SHAKSPERE & TYPOGRAPHY _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._