On a Printing-house.
The world’s a Printing-house: our words, our thoughts,
Our deeds, are Characters of sev’rall sizes:
Each Soule is a Compos’ter; of whose faults
The Levits are Correctors: Heav’n revises;
Death is the common Press; fro whence, being driven,
W’ are gathered Sheet by Sheet, & bound for Heaven.
From Divine Fancies, 1632, lib. iv, p. 164.
II. THE TECHNICALITIES OF PRINTING, AS USED BY SHAKSPERE
Nature endows no man with knowledge, and although a quick apprehension may go far toward making the true lover of Nature a Botanist, Zoologist, or Entomologist, and although the society of ‘Men of Law’, of Doctors, or of Musicians may, with the help of a good memory, store a man’s mind with professional phraseology, yet the opportunity of learning must be there; and no argument can be required to prove that, however highly endowed with genius or imagination, no one could evolve from his internal consciousness the terms, the customs, or the working implements of a trade with which he was unacquainted. If, then, we find Shakspere’s mind familiar with the technicalities of such an art as Printing—an art which, in his day, had no such connecting links with the common needs and daily pleasures of the people, as now—if we find him using its terms and referring frequently to its customs, our claims to call him a Printer stand upon a firmer base than those of the Lawyer, the Doctor, the Soldier, or the Divine; and we have strong grounds for asking the reader’s thoughtful attention to some quotations and arguments, which, if not conclusive that Shakspere was a Printer, afford indubitable evidence of his having become at some period of his career practically acquainted with the details of a Printing Office. We propose, then, to carefully examine the works of the Poet for any internal evidence of Typographical knowledge which they may afford.
But here, at the outset, we are met by obvious difficulties. Would Shakspere, or any poet have made use of trade terms and technical words, or have referred to customs peculiar to and known by only a very small class of the community in plays addressed to the general public? They might have been familiar enough to the mind of the writer, but would certainly have sounded very strange in the ears of the public. Shakspere was too artistic and too wise to have committed so glaring a blunder. His technical terms are used unintentionally, and with the most charming unconsciousness. Therefore, when we meet with a word or phrase in common use by Printers, it is so amalgamated with the context, that although some other form of expression would have been chosen had not Shakspere been a Printer, yet the general reader or hearer is not struck by any incongruity of language.
What simile could be more natural for a Printer-poet to use or more appropriate for the public to hear than this: