Published.

neque, me ut miretur turba laboro: | Contentus paucis lectoribus. |

[Here follow four wood-cuts, representing respectively the emblems of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.]

LONDON, Printed by Thomas Hodgkin, for H. Herringman, E. Brewster, | T. Baffett, R. Chifwell, M. Wotton, G. Conyers, M DC XCII. |

All

Folio. Collation.-A, six leaves, the third alone bearing signature. The first leaf, said by Lowndes to bear a laureled portrait of Jonson by W. Elder, is wanting in the Yale Library copy. B to [Bbbbb4] verso, in fours. Two leaves without signature or pagination, bearing Leges Convivales, RULES FOR THE Tavern Academy, &c., and Over the DOOR at the Entrance into the APOLLO, are added. except the two extra leaves are printed in double column. In the signatures, the following sets of letters are omitted: J, U, W, Jj, Mm, Nn, Vv, Ww, Ddd, Jjj, Uuu, Www, Jjjj, Uuuu, Wwww. In place of R2, we have R repeated; Ccc, two leaves; all Ddd is omitted, p. 382 being followed by p. 393. Catiline ends [L14] verso, p. 264, and the next page is 281, with signature Oo; but judging from the Catalogue, no material is omitted here. Beginning Oo recto we have the Epigrams, the Forest, Masques, and Entertainments. The plays recommence Eee recto, p. 393, and extend to [Zzz4] verso, p. 544. Then, beginning Aaaa recto, p. 545, we have the Underwoods, Love's Welcome, Mortimer (a fragment), Masques, Horace's Art of Poetry, the English Grammar, and Discoveries, ending [Yyyy4] recto, p. 719, verso blank. On p. 721, with signature Aaaaa by error for Zzzz, begins recto the New Inn, which extends to [Bbbbb4] verso. Zzzz is replaced by Aaaaa, which is followed by Zzzz2; then after [Zzzz4] follows another Aaaaa, Aaaaa2, etc.

Poetaster begins [N4] recto, p. 95, and ends R [2] recto, p. 123, verso blank. The title-page reads: POETASTER: OR, His Arraignment. A COMICAL SATYR. First

Acted in the Year 1601. By the then CHILDREN of QUEEN ELIZABETH's CHAPPEL. With the Allowance of the Master of REVELS. The Author B. J. | Et mihi de nullo fama rubore placet. Mart. | TO THE | VERTUOUS and my WORTHY FRIEND, | Mr. Richard Martin. | [Then follows the Dedication.]

[N4] verso bears The PERSONS of the PLAY, as in folio 1616; The SCENE ROME, and The Principal COMODIANS. O recto, p. 97, the text of the play begins; it ends R verso, p. 122, where we find TO THE READER and the beginning of the apologetical dialogue. This dialogue ends. R[2] recto, p. 123.

V. The subsequent editions of Jonson are of less bibliographical importance. In 1716 appeared a booksellers' reprint, in seven octavo volumes, of the 1692 text. The Brit. Mus. Cat. contains: 'B. J.'s Plays. 2 vol. Dublin, 1729. 12°. This edition I have not seen. In 1756 Peter Whalley published the Works in seven volumes, annotated. Jonson's Dramatic Works, from the text and with the notes of Whalley, were in 1811 reprinted in one volume, with the Dramatic Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, edited by George Colman. A nine-volume edition of the Works, with memoir and notes, by William Gifford, was published in 1816; new edition, 1846. Another edition of Gifford, 3 vols., was produced by F. Cunningham in 1871; this was reissued in 9 vols., in 1875. In 1838 appeared a one-volume edition of Jonson's Works, by Barry Cornwall. In the Mermaid Series, the first volume of plays selected from Jonson, edited by Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, with an introduction by C. H. Herford, appeared in 1893; vol. 2 followed in 1894, vol. 3 in 1895.

b. REMARKS UPON THE EDITIONS

Poetaster was entered on the Stationers' Register December 21, 1601, and published in quarto in 1602. It was included in the first folio of Jonson's Works, 1616, and in all subsequent editions.

1602. Comparatively speaking, the quarto of 1602 is excellent in typography. It presents a text, however, differing in many respects from that of 1616, which contains changes and several important additions that must have been made by Jonson himself. It should be noted that in the quarto, as will be seen in our Variants, the act and scene headings are in Latin; that in act 5, sc. 3 Crispinus disgorges a number of words not reprinted in the first folio; and that Exit and Exeunt are frequent. The address To the Reader, supplying the place of Epilogue and Apology, is reprinted in our collation.

