Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

We have thus far left out of consideration the faint pencil-memorandums which play so important a part in the history of Mr. Collier's folio. We now examine one of their bearings upon the question at issue. Is it possible that they, or any considerable proportion of them, may be the traces of pencil-marks made in the century 1600? The very great importance of this question need not be pointed out. It was first indicated in this magazine in October, 1859. Mr. Collier has seen it, and, not speaking with certainty as to the use of plumbago pencils at that period, he says,--"But if it be true that pencils of plumbago were at that time in common use, as I believe they were, the old corrector may himself have now and then adopted this mode of recording on the spot changes which, in his judgment, ought hereafter [thereafter?] permanently to be made in Shakespeare's text."[cc]

[Footnote cc: _Reply_, p. 20.]

Another volume in the possession of the present writer affords satisfactory evidence that these pencil-marks may be memorandums made in the latter half of the century 1600. It is a copy of "The Historie of the Life and Death of Mary Stuart Queene of Scotland," London, 1636,--a small, narrow duodecimo, in the original binding. Upon the first one hundred and sixty-nine pages of this volume, within the ruled margin so common in old books, are annotations, very brief and sparse, rarely more than two upon a page, and often not more than one, and consisting sometimes of only two or three abbreviated words,--all evidently written in haste, and all entirely without interest. These annotations, or, rather, memorandums, like those in the Guazzo, explain or illustrate the text. At the top of the page, within the margin-rules, the annotator has written the year during which the events there related took place; and he has also paged the Preface. Now of these annotations _about one half are in pencil_, the numbering entirely so, with a single exception. This pencil-writing is manifestly the product of a period within twenty-five or thirty years of the date of the printing of the book, and yet it presents apparent variations in style which are especially noteworthy in connection with our present subject. Some of this pencil-writing is as clear as if it were freshly written; but the greater part is much rubbed, apparently by the mere service that the volume has seen; and some of it is so faint as to be legible only in a high, reflected light, in which, however, to sharp eyes it becomes distinctly visible.[dd] That ordinary black pencil-marks will endure on paper for two centuries may very likely be doubted by many readers, but without reason. Plumbago-marks, if not removed by rubbing, are even more durable than ink; because plumbago is an organic, insoluble substance, not subject to the chemical changes which moisture, the atmosphere, and fluids accidentally spilled, and solvents purposely applied, make in the various kinds of ink which are known to us. The writer discovered this in the course of many amateur print- and book-cleaning experiments, and has since found his experience confirmed by the high authority of M. Bonnardot, in his "Essai sur l'Art de Restaurer les Estampes et les Livres." Paris, 1858.[ee] Of the annotations in the "History of Queen Mary," many are in a strange short-hand, in which various combinations of simple angles, triangles, circles, semicircles, and straight lines play a conspicuous part, which we find, upon examination, is not written according to any system promulgated since the middle of the last century. Our present concern is, however, only with the writing which is in the ordinary letter, and in pencil. Of this there follow three specimen fac-similes, including the figures indicating the Anno Domini at the top of the page from which the words are taken. Three of the figures (4, 7, 8) by which the Preface is paged are also added.[ff]

[Footnote dd: Some of our readers may be glad to know that writing so faint as to be indistinguishable even in a bright open light may be often read in the shadow with that very light reflected upon it, as, for instance, from the opposite page of a book.]

[Footnote ee: Mr. Bonnardot says:--"_Taches des crayons._ (_Plombagine, sanguine, crayon noir_, etc.) Les traces _récentes_ que laissent sur le papier ces divers crayons s'effacent au contact du caoutchouc, ou de la mie de pain; mais, _quand elles sont trop anciennes, elles résistent à ces moyens;_ on a recours alors à l'application du savon, etc., etc. On frotte, etc., etc. S'il restait, après cette opération, des traces opiniâtres sur le papier, _il faudrait désespérer les enlever_." p. 81.]

[Footnote ff: By a common mistake, easily understood, the fac-similes have been put upon the block in reverse order. The lines between the words represent the coarse column-rules of the margins. (Illustration)]

