Shakspere & Typography

This man’s brow, like to a title-leaf,Foretells the nature of a tragic volume. 2 Henry IV, i, 1.

Evidently Shakspere had a good idea of what a Title-page should contain.

From Title to Preface is but a turn of the leaf, and its introductory character is thus noticed:

Is but a Preface of her worthy praise,The chief perfections of that lovely dame. 1 Henry VI, v, 5.

We must not forget a well-known passage about the introduction of Printing to England, which has caused much discussion. It is where Jack Cade accuses Lord Saye:

Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper mill.

2 Henry VI, iv, 7.

The early-invented fable of Faustus, and the assistance given him by the Devil in the multiplication of the first printed bibles (certainly a most short-sighted step on the part of his Satanic Majesty) had got fixed in the minds of the populace, and created among the ignorant a prejudice against the Printing-press, and it was to this feeling Jack Cade appealed. All our Chroniclers place the erection of a Printing-press in England some years too early, but no one except Shakspere has put the date so far back as 1450, the date of Jack Cade’s insurrection: it is simply a blunder; but it was the Printing-press and its introduction to this country that was in the Author’s brain, and the exact date of that event was unknown, being probably as difficult to arrive at then as it is now.1

We have already noticed in how simple a manner originated that grand discovery which, instead of one perishable manuscript, produced numberless printed books, and thus enabled mankind to perpetuate for ever the knowledge they had gained. The real superiority of the Press over the pen was the easy multiplication of copies, and this was the idea in the Poet’s brain when he wrote:

She carved thee for her seal and meant therebyThou shouldst print more nor let that copy die. Sonnet xi.

Type-founding has in these days arrived at such perfection, that most of the blemishes and faults common in Shakspere’s time are now unknown. Under the old system of hand moulds a type founder was sure when commencing work to cast a certain number of imperfect letters, because until the mould by use got warmed, the liquid metal solidified too soon, and the body or shank of the type was shrunk, and became no inappropriate emblem of an old man’s limbs whose hose would be

A world too wide for his shrunk shank. As You Like It, ii, 7.

The names of the various sizes of type in the sixteenth century were few compared with our modern list; Canon, Great Primer, Pica, Long Primer, and Brevier almost complete the catalogue; and however familiar Shakspere may have been with their names, it is difficult to imagine any scene in which these technical names could be introduced with propriety. Yet, of one, Nonpareil, a new small type first introduced from Holland about 1650, and which for its beauty and excellence was much admired, Shakspere seems to have conceived a most favorable idea. Prospero, praising his daughter, calls her ‘a Nonpareil’ (Tempest, Act iii, Sc. 2); Olivia is the ‘Nonpareil of beauty’ (Twelfth Night, Act i, Scene 5); and Posthumus speaks of Imogen as the ‘Nonpareil of her time’ (Cymbeline, Act ii, Scene 5).

The exactitude and precision of everything connected with the arrangement of printing from types is curiously hinted at by Touchstone, when describing the preciseness of the Courtiers’ quarrels:

We quarrel in print by the book. As You Like It, v, 4;

that is, no step was taken except according to acknowledged rules.

It often happens when a book comes to its last sheet that the text runs short, and two or three blank or vacant pages remain at the end. In the middle of one of these it is usual to place the typographer’s imprint. What compositor is there who has rejoiced in such fat pages2 but will not at once recognise the following allusion:

The vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,And of this book this learning mayst thou taste. Sonnet lxxvii.

People with a grievance write now-a-days to the Newspapers, in hope of redress. In Shakspere’s time the only method to make wrongs public and to show up abuses was by the Broadside, in prose or rhyme, passing from hand to hand. Many of these have survived to the present day, and are treasured up as curious relics of a by-gone age. They were frequently libellous and grievously personal, and hence the point of Pistol’s remark:

Fear we broadsides? 2 Henry IV, ii, 4.

We must not think here that the naval ‘broadside’ – a volley of guns from the broadside of a ship – is meant. Shakspere does not use the word once in that sense, nor was it a conversational word in his time. That Pistol was indeed thinking of a printed broad sheet is evident from the whole sentence, which, although composed of disjointed exclamations continues with the following expressions, both strongly suggestive of the Composing room or Reader’s closet:

Come we to full points here? and are etceteras nothing? 2 Henry IV, ii, 4.