1616. 'Jonson's "Works" were first collected in the folio edition, of which the first volume, carefully revised by himself, appeared in 1616, the second in a succession of fragments from 1630-41.' Thus C. H. Herford, in his article on Jonson in DNB, presents the generally accepted view as to the authority of the 1616 folio. Recently, however, a different theory has been advanced by B. A. P. van Dam and C. Stoffel,--The Authority of the Ben Jonson Folio of 1616,' Anglia, Neue Folge, 14. 377 ff. Taking up Every Man out of his Humour as it appears in quarto 1600 and in folio 1616, the authors point out serious omissions and transpositions, besides minor changes, in the 1616 version. Their conclusion is that the 1616 folio was not 'carefully revised,' nor even supervised at all, by Jonson.

A detailed collation of the quarto edition of Poetaster with the version in folio 1616 leads me to believe that this play at least was not carelessly, ignorantly, or capriciously dealt with by the 1616 editor; that, on the contrary, it has many alterations and additions that no printer's hack would have attempted. Since Jonson was then alive and active, the only reasonable conclusion is that he himself supervised the printing of Poetaster in 1616. Concerning the other plays in the folio I am not prepared to make any statement, and I shall confine myself here to presenting the facts upon which my inference as to Poetaster is based.

Differences of spelling and punctuation may be disregarded as of minor significance. On the one hand, then, there are divergences from the quarto version which might indicate that Jonson did not supervise the edition of 1616. Exit and Exeunt are dropped; the name of the first speaker at the beginning of each scene is dropped; the stage directions preceding the speech of Envy and the prologue disappear; so with the lines from Martial, Ad Lectorem, and with Numa in decimo nono, 1. 3. 3-4; Livor becomes Envy, etc. As to these, it is clear that the stage directions are of slight importance in a reading version, and Poetaster was of course not on the boards in 1616. The lines from Martial, and Numa in decimo nono, are really non-essential. The passage in Jupiter's speech, 4. 5, given in quarto, but omitted in folio (cf. 1. 130 and variants), was evidently dropped because it describes a bit of by-play which the mere words do not make clear-and the omission is perhaps a gain to the proprieties. Finally, even the Apologetical Dialogue might conceivably have been added by a printer who had somehow obtained a MS. copy.

On the other hand, the interpolation of the Horace-Trebatius dialogue, act 3, sc. 5, would certainly not be made by any but the proud translator. There are, moreover, changes in detail carried out so consistently as to presuppose a supremely interested and careful editor: 1) words such as knight, knighthood, are replaced by others less anachronistic, cf. the variants for 1. 2. 27, I. 2. 158 and 165, et passim; 2) flat-cap and velvet cap become tradesman and dressing (cf. 2. I. 108, 3. I. 48), probably because the new terms would be either less offensive to citizens, or more in accord with current fashions of speech; 3) corrections are made of errors in the quarto reading, e. g. disgeste becomes disgust, 3. 4. 37; 4) brief additions are madecf. 2. 1. 100-103, 109-111; 3. 4. 164-6; 5) certain stage directions contributing to clearness of apprehension on the part of a reader are added-cf. 2. I. III, 3. 4. 20 and 364,

and act 4 passim. Note especially changes scattered here and there, which none but an author would have made, and the author only for publication: Caprichio becomes Pantalabus, 3. 4. 168; Paunch becomes stiffe toe, 3. 4. 187; Twentie the hundred becomes shifter, 3. 4. 189; Via sacra becomes holy street, 4. 3. 17; Pyrrhus becomes Neoptolomus, 4. 3. 25; six pence becomes a sesterce, 4. 7. 9; twopence becomes drachme, 5. 3. 190; 'To the Reader' of quarto is replaced by another address. Lines 5. 3. 429-433, confused by the printer of the quarto, are rectified by the printer or the editor of the first folio.

But to all this it may be replied that the printer in 1616 was simply dealing with a revised manuscript, containing additions determined upon by Jonson. Such a manuscript alone would not account for the facts. The copy Jonson submitted to the publisher in 1602 was probably neither worse nor better than that he gave to the publisher in 1616; nor is it likely that Matthew Lowndes had a much more careful or intelligent printer in the second instance. Moreover, the fact that the new material was obtained for the folio implies Jonson's knowledge, consent, and supervision, for the selection, rejection, addition, rearrangement, and the text in general are more intelligent and final in the folio of 1616 than in the quarto of 1602. So far as Poetaster is concerned, then, there appears no reason to agree with Messrs. van Dam and Stoffel that Jonson did not supervise the first folio edition.

1640. The 1640 folio, printed three years after Jonson's death, has a few peculiarities that may be noted here. It regularly changes the conjunctive adverb then of 1616 to than, and pray thee of 1616 to pry thee; it makes a few absurd errors, such as changing gods, and fiends! of 1616 to gods, and friends! (3. 4. 45, 5. 3. 451); it has a number of small omissions; it improves the spelling of the folio 1616; it does not show any influence of the quarto. The 1640 folio, then, so far as Poetaster is concerned, is a rather careless reprint of the 1616 folio.