Of these, No. 1 ("_ffer Ph: 2_") explains that "the Emperour & the King of Spaine" of the text are Ferdinand and Philip II.; No. 2 ("_ffr: 2 death_") directs attention to the mention of the decease of Francis II. of France; and No. 3 ("_Dudley Q Eliz great favorite_") is apropos of a supposition by the author of the History that the Virgin Queen "had assigned Dudley for her own husband." Of the pencil-writing fac-similed above, the "1559" and the "_e_" in No. 1 and the "_Dudley_" in No. 8 are so faint as to be almost indistinguishable; the rest of it, though very much rubbed, is plain enough to those who have good eyes. As to the period when these annotations were written, there can be no doubt that it was between 1636 and the end of the third quarter of that century; yet the difference between Nos. 1 and 2 and the last line of No. 8 is very noticeable. There are many other words in pencil in the same volume quite as modern-looking as "_favorite_" in No. 3. Does not this make it clear that the pencil-writing on the margins of Mr. Collier's folio, the greater part of which is so indistinct that to most eyes it is illegible without the aid of a magnifying-glass, and of which not a few of the most legible words are incomplete, may be the pencil-memorandums of a man who entered these marginal readings in the century 1600? Who shall undertake to say that pencil-writing so faint as to have its very existence disputed, and which is written over so as to be partially concealed, possesses a decided modern character, when such writing as that of "_favorite_" above exists, both in pencil and in ink, the production of which between 1636 and 1675 it would be the merest folly to question? The possibility of the readings having been first entered in pencil need not be discussed. It is not only probable that they would be so entered, but that would be the method naturally adopted by a corrector of any prudence, who had not an authoritative copy before him; and that this corrector had such aid not one now pretends to believe. We shall also find, farther on, that pencil-memorandums or guides, the good faith of which no one pretends to gainsay, were used upon this volume. A similar use of pencil is common enough nowadays. We know some writers, who, when correcting their own proofs, always go over them with pencil first, and on a second reading make the corrections, often with material changes, in ink over the pencil-marks. Even letters are, or rather were, written in this manner by young people in remote rural districts, where an equal scarcity of money and paper made an economy of the latter necessary,--a fact which would have a bearing upon the pencilled Marston letter, but for one circumstance to be noticed hereafter.

But one point, and that apparently the strongest, made against another of Mr. Collier's MSS., we are able to set aside entirely. It is that alleged identity of origin between the List of Players appended to the letter from the Council to the Lord Mayor of London and the well-known "Southampton" letter signed H.S., which is based upon an imagined general similarity of hand and a positive identity of form in a certain "very remarkable _g_" which is found in both.[gg] The general similarity seems to us sheerly imaginary; but the _g_ common to the two documents is undoubtedly somewhat unusual in form. That it is not peculiar to the documents in question, however, whether they were written by one hand or two, we happen to be in a position to show. _Ecce signum!_

[Footnote gg: See above, p. 266.]

No. 1 of the above fac-similes is the _g_ of the H.S. letter, No. 2 the _g_ of the List of Players, and in the name below is a _g_ of exactly the same model. This name is written upon the last page of "The Table" of a copy of Guevara's "Chronicle conteyning the lives of tenne Emperours of Rome," translated by Edward Hellowes, London, 1577. This book is bound up in ancient binding with copies of the "Familiar Epistles" of the same writer, Englished by the same translator, 1582, and of his "Familiar Epistles," translated by Geffrey Fenton, 1582. The volume is defaced by little writing besides the names of three possessors whose hands it passed through piecemeal or as a whole; but it is remarkable, that, while one possessor has written on the first title in ink the price which he paid for it, "_pr. 2s. 6d._," in a handwriting like that of "_proverbe_" in the third fac-simile from Guazzo, on p. 268 above, another has recorded _in pencil_ on the next leaf the amount it cost him, "pr: 5s.," in a hand of perhaps somewhat later date, more in the style of the fac-similes from the "Life of Queen Mary," on p. 271. This pencil memorandum is very plain.[hh] It is worthy of special note also, that one of the owners of this volume, a Simon Holdip, writes on the last page of the "Lives of the Ten Emperors," the last in order of binding, "_per me Simone Holdip in te domine speravi_" in the old so-called chancery-hand, while on the first page of the Dedication of the "Familiar Epistles," the first in order of binding, he writes "_Simon Holdip est verus possessor hujus libri_," in as fair an Italian hand as Richard Gethinge or the Countess Olivia herself could show. This evidence of property a subsequent owner has stricken through many times with his pen. In this volume we not only find the "remarkable _g_," the tail of which is relied upon as a link in the chain of evidence to prove the forgery of two documents, but yet another instance of the use of dissimilar styles of writing by the same individual two hundred or two hundred and fifty years ago, and also a well-preserved pencil memorandum of the same period.[ii] But we have by no means disposed of all of this question as to the pencil-writing, and we shall revert to it.

[Footnote hh: It probably records the price paid by the buyer of the whole volume at second-hand in the first part of the century 1600. The first memorandum is quite surely the price paid for the _Familiar Epistles_ alone; for on the binding of the three books into one volume, which took place at an early date, the tops of the capital letters of this possessor's name were slightly cut down.]

