Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/540

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vi. DEC 7, 1912.

that character. " If she does that again, I shall get up and go out," said an indignant dowager, much to the amusement of a grave Professor of Divinity who sat next to her. Shakespeare, in this matter, gave his boy-actor the easier part. We, on the contrary, when we reproduce Shakespeare give our actresses the harder parts. In Mr. George Alexander's beautiful reproduc- tion of ' As You Like It ' I heard my fair neighbour say of the lady who was Rosalind, " She throws herself about too much." In such a case, the more lifelike the acting, the less we are pleased. We are too knowing and too critical to make any surrender to illusion, and the disguise which deceives Orlando can never impose- upon us.

But the main purpose of this paper, dis- cursive as it seems to be, is to show, with the aid of other possibilities of the same kind, what facts may be brought to light, touching Shakespeare's additions or altera- tions in ' Titus Andronicus,' by an inspec- tion of the Quarto of 1594, and a comparison of it with the play as we know it. To whom the groundwork of this tragedy is to be assigned, I leave to be debated by more competent authorities. D. C. TOVEY.

PRINTERS' PROOFS.

EVERY bookman has his special hobbies, and one of mine has been the collection of the proof-sheets of well-known books. Most of those I possess have come into my hands in the usual way, but one or two I owe to the kindness of their authors. Among them are those of the late Andrew Lang's ' Marriage of Cupid and Psyche,' which I have already mentioned in these columns (ante, p. 86), while others possessing some interest are Cardinal Newman's ' Letter to the Duke of Norfolk,' the late Mr. Borlase's ' Naenia Cornubiae,' and Edward FitzGerald's ' Eu- phranor.' But perhaps the most curious are the proofs of Dr. Nott's edition of Dekker's ' Gull's Hornbook.' Of this w r ork, which has recently been republished under the care of a very competent editor, I have two copies, one of which belonged to the literary antiquary, Joseph Haslewood, who has enriched it with various notes and a very careful collation with the reprint called ' The Young Gallant's Academy,' 1674, while the other is the one I propose to describe.

I can only speak for myself, but I do not mind confessing that I feel rather afraid of the printer. He, or his reader, possesses

such a varied store of learning that on receiving one's proof-sheets, one rather feels in the position of a mouse that is being played with by a cat. One approaches him deferentially and, metaphorically, cap in hand. Having a giant's strength, he may, one fears, be inclined to use it tyrannously, and one feels only too glad to obey his orders, lest a worse fate befall one. But in Dr. Nott's time it was evidently the author who had the best of it. The good doctor seems to have had some of the characteristics of the late John Forster, who, the story goes, was known amongst the cabbies of London as " a werry harbitrary gent." Perhaps his early experiences as the surgeon of an East Indiaman, at a time when Englishmen treated " natives " with a not too gentle touch, may have tended to develop a natural propensity to high-handedness. Perhaps the relations between author and printer were generally on a less pleasant footing than those that now exist. The omniscience of the present-day printer, which sensibly diminishes our estimate of our own stature, is qualified by a courtesy that at once makes us hold up our heads again. Our most glaring "howlers" are marked in the margin with a note of interrogation which seems to suggest that the error is after all a debatable one, and that there is some- thing to be said on the other side. Our, amour propre is alive again. Dr. Nott's printer was a Mr. E. Bryan, who seems to have carried on his work at Bristol. The first few sheets had probably undergone revision, as there are few corrections, and Dr. Nott does not find his work cut out for him till he arrives at sheet E. On p. ?6 the printer humbly remarks : " We were obliged to space rather wide in this instance to save dividing a word which is in general pre- ferred." Dr. Nott rejoins : "I should think the division of a word preferable. I am sure it hurts the eye less, and gives less the idea of irregular, negligent printing." A nasty back-handed cut this. On p. 28 he observes : " This part would appear not to have been attended to at all by the press-corrector." Thus does he flagellate the alteration of a semicolon into a comma. After several pages of minor admonitions, there comes on p. 47 the following severe warning :

" The putting words too close is an error you often commit, I believe most often to avoid break- ing a word at the end of a line, which is a far less disight [*'>c] than running words together or scatter- ing them wide of each other. Pray attend to this, and do not fin order to] prevent one disight make many greater."