‘Come we to full points here?’ This question is often a puzzler for both Compositor and Reader. Indeed, few things cause more disagreements between Author and Printer than the very loose ideas held by the former concerning punctuation. Some writers, like Dickens in his early days, insist upon ornamenting their sentences with little dashes and big dashes, with colons where commas should be, and with

Points that seem impossible. Pericles, v, 1.

In vain does the Printer declare that in altering the Author’s unregulated punctuation, the irate Author exclaims, that he and adds, ‘Follow

No levelled malice infests one comma, Timon, i, 1,Puts the period often from his place, Lucrece, l. 565,My point and period … ill or well. Lear, iv, 7.You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the accent. Love’s Labour Lost, iv, 2.Wherefore stand you on nice points? 3 Henry VI, iv, 7.

The Printer has no resource but compliance, which, however, unless the affront be very severe, will soon and thus heal the breach, and end all happily with mutual

Stand a comma ’tween their amities, Hamlet, v, 2,Notes of Admiration. Winter’s Tale, v, 2.

‘And are etceteras nothing?’ What a typographical question! and probably the only occasion on which so unpoetical a figure has done duty in any drama. The &c. makes an insignificant appearance in either MS. or type, and yet how often it stands for whole pages of matter. Hence the point of the question.

If a book is folio, and two pages of type have been composed, they are placed in proper position upon the imposing stone, and enclosed within an iron or steel frame called a ‘chase’, small wedges of hard wood termed ‘coigns’ or ‘quoins’ being driven in at opposite sides to make all tight.

By the four opposing coigns,Which the world together joins. Pericles, iii, 1.

This is just the description of a forme in folio where two quoins on one side are always opposite to two quoins on the other, thus together joining and tightening all the separate stamps. In a quaint allegorical poem, published anonymously about the year 1700, in which the mystery of man’s redemption is symbolised by the mystery of Printing, the author commences thus:

Great blest Master Printer, comeInto thy Composing-room;

and after ‘spiritualising’ the successive operations of the workman thus touches upon the quoins:

Let the Quoins be thy sure Election,Which admits of no Rejection;With which our Souls being joined about,Not the least Grace can then fall out.

Here, the idea of joining together by quoins so that nothing shall fall out, is just the same as in the couplet quoted from Shakspere.

The tightening of these quoins by means of a wooden-headed mallet, is called ‘locking up’, an exclusively technical term. The expression, however, occurs in ‘Measure for Measure’, IV, 2, where the idea conveyed is the same.

(There is no more conceit in him than is in a mallet, 2 Henry IV, ii, 4),Fast locked up in sleep,

The ‘Forme’ worked off and the metal chase removed, leaving the pages ‘naked’, affords the Poet the following simile, which although not carrying to the popular ear any typographical meaning, was doubtless suggested by Shakspere’s former experience of the workshop:

And he but naked though locked up in steel. 2 Henry VI, iii, 2.

The primary idea of ‘locking up’ had, doubtless, reference to ‘armour’; the secondary to printing, as shown by the use of the word ‘naked’.

The forme then went to the Press-room, where considerable ingenuity was required to make ‘register’; that is, to print one side so exactly upon the other, that when the sheet was held up to the light the lines on each side would exactly back one another. The accuracy of judgment required for this is thus glanced at:

Eno. But let the world rank me in registerA master-leaver and a fugitive. Antony and Cleopatra, iv, 9.

When the green-eyed Othello takes his wife’s hand and exclaims:

Here’s a young and sweating devil, Othello, iii, 4,

we fail at first to catch the idea of the Poet in calling a hand a ‘devil’; but take the word as synonymous with ‘messenger’, and we see at once how the moist plump palm of Desdemona suggested to the intensely jealous husband the idea of its having been the lascivious messenger of her impure desires. In this sense of ‘messenger’, the word ‘devil’ has a special fitness; for it is, and always has been among Printers, and Printers only, another word for ‘errand-boy’. In olden times, when speed was required, a boy stood at the off-side of the press, and as soon as the frisket was raised, whipped the printed sheet off the tympan. When not at work, he ran on messages between printer and author, who, on account of his inky defilement, dubbed him ‘devil’. All Printers’ boys go now by the same name:

Old Lucifer, both kind and civil,To ev’ry Printer lends a Devil;But balancing accounts each winter,For ev’ry Devil takes a Printer.