[Footnote ii: Similar evidence must abound; and perhaps there is more even within the reach of the writer of this article. For he has made no particular search for it; but merely, after reading Dr. Ingleby's _Complete View_, looked somewhat hastily through those of his old books which, according to his recollection, contained old writing,--which, by the way, has always recommended an antique volume to his attention.]

That the writing of the "Certificate of the Blackfriars Players," the "Blackfriars Petition," and the marginal readings in Mr. Collier's folio shows that they are by the same hand we cannot see. Their chirography is alike, it is true, but it is not the same. Such likeness is often to be seen. The capital letters are formed on different models; and the variation in the _f-s, s-s, d-s_, and _y-s_ is very noticeable.

* * * * *

We now turn to another, and, to say the least, not inferior department of the evidence in this complicated case. Mr. Hamilton has done yeoman's service by his collation and publication of all the manuscript readings found on the margins of "Hamlet" in Mr. Collier's folio. It is by far the most important part of his "Inquiry." It fixes indelibly the stigma of entire untrustworthiness upon Mr. Collier, by showing, that, when he professed, after many examinations, to give a list of all the marginal readings in that folio, he did not, in this play at least, give much more than one-third of them, and that some of those which he omitted were even more striking than those which he published. We must be as brief as possible; and we shall therefore bring forward but one example of these multitudinous sins against truth; and one is as fatal as a dozen. In the last scene of the play, Horatio's last speech (spoken, it will be remembered, after the death of the principal characters and the entrance of Fortinbras) is correctly as follows, according to the text both of the folios and the quartos:--

"Of that I shall have also cause to speak;
And from his mouth, whose voice will draw on more:
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance,
On plots and errors, happen."

But in Mr. Collier's folio it is "corrected" after this astounding fashion:--

"Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth, whose voice shall draw on more.
But let this _scene_ be presently perform'd,
_While I remaine behind to tell a tale
That shall hereafter turn the hearers pale_."

Now, while Mr. Collier publishes the specious change of "this same" to "this _scene_" he entirely passes over the substitution of two whole lines immediately below. And who needs to be told why? Mr. Collier could have the face and the folly to bring forward other priceless additions of whole lines, even, in "Henry VI,"--

"My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff:
_To think I fain would keep it makes me
laugh_,"--

but he had judgment enough to see, that, if it were known that his corrector had foisted the two lines in Italic letter above into the most solemn scene in "Hamlet," the whole round world would ring with scornful laughter. This collation of "Hamlet" has not only extinguished Mr. Collier as a man of veracity, but it has given the _coup de grace_ to any pretence of deference due to these marginal readings on any score. But it has done something else. It has brought facts to light which in themselves are inconsistent with the supposition that Mr. Collier or any other man forged all these marginal readings,--that is, wrote them in a pretended antique character,--and which, taken in connection with the evidence that we have already examined, settles this part of the question forever.

The number of marginal alterations in this play, according to Dr. Ingleby's count, which we believe is correct, is four hundred and twenty-six. Now for how many of this number does the reader suppose that the sharp eyes and the microscopes of the British Museum and its unofficial aids have discovered the relics of pencil memorandums? Exactly ten,--as any one may see by examining Mr. Hamilton's collation. Of these ten, three are for punctuation,--the substitution of a period for a semicolon, the introduction of three commas, and the substitution of an interrogation point for a comma; the punctuation being of not the slightest service in either case, as the sense is as clear as noonday in all. Two are for the introduction of stage-directions in Act I., Sc. 3,--"_Chambers_," and, on the entrance of the Ghost, "_armed as before_"; neither of which, again, added anything to the knowledge of the modern reader. This leaves but five pencil memorandums of changes in the text; and they, with two exceptions, are the mere adding of letters not necessary to the sense.

Of these four hundred and twenty-six marginal changes, a very large proportion, quite one-half, and we should think more, are mere insignificant literal changes or additions, such as an editor in supervising manuscript, or an author in reading proof, passes over, and leaves to the proof-readers of the printing-office, by whom they are called "literals," we believe. Such are the change of "_Whon_ yond same starre" to "_When_ yond," etc.; "_Looke_ it not like the king" to "_Lookes_ it," etc.; "He _smot_ the sledded Polax" to "He _smote_," etc.; "_Heaven_ will direct it" to "_Heavens_ will," etc.; "list, _Hamle_, list," to "list, _Hamlet_, list"; "the _Mornings_ Ayre" to "the _Morning_ Ayre"; "My Liege and _Madrm_" to "My Liege and _Madam_"; "_locke_ of Wit" to "_lacke_ of Wit"; "both our _judgement_ joyne" to "both our _judgements_ joyne"; "my _convseration_" to "my _conversation_"; "the _strucken_ Deere" to "the _stricken_ Deere"; "_Requit_ him for your Father" to "_Requite_ him," etc.; "I'll _anoiot_ my sword" to "I'll _anoint_" etc.; "the _gringding_ of the Axe" to "the _grinding_" etc. To corrections like these the alleged forger must have devoted more than half his time; and if the thirty-one pages that "Hamlet" fills in the folio furnish us a fair sample of the whole of the forger's labors,[jj] we have the enormous sum of six thousand four hundred, and over, of such utterly useless changes upon the nine hundred pages of that volume. Such another laborious scoundrel, who labored for the labor's sake, the world surely never saw!

