ON  THE  PRESENT  TRANSCRIPT.
 

^HIS Transcript is designed to take the place of the original Registers it
represents; should they ever by any woeful calamity, and in spite of the
unwearying care with which they have been and are preserved, be
destroyed. Especially therefore as this limited impression might thus
become the sole repository of the information they contain; it seems
obligatory to give here some precise information as to the method pursued both in the
transliteration of the written record into type, and as to the admission of illustrative
matter into its pages.

The entire work is intended to form a vast mass of materials of so high an authority
as not to be capable of contradiction in that which they assert; and this it is further
intended to systematize and arrange in a condensed form in the Appendix.

TEXT.

1.  When the great preliminary obstacle of money had been so far overcome as to justify
the Transcript being proceeded with : there came an almost overpowering despondency
from the bulk of it. Leisure moments only were available for its execution: and it
did seem for a time that it could not be accomplished within a reasonable period. The
actual process of all good correction is very slow, and there were 2500 pages to verify,
each varying from the other in the nature, amount, and arrangement of its contents ;
so that it appeared quite possible that the work would drag on for years, and that—
ever exposed to the eventualities and uncertainties of human life—it might fail of
accomplishment after all.

Most strenuous efforts were therefore made to settle the endless questions of detail
that sprang up: so that it was not till May 1874 that the first sheet went through the
press: and within the following eight months this Eirst Yolume is issued, and half of
the Second is in type.

2.   The next difficulty arose out of the bewildering multiplicity of names. It is quite
possible that there will be forty thousand real or fictitious names in this Transcript.
So that it was very needful to make some kind of distinction by means of variety of
type.

A broad demarcation was at once obtained by placing the names of all members,
whether Freemen or Brethren, of the Stationers' Brotherhood or Company, so far as
they could be ascertained, in a special type technically known as ' Clarendon,' as
John Cawood, Reginald Wolf, John Day, &c.

This may be taken as a general rule: but it has not been always possible to carry it
out with accuracy. The Reader must consider the Transcript as a kind of journey, in
which only that ground is gained which has been overpassed. ^ It was not possible to
prepare so large a manuscript in advance. Only as sheets came up from the printers, could
the Text be annotated and referenced : so that though a very strong effort has been thus
made to illumine the Text, and especially to make it its own interpreter; the notes look

I. 27