17. The " Workes " Of " Beniamin Jonson " —neque me ut miretur turba " laboro: Contentus paucis lectoribus. " Imprinted at " London by " Will Stansby " An^o D. 1616.

This book, especially as we see it in the copies printed on large paper, is a handsome specimen of typography. It reflects great credit upon its printer, Stansby, who was an apprentice and then successor to John Windet, and himself a master printer. Such work entitles him to a front rank among the printers of the reign of James I.

Jonson is said to have prepared the plays for the press, himself, and one or two matters of editing, which seem unusually careful when compared with other folio collections, certainly appear to show the author's hand. At the end of each play, for instance, is a statement telling when it was first acted, and by whom, whether the king's or the queen's servants. The names of the actors are also given, as well as the "allowance". The volume embraces nine plays, and Epigrammes, The Forest, Entertaynements, Panegyre, Ma?ques and Barriers. There is no introductory note by the printer, and we are not told how Stansby came into the right to print those plays which had been previously issued by other printers or publishers.

In some copies all of the plays have separate printed titles, while in others there are one, two, or more wood-cut borders showing a lion and a unicorn, a lily, rose and thistle, and a grape-vine twined around columns at the side.

All of the works not included in the first were intended for a second volume, which, however, did not appear until after Jonson's death, in 1640, when it was printed for Richard Meighen, the bookseller, by Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcet. The title reads: The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. The second Volume Containing These Playes, Viz. 1 Bartholomew Fayre. 2 The Staple of Newes. 3 The Divell is an Asse.... This title, it will be seen, mentions only three plays, which are thought to have been issued somewhat earlier than 1640, perhaps as a supplement to the first volume. The book, as it is usually bound, however, contains three more plays and a fragment of a fourth.

There are variations in the imprint of the first volume, some reading, London, Printed by William Stansby, and again others, London printed by W. Stansby, and are to be ?ould by Rich: Meighen. The imprints of the large paper copies in the British Museum and Huth libraries both read like that of the copy facsimiled. The large paper copies, it should be noted, are on whiter and finer paper of an entirely different water-mark. The copies with Meighen's name show traces of the erasure of our form; a fact leading to the supposition that they are later in issue. This matter is complicated, however, by certain striking variations in the text itself. The last two pages of Meighen's copies, containing The Golden Age, show a transposition of parts affecting the whole literary value of the ending of the masque.

Mr. Walter Wilson Greg, in his List of English Plays, 1900, gives the Stansby-Meighen copies the place of the first issue, calling the Stansby copies a reissue, with the imprint reËngraved.

It seems reasonable to suppose, in view of the fact that he was the seller of the second volume also, that Meighen became connected with Stansby after the first copies of the first volume were published. The appearance of his name in the imprint of Volume I. would mark the beginning of such a partnership; and this partnership would naturally be continuous, and not interrupted, as it would appear to be if copies bearing Stansby's name alone came after the Stansby-Meighen imprint, and before the 1640 volume.

"Guliel Hole fecit" is signed to the elaborate title-page engraved on copper. This monumental structure, with its representations of Tragicomoedia, Satyr, Pastor, Tragoedia, Comoedia, Theatrum, Plaustrum, and Visorium, shows such a considerable knowledge of Roman antiquities that we are inclined to think that Jonson himself may have had something to do with the making of it. A similar thought arises in looking at the pages engraved by Hole for Chapman's Homer, and one would like to know how far that author, steeped in his Classics, influenced the engraver. It may be a fair speculation, how far Jonson and Chapman may have influenced the development of book illustration.

It is a point worthy of notice that the execution of the figures in this engraving is decidedly inferior to that of the Chapman title.

Gerard Honthorst's portrait of Jonson, engraved by Robert Vaughan, whose frontispieces and portraits are found in many books of the period, is inserted in this copy. The engraving was probably issued, in its first state, as a separate print. In a second state it was prefixed to the second edition of the first volume, Printed by Richard Bi?hop, and are to be ?old by Andrew Crooke, in 1640.

The famous lines,

follow eight lines of Latin, beneath the oval frame.

Folio.

Collation: Portrait and title-page, 2 leaves; A-Qqqq4, in sixes.