[Footnote jj: Dr. Ingleby says,--"The collations of that single play are a perfect picture of the contents of the original, and a just sample of the other plays in that volume."--_Complete View_, p. 131.]

But among these marginal changes in "Hamlet," a large number present a very striking and significant peculiarity,--a peculiarity which was noticed in our previous article as characterizing other marginal changes in the same volume, and which it is impossible to reconcile with the purpose of a forger who knew enough to make the body of the corrections on these margins, and who meant to obtain authority for them as being, in the words of Mr. Collier, "Early Manuscript Corrections in the Folio of 1632." That peculiarity is a _modernization of the text absolutely fatal to the "early" pretensions of the readings;_ and it appears in the regulation of the loose spelling prevalent at the publication of this folio, and for many years after, by the standard of the more regular and approximately analogous fashion of a later period, and also in the establishment of grammatical concords, which, entirely disregarded in the former period, were observed by well-educated people in the latter.

Thus we find "He _smot_" changed to "He _smote_"; "Some _sayes_" to "Some _say_"; "_veyled_ lids" to "_vayled_ lids"; "_Seemes_ to me all the uses" to "_Seem_ to me all the uses"; "It lifted up _it_ head" to "It lifted up _its_ head"; "_dreins_ his draughts" to "_drains_ his draughts"; "fast in _fiers_" to "fast in _fires_"; "a _vild_ phrase, beautified is a _vild_ phrase," to "a _vile_ phrase, beautified is a _vile_ phrase"; "How in my words _somever_ she be shent" to "How in my words _soever_," etc.; "_currants_ of this world" to "_currents_," etc.; "theres _matters_" to "theres _matter_"; "like some _oare_" to "like some _ore_"; "this _vilde_ deed" to "this _vile_ deed"; "a sword _unbaited_" to "a sword _unbated_"; "a _stoape_ liquor" to "a _stoop_ liquor"; and "the _stopes_ of wine" to "the _stoopes_ of wine." Of corrections like these we have discovered twenty-eight among the collations of "Hamlet" alone, and there are probably more. We may safely assume that in this respect "Hamlet" fairly represents the other plays in Mr. Collier's folio; for we have not only Dr. Ingleby's assurance that it is a "just sample" of the volume, but in the four octavo sheets of fac-similes privately printed by Mr. Collier we find these instances of like corrections: "_Betide_ to any creature" to "_Betid_," etc.; "_Wreaking_ as little" to "_Wrecking_ as little"; "painted _cloathes_" to "painted _clothes_"; "words that _shakes_" to "words that _shake_." Twenty-eight such corrections for the thirty-one pages of "Hamlet" give us about eight hundred and fifty for the nine hundred pages of the whole volume,--eight hundred and fifty instances in which the alleged forger, who wished to obtain for his supposed fabrication the consideration due to antiquity, modernized the text, though he obtained thereby only a change of form, and not a single new reading, in any sense of the term!

We turn to kindred evidence in the stage-directions. In "Love's Labor's Lost," Act IV., Sc. 3, when Birone conceals himself from the King, the stage-direction in the folio of 1632, as well as in that of 1623, is "_He stands aside_." But in Mr. Collier's folio of 1632 this is changed to "_He climbs a tree_," and he is afterward directed to speak "_in the tree_." So again in "Much Ado about Nothing," Act II., Sc. 3, there is a MS. stage-direction to the effect that Benedick, when he hides "in the arbour," "_Retires behind the trees_." Now as this use of scenery did not obtain until after the Restoration, these stage-directions manifestly could not have been written until after that period. Upon this point--which was first made in "Putnam's Magazine" for October, 1853, in the article "The Text of Shakespeare: Mr. Collier's Corrected Folio of 1632,"--Mr. Halliwell says (fol. Shak. Vol. IV. p. 340) that the writer of that article "fairly adduces these MS. directions as incontestable evidences of the late period of the writing in that volume, 'practicable' trees certainly not having been introduced on the English stage until after the Restoration." See, too, in the following passage from "The Noble Stranger," by Lewis Sharpe, London, 1640, direct evidence as to the stage customs in London, eight years after the publication of Mr. Collier's folio, in situations like those of Birone and Benedick:--

"I am resolv'd, I over-
Heard them in the presence appoynt to walke
Here in the garden: now in _yon thicket
I'll stay_," etc.

