Life and Works of Henry King. 267 



of 141, is blotted in (h), unblotted in (g) ; "nd " in "And," catch-word 

 at the bottom of 43, defective in (g), perfect in (h) ; "st" in "most" 

 73, line 19, blotted in (h), unblotted in (g) ; numbering of page 113 

 defective in (g), perfect in (h) ; etc., etc. In general, the differences 

 are trifling ones — dependent upon the chances of ink and paper and 

 hand-presses, while the identities are striking and conclusive — ex- 

 plicable only on the assumption of a single edition. Minute variations 

 of this sort have been commented upon by Professor George P. Baker 

 in an article on "Some Bibliographical Puzzles in Elizabethan Quar- 

 tos," printed among the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of 

 America, Vol. IV, 1910 ; he there argues for the recognition of the 

 existence not only of distinct Versions within a single Edition, but 

 also of individual sub- Versions within a single Version, due to the 

 varying degrees of care with which different compositors replaced 

 defective type. All this may well be true, but it certainly does not 

 follow from some of the evidence which he submits: e. g. "charge, 

 comma very faint in C, D : trace only. A: absent, B"; "Bag. The 

 stop is faint in A : hardly a trace, C : no trace, B, D." The more 

 natural and probable inference to be drawn from such data, and 

 from the similarly minute variations just recorded above, surely 

 is that the printing presses of those days were far from perfect and 

 hence the copies of a single Version might well exhibit such slight 

 differences as these owing to the mere looseness of the mechanical 

 operation. At any rate, neither separate Editions nor distinct 

 \^ersions can be claimed for Henr}^ King's volume of poems, on the 

 basis of such evidence. 



Thirdly, the question as to whether there were ever any other 

 editions of King's poems, no longer extant, or at least no longer 

 generally known, deserves more attention than it has yet received, 

 for the existence of such editions would go far toward proving that 

 Henry King was not so totalh^ unappreciated and neglected in his 

 own day as his later biographers and critics have been prone to as- 

 sume.^ There are three pieces of evidence here : (I) the statement 

 of the Publishers about "the present attempts of others" and "their 

 false copies of these Poems"; (II) Park's statement ("Cens. Lit.", 

 \, 51) corroborated by Lowndes ("Bibliographer's Manual," Bohn's 

 ed., 1864, III, 1273), to the effect that "To some copies of bishop 

 King's poems are affixed elegies on his death" ; and (III) this specific 

 statement, hitherto unnoticed, by one of the MS. annotators in copy 



Cf. p. 245, sup. 