Moxon, in 1683, quotes it as an old trade word, and it was doubtless the same in Shakspere’s time, a century earlier, as it is now two centuries later. But where could Shakspere have picked up the word if not in the Printing-office?

Any one accustomed to collate old MSS. must have noticed how very seldom the copyist would, in transcribing, add nothing and omit nothing. If what the scribe considered a good idea entered his mind while his pen was travelling over the page, he was a very modest penman indeed, if he did not incorporate it in the text. From this cause, and from genuine unintentional blunders, the texts of all the old authors had become gradually very corrupt – a source of great trouble to the early Printers. With this in his mind Shakspere defines it as one of the qualities of Time

To blot old books and alter their contents. Lucrece, l. 948.

Many of Vautrollier’s publications must have been printed from discolored old manuscripts; and these papers Shakspere, if he read ‘proof’ for his employer, would have to study carefully. Does he call this to mind in Sonnet XVII?

My papers yellowed with their age.

Was it, after admiring some beautifully illuminated Horæ, that he wrote:

O that record could with a backward look,E’en of five hundred courses of the sun;Show me your image in some antique book,Since mind at first in character was done. Sonnet lix.

Does the Poet refer to its wonderfully burnished gold initials, and the red dominical letters which he must often have seen in the printed calendars, when he exclaims in tones of admiration:

My red dominical – my golden letter! Love’s Labour Lost, v, 2.

The old calendar had a golden number and a dominical letter, but not a golden letter, which last must refer specifically to the practice of gilding important initials. ‘Golden Letters’ are mentioned in ‘King John’, III, 1, and in ‘Pericles’, IV, 4, while the red initials, which were common to both manuscripts and printed books of the fifteenth century, are made by Shakspere the death warrant of the unfortunate Clerk of Chatham, against whom is brought the fatal accusation that he

Has a book in his pocket with red letters in ’t. 2 Henry VI, iv, 2.

In Shakspere’s time, as we have already noticed (p. 41, ante), the press laboured under great restrictions. All books with a profitable circulation were monopolised by favored stationers or printers who held special patents or licenses from the Crown. Thus Reynold Wolfe, in 1543, held a monopoly of all books printed in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. Seres was privileged to print all psalters, primers, and prayer books; Denham might print the New Testament in Welch; others held grants for scholastic or legal books, for almanacs, and even for broadsides, or as the grant says ‘for any piece of paper printed on one side of the sheet only’. In these favored books it was customary to place the patent granting the monopoly at the end, as a ‘caveat’ for other printers, and occasionally the phrase ‘Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum’ would appear in a conspicuous part of the title. Among the printers in London, who secured such special privileges, was Vautrollier, Shakspere’s presumed employer. ‘In the sixteenth year of Elizabeth, 19th June, 1574’, says Ames, ‘a patent or license was granted him which he often printed at the end of the New Testament’; this was a monopoly of Beza’s New Testament which Vautrollier had the privilege ‘ad imprimendum solum’, for the term of ten years. We have already seen the curious connection between the products of Vautrollier’s press and the writings of Shakspere, and we now plainly perceive what was floating in the Poet’s brain when he placed the following speech in Biondello’s mouth, who urges Lucentio to marry Bianca, while her father and the pedant are discussing the marriage treaty:

Luc. And what of all this?

Bion. I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a counterfeit3 assurance: Take your assurance of her cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum: to the church; – take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest witnesses.

Taming of the Shrew, iv, 4.