"_Exit behind the Arras_."

But no man in the world knows the ancient customs of the English stage better than Mr. Collier,--we may even say, so well, and pay no undue compliment to the historian of that stage;[kk] and though he might easily, in the eagerness of discovery, overlook the bearing of such stage-directions as those in question, will it be believed, by any one not brimful of blinding prejudice, that, in attempting the imposition with which he is charged, and in forging in a copy of the folio of 1632 notes and emendations for which he claimed deference because they were, in his own words, "in a handwriting not much later than the time when it came from the press," he deliberately wrote in these stage-directions, which in any case added nothing to the reader's information, and which he, of all men, knew would prove that his volume was not entitled to the credit he was laboring to obtain for it?

[Footnote kk: _The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare: and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration_. By J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1831.]

Again, Mr. Hamilton's collations of "Hamlet" show that no less than thirty-six passages have been erased from that play in this folio. These erased passages are from a few insignificant words to fifty lines in extent They include lines like these in Act I., Sc. 2:--

"With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in
marriage,"--

and these from the same scene:--

"It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, or mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 't is a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,
This must be so."

In the last scene, all after Horatio's speech; "Now cracks a noble heart," etc., is struck out. Who will believe that any man in his senses, making corrections for which he meant to claim the deference due to a higher authority than the printed test, would make such and so numerous erasures? In fact, no one does so believe.

But the collations of "Hamlet" furnish in these erasures one other very important piece of evidence. In Act II., Sc. 1, the passage from and including Reynaldo's speech, "As gaming, my Lord," to his other speech, "Ay, my Lord, I would know that," is crossed out. But the lines are not only crossed through in ink, they are "also marked in pencil." Now it is confessed by the accusers of Mr. Collier that these erasures are the marks of an ancient adaptation of the text to stage purposes, which were made before the marginal corrections of the text; otherwise they must needs have maintained the preposterous position just above set forth. And besides, it is admitted, that, in the numerous passages which are both erased and corrected, the work itself shows that the corrections were made upon the erasures, and not the erasures upon the corrections. We have, therefore, here, upon the very pages of this folio, evidence that alterations in pencil not only might have been, but were, made upon it at an early period, even in regard to so very slight a matter as the crossing out of fourteen lines; and that these pencilled lines served as a guide for the subsequent permanent erasure in ink.

And this collation of "Hamlet" also enables us to decide with approximate certainty upon the period when these manuscript readings were entered upon the margins of the folio. Not more surely did the lacking aspirate betray the Ephraimite at Jordan than the spelling of this manuscript corrector reveals the period at which he performed his labors. Take, for instance, the word "vile." Any man who could make the body of these corrections knows that the most common spelling of "vile" down to the middle of the century 1600 was _vild_ or _vilde_. This spelling has even been retained in the text by some editors, and with at least a semblance of reason, as being not a mere variation in spelling, but as representing a different form of the word. No man knows all this better than Mr. Collier; and yet we are called upon to believe that he, meaning to obtain authoritative position for the marginal readings in this folio, by making them appear to have been written by a contemporary of Shakespeare's later years, altered _vild_ to _vile_ in three passages of a single play, though he thereby made not the slightest shade of difference in the meaning of the passage! And the same demand is made upon our credulity in regard to the eight hundred and fifty similar instances! Sir Frederic Madden, Mr. Duffus Hardy, Mr. Hamilton, Dr. Ingleby, accomplished palaeographers, keen-eyed, remorseless investigators, learned doctors though you be, you cannot make men who have common sense believe this. Your tests, your sharp eyes, and your optical aids, even that dreadful "microscope bearing the imposing and scientific name of the Simonides Uranius," which carried such terror to the heart of Mr. Collier, will fail to convince the world that he spent hour after hour and day after day in labors the only purpose of which was directly at war with that which you attribute to him, and which, if he made these manuscript corrections, must have been the motive of his labors.

