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| Volume 4, Page 472
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that is the last eighteen lines, inclus. of the previous signat. T. Welde,
closing the preface, run over form the foot of Aspinwall's page, and
spread upon the upper middle of Deane's. Nothing else is seen to
change betw. Aspinwall's and Deane's beyond the trifling amendm. that
a compositor naturually introduces, such as substituting "and" for &, and
reduc. the author's name from Roman caps. to Italic in conformity with
the preced. type. Deane's is the most correct exemplar, but Aspinwall's
for its very incorrectness ten times more valuable in petty history.
Will any one but Mr. Drake believe, that all the succession of appearances
proves nothing to strengthen into certainty my conject. how
Weld desired to supply a shield for his temerity, or a cover for his cowardice?
-- that the long title-page of "Short Story" was not print. bef.
"Antinomians and Familists" was writ.? -- that this new title for the
same book instead of a "printer's error" sprang not from design and
intent to mystify? -- or that it is wrong in me, at this late day, to expose
such a typograph. curiosity? Would any London printer in 1644, I
dare to ask, after having a corrected copy of a work, as Antinomians
and Familists (if printed first) is shown to be, immediately after issue,
from the same forms, an impression of Rise, Reign, and Ruin, with a
copious preface and address to the Reader, and postscript, containing
many errors and obliquities of type (in the BODY of same work) as
Aspinwall's and Choules's copies exhibit? Two questions natural. arise
to embarrass those that would glad. seem believers of Weld's ingenuousness,
-- first, wh. was corrector of the press that obtain. aft. three or four
trials, as pure a text for "Short Story," as was enjoy. by "Antinomians
and Familists," if this tract were print. bef. that, when both tracts are
tak. from the same types lock. up into the same form AT LAST, when
"Antinomians and Familists" agree wholly with the latest impression of
the Short Story? -- sec. who gave Thomas Weld the right to put a
preface equal to one fourth of the tractate, with an address to the
Reader, beside "laying down the order and sense wh. in the book is
[was] omit." "as also additions to the conclusion of the book?" He
prob. utter. indirect suggestions, ambiguas spargere voces, that the orig.
work was above six yrs. bef. concoct. in Boston, where Winthrop was in
the chair of Gov. when SHORT STORY was purch. in London by the
King's purveyor, perhaps in few hours from its issue, and where I doubt
not the publisher of ANTINOMIANS AND FAMILISTS had act. as the
Editor of what, on our side of the water, when forgotten on the other,
was down to 1843, always called Weld's Rise, Reign, and Ruin.
As to any moral delinquency in my regard "to the memory of Mr.
Welde." that may be left in silence, without fear, to any human tribunal;
but in the Court of criticism, I can kiss the rod cheerfully, and
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