William Blades

“ Printers in Shakspere’s time often had patents granted them by which the monopoly of certain works was secured; and unscrupulous printers frequently braved all the pains and penalties to which they were liable by pirating such editions. It is this carelessness of consequences which is glanced at by Mistress Ford when debating with Mistress Page concerning the insult put upon them by the heavy old Knight, Sir John Falstaff:
He cares not what he puts into the Press when he would put us two. ”

“ If, then, we find Shakspere’s mind familiar with the technicalities of such an art as Printing—an art which, in his day, had no such connecting links with the common needs and daily pleasures of the people, as now—if we find him using its terms and referring frequently to its customs, our claims to call him a Printer stand upon a [Pg 26] firmer base than those of the Lawyer, the Doctor, the Soldier, or the Divine ”

“ 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 [Pg 45] 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. ”

“ 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’ ”

“ Old Printers can still call to mind that period of our history when a stalwart Pressman, on his way to work, ran considerable risk in the streets of London of being seized by another kind of pressmen, viz., the Press-gang, and forced nolens volens into the service of the King. ”

“ Death is the common Press; fro whence, being driven,
W’ are gathered Sheet by Sheet, & bound for Heaven.
From Divine Fancies, 1632, lib. iv, p. 164.
[Pg 24]
[Pg 25]
II. THE TECHNICALITIES OF PRINTING, AS USED BY SHAKSPERE Nature endows no man with knowledge, and although a quick apprehension may go far toward making the true lover of Nature a Botanist, Zoologist, or Entomologist, and although the society of ‘Men of Law’, of Doctors, or of Musicians may, with the help of a good memory, store a man’s mind with professional phraseology, yet the opportunity of learning must be there ”

“ Some readers (not Printers) may think that I have exercised over quotations from Shakspere’s works a similar compulsion, by pressing into my service passages whose bearing is by no means in a typographical direction. They may even go so far as to strain somewhat the self-accusation [Pg 10] of Falstaff (Henry IV, iv, 2) , and bring against me the charge that
I have misused the King’s press most damnably, by printing such evidences. ”

“ His character as a scholar stands high, and his workmanship is excellent. He had a privilege, or monopoly, for the printing and sale of certain books, as all the chief Printers then had. Shortly before his death he married his daughter to Richard Field, who for this reason, and because he succeeded to the premises and business of the widow, is erroneously supposed by Ames to have served his apprenticeship to Vautrollier. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 thereby
Thou shouldst print more nor let that copy die.
Sonnet xi.
[Pg 33] 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. ”

“ Some of Shakspere’s biographers have maintained that he must have been acquainted with Plutarch and other classical writers, because he quotes from their works. Dr. Farmer in his masterly essay on the learning of Shakspere, has shown that the Poet took all his quotations, even to the blunders, from the edition of Plutarch, in English, printed and published by Vautrollier, a year [Pg 20] or two before we suppose that Shakspere entered into his service:
Plutarch’s Lives, from the French of Amyott, by Sir Tho. ”

“ In Shakspere’s time, as we have already noticed (p. 41, ante) , the press laboured under great restrictions. All books with a [Pg 43] 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 ”

“ Where did Shakspere learn his Italian, which, although then a court language, he [Pg 18] quotes but rarely, and in an awkward manner? Surely at second-hand, and probably quoting the phrases current at the period, or still more probably from conning in his spare moments:
An Italian Grammer, written in Latin by M. Scipio Lentulo: and turned into Englishe by Henry Grantham. Typis Tho. Vautrolerij.
London, 16mo., 1578.
This was put to press again in 1587. In Vautrollier’s ‘shop’ he would also have often in his hands:
Campo di Fior ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Imprinted at London, by Thomas Vautrollier.
8vo., 1578.
This last contains an Epistle to the Reader by John Calvin, as well as an address headed Typographus Lectori. Of each of the above works several editions were published.
In one of his pedantic speeches Holofernes exclaims:
Venetia! Venetia!
Chi non te vede non ti pretia.
Old Mantuan! Old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not, loveth thee not. ”