But if Mr. Collier, or some other man of this century, did not make these orthographical changes, when were they made? Let us trace the fortunes of _vile_, which is a good test word, as being characteristic, and as it occurs several times in "Hamlet," and is there thrice modernized by the manuscript corrector. It occurs five times in that play, as the reader may see by referring to Mrs. Clarke's "Concordance." In the folio of 1623, in all these cases, except the first, it is spelled _vild_; in the folio of 1632, with the same exception, we also find _vild_; even in the folio of 1664[ll] the spelling in all these instances remains unchanged; but in the folio of 1685, _vild_ gives place to _vile_ in every case. As with "vild," so with the other words subjected to like changes. To make a long story short, the spelling throughout the marginal readings of this folio, judged by the numerous fac-similes and collations that have been published, indicates the close of the last quarter of the century 1600 as the period about which the volume in which they appear was subjected to correction. The careful removal (though with some oversights) of those irregularities and anomalies of spelling which were common before the Restoration, and the harmonizing of grammatical discords which were disregarded before that period, and, on the other hand, the retention of the superfluous final _e_, (once the _e_ of prolongation,) and of the _l_ in the contractions of "would," in accordance with a pronunciation which prevailed in England until 1700 and later, all point to this date, which is also indicated by various other internal proofs to which attention has been heretofore sufficiently directed.[mm] The punctuation, too, which, as Mr. Collier announced in "Notes and Emendations," etc., 1853, is corrected "with nicety and patience," is that of the books printed after the Restoration, as may be seen by a comparison of Mr. Collier's private fac-similes and the collations of "Hamlet" in Mr. Hamilton's book with the original editions of poems and plays printed between 1660 and 1675.

[Footnote ll: Or 1663, according to the title-pages of some copies that we have seen.]

[Footnote mm: See _Shakespeare's Scholar_, pp. 56-62. And to the passages noticed there, add this: In _King Henry VI_., Part II., Act IV., Sc. 5, is this couplet:--

"Fight for your King, your country, and your lives.
And so farewell; for I must hence again."

The last line of which in Mr. Collier's folio is changed to

"And so farewell; _Rebellion never thrives_."

Plainly this was written when Charlie was no longer over the water.]

From the foregoing examination of the evidence upon this most interesting question, it appears, we venture to assume, that the conclusions drawn by Mr. Collier's opponents as to the existence of primal evidence of forgery in the ink writing alone in his folio are not sustained by the premises which are brought forward in their support. It seems also clear, that, to say the least, it is not safe to assume that all the pencil memorandums which appear upon the margins of that volume as guides for the corrections in ink are proofs of the spurious character of those corrections; but that, on the contrary, those pencil-marks, with certain exceptions, may be the faint vestiges of the work of a corrector who lived between 1632 and 1675, and who entered his readings in pencil before finally completing them in ink. We have found, too, that this volume, for the manuscript readings in which the alleged forger claimed an authority based upon the early date at which they were written, presents upon its every page changes in phraseology, grammar, orthography, and punctuation, which, utterly useless for a forger's purpose, could not have been made before a late period in the century 1600. Now when, in view of these facts, we consider that the man who is accused of committing this forgery is a professed literary antiquary, who, at the time when he brought forward this folio, (in 1852,) had been engaged in the minute study of the text of old plays and poems for more than thirty years,[nn] can we hesitate in pronouncing a verdict of not guilty of the offence as charged? It is as manifest as the sun in the heavens that Mr. Collier is not the writer of the mass of the corrections in this folio. It is morally impossible that he should have made them; and, on the other hand, the physical evidence which is relied upon by his accusers breaks down upon examination.

[Footnote nn: _The Poetical Decameron, or Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry, particularly of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I._ London, 1820.]

* * * * *

But the modern cursive pencil-writing!--for you see that it is this cursive writing that damns this folio,--what story does that tell? What is its character? Who wrote it? Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Ingleby have answered these questions by the publication of between twenty and thirty fac-similes of this pencil-writing, consisting in only five instances of more than a single word, letter, or mark. But these are undeniably the work of a modern hand,--a hand of this century, as may be seen by the following reproductions of two of the fac-similes:--

The upper one represents the stage-direction in ink, with its accompanying pencil-memorandum, for an _aside_ speech in "King John," Act II., Sc. 1,--doubtless that of Faulconbridge,--"O prudent discipline," etc. This is reproduced from a fac-simile published by Dr. Ingleby. Mr. Hamilton has given a fac-simile of the same words; but Dr. Ingleby says that his is the more accurate. The lower memorandum is a pencilled word, "_begging_" opposite the line in "Hamlet," Act III., Sc. 2, "And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee," to which there is no corresponding word in ink. Both these words are manifestly not examples of an ancient cursive hand, like those of which fac-similes are given above, but of rapid pencil-writing of the present century. They fairly represent the character of all the fac-similes of words in pencil, with two exceptions, which Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Ingleby have published. But the question as to their origin can be brought down to a narrower point. For not only does competent testimony from London assure us that Mr. Collier's handwriting and that of these pencil-memorandums is identical, but, having some of that gentleman's writing in pencil by us, we are able to see this identity for ourselves. We can discover not the slightest room for doubt that a certain number of the pencil-guides for the corrections upon the margins of this folio were written either by Mr. Collier himself, or in the British Museum by some malicious person who desired to inculpate him in a forgery. The reader who has accompanied us thus far can have no doubt as to which alternative we feel compelled to choose. The indications of the pencilled words in modern cursive writing are strengthened by the short-hand stage-direction in "Coriolanus," Act V., Sc. 2, "Struggles or instead noise," in the characters of Palmer's system, which was promulgated in 1774. This system is one which a man of Mr. Collier's years would be likely to use, and the purport of the memorandum is obvious. Would Mr. Collier have us believe that this also was introduced in the British Museum?