These protective privileges, ‘ad imprimendum solum’, instead of a benefit were a great hindrance to the growth of Printing. Many master-printers even then felt them to be so, and by all legal and sometimes illegal means, tried to procure the abolition of laws which were oppressive and restrictive. They saw works of merit die out of memory for want of enterprise in the patentee – they saw folly, in the shape of a Star-chamber, controlling skill; or as Shakspere himself expresses it,

Art made tongue-tied by authority,And Folly (doctor-like),4 controlling skill. Sonnet lxvi.

Shakspere abounds in kisses of every hue, from shadowy, frozen, and Judas kisses, to holy, true, gentle, tender, warm, sweet, loving, dainty, kind, soft, long, hard, zealous, burning, and even the unrequited kiss:

But my kisses bring againSeals of love, but seal’d in vain. Measure for Measure, iii, 1.

The ‘burning’ kiss might be thought passionate and even durable enough for any extremity – yet Shakspere prefers, perhaps from an unconscious association of ideas, the durability of which Printing is the emblem when he makes the Goddess of Love exclaim:

Pure lips, sweet seals on my soft lips imprinted. Venus and Adonis, l. 511.

The same idea of durability is expressed in the cry of Henry’s guilty Queen, when parting with Suffolk:

Oh, could this kiss be printed on thy hand! 2 Henry VI, iii, 2.

The idea has been still further developed in the following anonymous quatrain:

A PRINTER’S KISSESPrint on my lips another kiss,The picture of my glowing passion.Nay, this wont do – nor this, nor this;But now – Ay, that’s a proof impression.

Many of Vautrollier’s publications went through several editions. In the ‘Merry Wives’, II, 1, Mistress Page says:

These are of the second edition,

and well can we imagine Shakspere handing volumes to a buyer with the same remark, or asking some patron with whom he was a favourite:

Com’st thou with deep premeditated lines,With written pamphlet studiously devised? 1 Henry VI, iii, 1.

as the author entered with a roll of ‘copy’ in his hand.

In the deep mine from which the foregoing quotations have been dug, many others would doubtless reward a more careful search. As it is, numerous allusions, which, though plain to a printer, would seem too forced to the general public, have been passed over. Enough, however, has probably been brought forward to justify the belief pourtrayed in the title-page, viz.: That Shakspere must have passed some of his early years in a Printing-office.

1

The exact date was probably as difficult to arrive at then as now. The arrival of William Caxton in England may, with a certainty of being near the truth, be placed in 1475-6, the date 1474 given by most writers being a misconception of the language used by Caxton in the Preface to the Chess-book. The Art on its first introduction was looked upon suspiciously by the people, few of whom could read, its chief patrons being a few of the more educated among the nobles and the rich burghers of London. Another mistake is to suppose that Caxton printed in Westminster Abbey. His printing-office was a tenement to the south-east of the Abbey Church; its sign was the ‘Red-pale’, and Caxton rented it of the Abbot. There is evidence to show that Caxton and the Abbot were on distant terms of amity – none to show that the Ecclesiastic encouraged or patronised the Printer, notwithstanding Dean Stanley’s assertions in a sermon lately preached by him in Westminster Abbey. The only occasion upon which Caxton mentions the Abbot is to this effect – that the Abbot, not being able himself to read a passage in old MS., sent it to Caxton, with a request that he would translate it. (See The Life and Typography of William Caxton, by William Blades. 2 vols., 4to. London, 1861-63.)

2

Fat Pages. ‘Fat’ as a conventional word is not confined to Printers. ‘A fat living’ is a phrase not unknown among churchmen, and is used in the same sense by the compositor, who charges the master-printer for the fat pages, in which no work appears, at the same rate as if they were full.

3

This word ‘counterfeit’ in the sense of ‘reprint’ or ‘duplicate’, is certainly not used now-a-days by English printers; yet I find this in Marahren’s Parallel List of technical Typographical terms: – ‘Counterfeit, to, or to Reprint, v., Nachdrucken. – Ré-imprimer.’ With Bibliographers the word is still retained; e. g. ‘Lyons counterfeits of the Aldine editions.’

4

And Folly (doctor-like) controlling skill. It is worth noting, that in none of the various volumes written to show Shakspere’s knowledge of medicine and medical men, has the truth of this passage been brought forward in evidence.