The English Grammar occupies sigs. D4-L2 of F2(3), being placed between Horace, His Art of Poetry and Discoveries. D4, the title-page, reads:

THE | ENGLISH | GRAMMAR | MADE | BY | BEN. IOHNSON. | For the benefit of all Strangers, out of his obſer- | vation of the English Language now ſpoken and in uſe | [rule] | Conſuetudo certiſsima loquendi Magiſtra, utenduma', | planè ſermone, ut nummo, cui publica | eſt, Quinct. | [rule] | Printed M.DC.XL.

At the foot of D4v are four Latin quotations on the subject of grammar. 'THE | PREFACE' follows on E1, and the English text itself begins on E2, occupying pages 35-84. The first four chapters of book 1 are accompanied with extensive Latin notes beginning on E1v (page 34) and occupying the facing pages alternating by leaf, as follows: E1v (Latin), E2r-v (English), E3r-v (Latin), E4r-v (English), F1r-v (Latin), F2r-v (English), F3r-v (Latin), F4r-v (English), G1r-v (Latin). The Latin text ends on G1v, with G2 and subsequent pages being in English. The running title of the English text is 'The Engliſh Grammar.' The running title of the Latin notes is 'Grammatica Anglicana'.

The printing of the Grammar must have presented considerable difficulties to a compositor. As a work concerned with the analysis and illustration of linguistic structure it required careful attention to lay-out and strict adherence to authorial intentions in respect of spelling (in many instances), of choice of font and of upper- or lower-case characters, and punctuation. Published posthumously, the Grammar was printed without authorial supervision, and there is no sign of any other kind of learned editorial guidance in its printing. Since Jonson's original was plainly not revised for publication by the author, it seems likely that it was this draft, rather than a fair copy made by a professional scrivener under the author's scrutiny, that provided the copy-text for the edition. But there is no proof of the copy-text being an autograph copy, and it could be that there was an additional source of error in an uncorrected scribal copy. Jonson's hand was not difficult to interpret, but the Latin and Greek passages in the text would have been highly susceptible to misreading by a scribe or a compositor who was not totally fluent in these languages; and Jonson's intended lay-out and specification of font might not always have been clear from a draft version. It is also possible, given the evidence for the unrevised state of the original, that Jonson himself may have been responsible for some of the errors in the text. A number of the misquotations, the failures to give attribution to sources, and some of the many incorrect references to sources of quoted passages, for example, may well be authorial.

Given the circumstances, it is unsurprising that the Grammar should be 'the worst printed of all Jonson's texts' (H&S, 8.455). But, even when due allowance is made for special difficulties, it must be acknowledged that the quality of printing was not of a high standard. Checking against the readings of the copy-text at stop-press stages seems to have been casual and haphazard. In an edition that abounds in error, the only page subject to a substantial number of changes is E2v (36) which, however, includes an important miscorrection, made either without reference to the copy-text or in violation of its reading, in the insertion of 'for' in 'her, for hir' (line 31).

Of the several errors of omission, the most substantial in length is that on G4v (56), line 13, where repetition of a word in the copy-text has made for a loss of two of the three examples of singular nouns, of a line introducing examples of the formation of the plural, and an example of the plural of 'tree' (see 1.8.12-13 in the present edition, where the missing passage is supplied by the F3 reading, itself based on editorial conjecture). An earlier, more lengthy lacuna attributable to repetition was detected in the Oxford edition in line 10 of E4v (40). This may be true, but since there is a possible argument for the F2 reading being authorial, it has been allowed to stand in this edition (see 1.3.68-9n.). Shorter, but significant omissions in the English text (see below for omission of Latin words in the Grammatica Anglicana) occur in the following examples: 'i' after 'precedeth' (F4v [48], line 16); 'all' before 'Adverbs' (I2v [68], line 8); 'A, or' before 'An' (K2 [75], line 1); and 'not' after 'varieth' (K2 [75], line 11).

Erroneous insertions which distort the intended meaning of the original are rarer. One occurs in the miscorrection to E2v [36], line 46, cited above, and another in the mistaken addition of 'was' in 'footing, was first' (G3v [54], line 12). Substantive misreadings of English words and characters include 'long' for 'strong' (F2v [44], line 23), 'K' for 'IC' (F3 [45], line 27), 's.' for 'e.'(H2 [59], line 29), 'That' for 'yt' (H3 [61], line 4), 'two' for 'too' (H4 [63], line 13), 'our' for 'one' (K1 [73], line 4), 'in bed' for 'a bed' (K1v [74], line 48), 'his' for 'is' (K2 [75], line 16), 'if' for 'of' (K2v [76], line 2), and 'Or' tte . . . 'tte' for 'Or He . . . He' (L2 [83], line 5).

Mispunctuation, unlikely to have been present in Jonson's original, is a common feature of the printed text; and in the rendering of Latin and Greek forms the wrong diacritics appear frequently, while in other instances the required diacritics are omitted. Such errors in the use of diacritics have also occurred on occasion in the printing of English forms which had authorial superscript accents to denote the nature of a vowel. Thus, the necessary acute accent is missing from the first vowel of 'thriving'in line 8 of E4 (39); on the same page 'tìtle, títle' (Present-day English 'title, tittle') appears in line 17, where 'títle, tìtle' was required; and a grave is omitted from 'us' (E4v [40], line 5).

Given the evidence that Jonson's Latin may not always have been perfect (see the commentary on Grammatica Anglicana, note (w) 2-5) and the likelihood that he never revised and corrected his draft of the Grammar, it is difficult to be certain which of the numerous errors in rendering the Latin of the Grammatica Anglicana may be attributable to the author and which to the compositor. Those which seem likely to have been compositorial include: 'amend.L.Latin.' for 'emend. L. A.' (E1v [34], line 14); 'his' for 'hic' (E1v [34], line 22); 'tum' for 'tam' (E1v [34], line 36); 'proferantur' for 'proferuntur' (E1v [34], line 43); omission of 'I.' before 'porrigit' (E3v [38], line 2); 'vetustissmi' for 'vetustissimi' (E3v [38], line 39); 'vice sit' for 'vice si sit' (F1 [41], line 23); 'amend.' for 'emend.' (F1 [41], line 32); 'habebunt' for 'habebant' (F3 [45], line 32); 'stabulis' for 'stabilis' (F3v [46], line 10); 'Libris'for 'Labris' (F3v [46], line 15); 'cœcum' for 'cæcum' (F3v [46], line 16); 'Atticicissat' for 'Aticissat' (G1 [49], line 32); 'si'for 'sic' (G1v [50], line 12); 'cœteræ'for 'cæteræ'(G1v [50], line 27); 'Prosopæia' for 'Prosopopœia' (H1 [57], line 16).