We have chosen the word "begging" for fac-simile not merely because of the marked character of its chirography. It has other significance. Mr. Collier asks, "What is gained by it?" and says, that, as there is no corresponding change in the text, "'begging' must have been written in the margin ... merely as an explanation, and a bad explanation, too, if it refer to 'pregnant' in the poet's text."[oo] It is, of course, no explanation; but it seems plainly that it is the memorandum for a proposed, but abandoned, substitution. Who that is familiar with the corrections in Mr. Collier's folio does not recognize this as one of those which have been so felicitously described by an American critic as taking "the fire out of the poetry, the fine tissue out of the thought, and the ancient flavor and aroma out of the language"?[pp] The corrector in this case plainly thought of reading,

"And crook the begging hinges of the knee";

but, doubtful as to this at first, (for we regard the interrogation-point as a query to himself, and not as indicating the insertion of that point after "Dost thou hear,") he finally came to the conclusion, that, although he, and many a respectable poet, might have written "begging" in this passage, Shakespeare was just the man to write "pregnant,"--an instance of critical sagacity of which he has left us few examples. Now it is remarkable that the majority of the changes proposed by Mr. Collier in the notes to this edition of Shakespeare (8 vols., 8vo., 1842-3) evince a capacity for the apprehension of figurative language and for conjectural emendation of the very calibre indicated by this proposed change of "pregnant hinges" to "_begging_ hinges." He has throughout his literary career, which began, we believe, with the publication of the "Poetical Decameron," in 1820, shown rather the faithfulness, the patience, and the judgment of a literary antiquary, than the insight, the powers of comparison, the sensibility, and the constructive ingenuity of a literary critic. And one of the great improbabilities against his authorship of all the corrections in his folio is, that it is not according to Nature that so late in life he should develop the constructive ability necessary for the production of many of its specious and ingenious, though inadmissible, original readings.

[Footnote oo: _Reply_, p. 22.]

[Footnote pp: Rev. N.L. Frothingham, D.D., in the _Christian Examiner_ for November, 1853.]

We see, then, no way of avoiding the conclusion that this notorious folio was first submitted to erasure for stage purposes; that afterward, at some time between 1650 and 1675, it was carefully corrected for the press with the view to the publication of a new edition; and that finally it fell into the hands of Mr. Collier, who, either alone or by the aid of an accomplice, introduced other readings upon its margins, for the purpose of obtaining for them the same deference which he supposed those already there would receive for their antiquity. Either this is true, or Mr. Collier is the victim of a mysterious and marvellously successful conspiracy; and by his own unwise and unaccountable conduct--to use no harsher terms--has aided the plans of his enemies.

Mr. Collier's position in this affair is, in any case, a most singular and unenviable one. His discoveries, considering their nature and extent and the quarters in which they were made, are exceedingly suspicious:--the Ellesmere folio, the Bridgewater House documents, including the Southampton letter, the Dulwich College documents, including the Alleyn letter, the Petition of the Blackfriars Company in the State Paper Office, and the various other letters, petitions, accounts, and copies of verses, all of which are justly open to suspicion of tampering, if not of forgery. What a strange and unaccountable fortune to befall one man! How has this happened? What fiend has followed Mr. Collier through the later years of his life, putting manuscripts under his pillow and folios into his pew, and so luring him on to moral suicide? Alas! there is probably but one man now living that can tell us, and he will not. But this protracted controversy, which has left so much unsettled, has greatly served the cause of literature, in showing that by whomsoever and whensoever these marginal readings, which so took the world by storm nine years ago, were written, they have no pretence to any authority whatever, not even the quasi authority of an antiquity which would bring them within the post-Shakespearian period. All must now see, what a few at first saw, that their claim to consideration rests upon their intrinsic merit only. But what that merit is, we fear will be disputed until the arrival of that ever-receding Shakespearian millenium when the editors shall no longer rage or the commentators imagine a vain thing.

* * * * *

THE BATH.

Off, fetters of the falser life,--
Weeds that conceal the statue's form!
This silent world with truth is rife,
This wooing air is warm.

Now fall the thin disguises, planned
For men too weak to walk unblamed;
Naked beside the sea I stand,--
Naked, and not ashamed.

Where yonder dancing billows dip,
Far-off, to ocean's misty verge,
Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship,
The Orient's cloudy surge.

