The book is not a fine specimen of typography; it contains numerous errors of all kinds, and the printer's ornaments are all such as are frequently met with in books issued before and after this date. This is especially and strikingly true of the large head-band of the archers which we have already noticed in the Bible of 1611, and of the large tail-piece used after twenty-five of the plays. The other head-pieces and initial letters are of commonplace character, and show much wear. The portrait, too, by Martin Droeshout, a young Flemish artist,
"Wherein the Grauer had a ſtrife
With Nature, to out-doo the life:"
as Jonson assures us in his famous verses "To the Reader," is, as might be expected, hard and stiff, but it was undoubtedly done from a painting that has more claims to be considered "from the life" than any other. With all its technical faults, it "is intrinsically the most valuable volume in the whole range of English literature."
Folio.
Collation: One leaf without signature; A, eight leaves; A-Z, Aa-Cc2, in sixes; a, two leaves; Aa3-Aa6, b-g, in sixes; gg, eight leaves; h-x, in sixes; ¶, ¶¶, in sixes; ¶¶¶, one leaf; aa-ff, in sixes; gg, two leaves; gg-zz, aaa-bbb, in sixes.
JOHN WEBSTER
(1580?-1625?)
20. The | Tragedy | Of The Dutchesse | Of Malfy. | As it was Preſented priuatly, at the Black- | Friers; and publiquely at the Globe, By the | Kings Maieſties Seruants. | The perfect and exact Coppy, with diuerſe | things Printed, that the length of the Play would | not beare in the Preſentment. | VVritten by John Webſter. | [Quotation] | London: | Printed by Nicholas Okes, for Iohn | Waterson, and are to be ſold at the | ſigne of the Crowne, in Paules | Church-yard, 1623.