_By William Blades_
NEW YORK: Edited & Reprinted
by _The Winthrop Press_ for _The
American Type Founders Company_
MD CCC XC VII
_The_ INTRODUCTION
In the good old days when printing was better recognized as a mystery than
as an art, one could call a printer 'a man of letters' without being
guilty of a pun. Books were for the few then, and the man who would print
them must be somewhat of a scholar himself.
To-day, amid the whirr of many presses, and the hurrying to and fro of the
printing office, the printer finds little or no time for literary
pursuits, despite the fact that printing is, in very truth, the handmaid
of literature. It is the more admirable, therefore, when a successful
printer attains to a degree of scholarship--particularly scholarship in
matters that enlighten and dignify his own handicraft.
Such a printer was _William Blades_. During fifty years of active
business life he contributed to the history of printing, a goodly number
of books and a mass of miscellaneous articles. Among these is the most
complete and authoritative life of Caxton, England's first printer,
representing an immense amount of study and research.
The book from which the following pages are reprinted is perhaps the least
familiar of Blades' works, and it evidently was written as a literary
recreation. The thought that reading it may afford recreation to those
busied about the making of books, and the comparative scarcity of the only
edition, are the excuses for reprinting the more interesting portion.
The first chapter (merely a resumé of the theories that have been advanced
by various professions and callings to claim Shakspere for their own) has
been omitted; likewise the appendix, which is a suggestion that many of
the obscurities in the text of Shakspere may be cleared up by a study of
the typographical errors in the first editions. With these exceptions, the
work is given here entire, and, it is hoped, in such form as accords with
the spirit of the author, whose tastes were those of the scholarly
printer.
_Editorial Dept.
The Winthrop Press,
32 Lafayette Place, N. Y.
November, 1897_
_The PREFACE_
_The First Chapter of this Tractate is designed to show, in a succinct
manner, the numerous and contradictory theories concerning Shakspere's
special knowledge, the evidence for which has been created by 'selecting'
certain words and phrases from the mass of his writings._
_The Second and Third Chapters, erected on a similar basis of 'selection',
are intended to prove that Shakspere had an intimate and special knowledge
of Typography._
_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. 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 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._
_I can only reply that if, notwithstanding a careful consideration of the
proofs here laid before him, the reader should consider my case 'not
proven', I must submit with all humility to his penetration and judgment._
_At the same time, since my proofs that Shakspere was a Printer are at
least quite as conclusive as the evidence brought forward by others to
demonstrate that he was Doctor, Lawyer, Soldier, Sailor, Catholic,
Atheist, Thief, I would claim as a right that my opponent, having rejected
my theory that he was a Printer, should be consistent, and at once, reject
all theories which attribute to him special knowledge, and repose upon the
simple belief that Shakspere, the Actor and Playwright, was a man of
surpassing genius, of keen observation, and never-failing memory._