Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/514

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL MAY 29, im

What conclusions respecting Jonson's share in the publication of the folio edition of his works can be drawn from these facts ? It is obvious that he took considerable trouble in the preparation of the volume published in 1616, and it might naturally be expected that, in due course, he would wish to bring out a supplementary volume, containing the writings not included when the 1616 volume was issued, and those written after that date. In 1630 Jonson produced an unsuccessful comedy, ' The New Jnn,' and in the following year pub- lished it with a title-page which showed the anger he felt at the treatment the play had received. In the same year (1631) he printed, as we have seen, three plays which had been produced some years earlier, but not printed. It is obvious from the pagina- tions and signatures that these three plays were intended to form part of a collection. The pagination and signatures of ' Bartholo- mew Fayre ' and ' The Divell is an Asse ' are continuous, and ' The Staple of N ewes,' though it has separate pagination, follows on with signatures beginning with Aa. But we have something more than the evidence of the printed plays. In the Harleian MS. 4955 fol. 202b, there is a letter from Jonson to the Earl of Newcastle, who was one of his patrons, forwarding what was evidently a copy of ' The Divell is an Asse.' Jonson wrote :

" It is the Lewd Printers fault that I can send y r LOP no more of my Booke done. I sent you one piece before, the fayre, by Mr. Withrington, and now I send you this other morcell. The fine Gentle- man that walkes in Towne : the Fiend, but before hee will perfect the rest, I fear hee will come him- selfe to bee a part, under the title of the absolute kna\ r e, w ch he hath play'd w th mee ; My Printer and I shall afford subject enough for a Tragi- Comcedy, for w th his delayes and Vexation, I am almost become blind."

Gifford, who first printed this letter, said that it alluded " to a work of which nothing is now to be found," and he punctuated the important passage as follows :

"I sent you one piece before the fair, by Mr. Witherington, and now I send you this other morsel. The fine gentleman that walks the town ; the Fiend ; but before he will perfect the rest," &c.

This explains how he missed the allusions to ' Bartholomew Fayre ' and ' The Divell is an Asse,' which were first pointed out by MB. NICHOLSON. Col. Cunningham, who re-edited Gifford's edition, reprinted this passage without comment.

What occurred is quite clear. John Benson (I. B.) printed for Robert Allot, on behalf of Jonson, first ' Bartholomew Fayre,'

and then ' The Divell is an Asse ' ; and Jonson sent these instalments of his new volume to his patrons as they were printed. I have in my possession what is evidently one of the copies thus distributed, an uncut copy of ' The Divell is an Asse,' stitched in its original form as a pamphlet ; and I have a copy of ' Bartholomew Fayre ' with a blank leaf before the title-page, forming a sheet with sig. A6 ; this blank leaf was suppressed when the play was afterwards used to form part of a volume.

Later in the year 1631 ' The Staple of Newes ' was printed, Allot having acquired the property in this book in September from John Waterson. The signatures show that this play was intended to form a further portion of a collected volume, and to follow immediately after ' The Divell is an Asse.'

But no more of the volume was to appear during Jonson's life. Allot was occupied in the following year with the Second Folio of Shakespeare, and Jonson's closing years were saddened by illness and by poverty. ' A Tale of a Tub ' was acted in 1633, but though Jonson continued to write until his death in 1637 nothing more was printed until 1640. In February of that year John Benson registered at Stationers' Hall Jon- son's translation of Horace's ' Art of Poetry r and the ' Masque of the Gipsies,' and these pieces were published with some others in a small volume. Benson also published in 1640 a quarto containing the ' Execration against Vulcan,' " with divers epigrams by the same author." and as these pieces are all to be found in the larger collection in the octavo, it would appear that the quarto- preceded the octavo in date. In March Crooke and Richard Seirger (or Sergier) entered at Stationers' Hall, for their copy,, four masques, " with sundry Elegies and other Poems by Beniamen Johnson."

It was perhaps the appearance of Benson's volumes which suggested to the booksellers the issue of a complete edition of Jonson's writings, which were evidently the property of various persons, and, accordingly, a reprint of the 1616 volume was prepared by Richard Bishop, and a collection of writings, not in the 1616 volume was issued to form a companion volume, without any name of printer or publisher. In copies of the latter volume found in the original binding there is no general title-page ; most of the separate title-pages are dated 1640, but some 1641, from which it may be inferred that the book appeared either at the end of 1640 or early in 1641.

Three plays had, as I have said, been