as table 1 shows.

These typographical irregularities can be explained by aesthetic necessities. The plate mark of the vignette at the end of a book usually occupies a space of ten lines or more. Thus we find some pages toward the end of a book or poem composed in 21 lines, to avoid the awkward situation either of a section closing on a page with insufficient space left for the tailpiece or of the tailpiece being printed alone (with no text) on a separate page. In all the above sections, the normal 22-line pages would lead to such an awkward situation, and the spatial demand of the tailpiece required the reduction of some pages to 21 lines (Lycidas is an exception; see below). At the same time, the compositors also had to take care not to add too many lines of text to the pages containing tailpieces, lest an image not fit between the text and the catchword. The hazard is evident at the end of Book VII of Paradise Lost, 2R1r (1.305) and at the end of Samson Agonistes, 2C3r (2.197), where the image of the engraving barely fits between the printed

Table I. Pages with 21 lines in Milton’s Poetical Works (1720)

                           

Section	First page with 21 lines	Last page of the section	Number of pages with 21 lines	Number of lines on the last page
PL, Bk. I	1.31 (E4r)	1.40 (F4v)	9	10
Bk. II	1.79 (L4r)	1.92 (N2v)	13	7
Bk. IV	1.169 (Z1r)	1.180 (2A2v)	11	9
Bk. V	1.217 (2F1r)	1.225 (2G1r)	8	8
Bk. VII	1.293 (2P3r)	1.305 (2R1r)	12	9
Bk. IX	1.385 (3D1r)	1.398 (3E3v)	13	9
Bk. X	1.441 (3L1r)	1.452 (3M2v)	10 (3M2r, 22 ll.)	9
Bk. XI	1.483 (3Q2r)	1.497 (3S1r)	14	8
PR, Bk. II	2.39 (F4r)	2.48 (G4v)	9	6
Bk. III	2.62 (I3v)	2.70 (K3v)	8	6
Bk. IV	2.91 (N2r)	2.101 (O3r)	10	6
SA	2.190 (2B3v)	2.197 (2C3r)	7	9
L	2.209 (2E1r)	2.210 (2E1v)	1	n.a.

words. The resumption of the 22-line page at 3M2r (1.451), though unnecessary (because the next page, which contains the tailpiece, has enough space for another line), shows this same concern about squeezing the engraved image. But except in Book III of Paradise Regained and in Samson Agonistes the compositors did not take particular care to start 21-line page groups on versos so that facing pages would have the same number of lines and produce a better visual effect. Still, aesthetic considerations significantly affect the physical production of this book; through the material traces extant we may discover the modus operandi of an important early-eighteenth-century printing house.

This insight into the practices of compositors also explains how a strange catchword error occurred. Since there are relatively few catchword disruptions given the size of these large volumes, the anomalies stand out all the more. In addition to the coincidence of the direction-line and the last line of the text mentioned above, we also observe the following unexpected situations: (1) the differences that occur between books in Paradise Lost, in some cases the catchword on the last page of a book of Paradise Lost signals the head title, rather than the section title, of the next book;10 (2) spelling variations;11 (3) a large number of punctuation discrepancies;12 (4) omissions, which are mostly "The Argument"

pages for the twelve books of Paradise Lost and for Samson Agonistes or intervals between sections or subsections (a notable omission is C1v of volume 1, the last line of which, being filled, has no space available for the catchword);13 and (5) shifted types.14

A majority of these, especially (2), (3), and (5), are simple errors. But two others, both in volume 2, are noteworthy: F4r (p. 39), Of [Twice,]; 2E1r (p. 209), And [Now]. In the latter case, "And" is not only the catchword but also the first word of the final line on that page: "And wipe the Tears for ever from his eyes." This page contains 21 lines and is the second to last for Lycidas (pp. 201-210); the preceding pages 202-208 are all normal 22-line ones. It may be inferred that this catchword error resulted from a problem in casting off the copy. The "And ..." line, originally intended for p. 210, had to be relocated to the preceding page to fill the space, but the catchword was not changed accordingly.

In the other instance, "Of" begins the second line on the next page (F4v). Presumably the first line on F4v, "Twice, by a voice inviting him to eat;", had been composed (or planned?) as the last line of F4r. Then the need for 21-line pages (see the table) was realized, so this line was removed from the page and reset as the first line on the next page, with the original catchword left untouched. The position of F4r as the very first 21-line page in the volume enhances the plausibility of this explanation; the compositor stumbled unexpectedly, then noted the problem and did not repeat the mistake. My record of catchword disruptions shows this to be a revised form of the original lineation. For my discussion I have examined only the Columbia University Library copy and the British Library copy (the latter is available in ECCO), which agree at this point. A census of all extant copies might discover instances of the originally planned arrangement (in which the 22-line F4r ends with the line "Twice ..." and the appropriate catchword "Of") or of a fully corrected combination (in which F4r consists of 21 lines, the catchword is "Twice," and the first line on the next page is "Twice ...").15

Overall, then, careful attention to a frequently overlooked physical feature of a book, the number of lines per page, provides insight into the way that workers three centuries ago dealt with some everyday challenges of their craft. In Tonson’s 1720 edition of Milton’s poetry this scrutiny shows us how the compositors accommodated the presence of engraved ornaments, while it also helps us understand how small inconsistencies, here with catchwords, arose in the course of their labors.