With spray of scarlet fire before
The ruffled gold that round her dies,
She sails above the sleeping shore,
Across the waking skies.

The dewy beach beneath her glows;
A pencilled beam, the light-house burns:
Full-breathed, the fragrant sea-wind blows,--
Life to the world returns!

I stand, a spirit newly born,
White-limbed and pure, and strong, and fair,--
The first-begotten son of Morn,
The nursling of the air!

There, in a heap, the masks of Earth,
The cares, the sins, the griefs, are thrown
Complete, as, through diviner birth,
I walk the sands alone.

With downy hands the winds caress,
With frothy lips the amorous sea,
As welcoming the nakedness
Of vanished gods, in me.

Along the ridged and sloping sand,
Where headlands clasp the crescent cove,
A shining spirit of the land,
A snowy shape, I move:

Or, plunged in hollow-rolling brine,
In emerald cradles rocked and swung,
The sceptre of the sea is mine,
And mine his endless song.

For Earth with primal dew is wet,
Her long-lost child to rebaptize:
Her fresh, immortal Edens yet
Their Adam recognize.

Her ancient freedom is his fee;
Her ancient beauty is his dower:
She bares her ample breasts, that he
May suck the milk of power.

Press on, ye hounds of life, that lurk
So close, to seize your harried prey!
Ye fiends of Custom, Gold, and Work,
I hear your distant bay!

And like the Arab, when he bears
To the insulted camel's path
His garment, which the camel tears,
And straight forgets his wrath;

So, yonder badges of your sway,
Life's paltry husks, to you I give:
Fall on, and in your blindness say,
We hold the fugitive!

But leave to me this brief escape
To simple manhood, pure and free,--
A child of God, in God's own shape,
Between the land and sea!

SACCHARISSA MELLASYS.

I.

THE HERO.

When I state that my name is A. Bratley Chylde, I presume that I am already sufficiently introduced.

My patronymic establishes my fashionable position. Chylde, the distinguished monosyllable, is a card of admission everywhere,-- everywhere that is anywhere.

And my matronymic, Bratley, should have established my financial position for life. It should have--allow me a vulgar term--"indorsed" me with the tradesmen who have the honor to supply me with the glove, the boot, the general habiliment, and all the requisites of an elegant appearance upon the carpet or the _trottoir_.

But, alas! I am not so indorsed--pardon the mercantile aroma of the word--by the name Bratley.

The late Mr. A. Bratley, my grandfather, was indeed one of those rude, laborious, and serviceable persons whose office is to make money--or perhaps I should say to accumulate the means of enjoyment--for the upper classes of society.

But my father, the late Mr. Harold Chylde, had gentlemanly tastes.

How can I blame him? I have the same.

He loved to guide the rapid steed along the avenue.

I also love to guide the rapid steed.

He could not persuade his delicate lungs--pardon my seeming knowledge of anatomy--to tolerate the confined air in offices, counting-houses, banks, or other haunts of persons whose want of refinement of taste impels them to the crude distractions of business-life.

I have the same delicacy of constitution. Indeed, unless the atmosphere I breathe is rendered slightly narcotic by the smoke of Cabañas and slightly stimulating by the savor of heeltaps,--excuse the technical term,--I find myself debilitated to a degree. The open air is extremely offensive to me. I confine myself to clubs and billiard-rooms.

My late father, being a man distinguished for his clear convictions, was accustomed to sustain the statement of those convictions by wagers. The inherent generosity of his nature obliged him often to waive his convictions in behalf of others, and thus to abandon the receipt of considerable sums. He also found the intellectual excitement of games of chance necessary to his mental health.

I cannot blame him for these and similar gentlemanly tastes. My own are the same.

The late Mr. A. Bratley, at that time in his dotage, and recurring to the crude idioms of his homely youth, constantly said to my father,--

"Harold, you are a spendthrift and a rake, and are bringing up your son the same."

I object, of course, to his terms; but since he foresaw that my habits would be expensive, it is to be regretted that he did not make suitable provision for their indulgence.

He did not, however, do so. Persons of low-breeding never can comprehend their duties to the more refined.

The respective dusts of my father and grandfather were consigned to the tomb the same week, and it was found that my mother's property had all melted away, as--allow me a poetical figure--ice-cream melts between the lips of beauty heated after the German.

Yes,--all was gone, except a small pittance in the form of an annuity. I will not state the ridiculously trifling amount. I have seen more than our whole annual income lost by a single turn of a card at the establishment of the late Mr. P. Hearn, and also in private circles.

Something must be done. Otherwise, that deprivation of the luxuries of life which to the aristocratic is starvation.

I stated my plans to my mother. They were based in part upon my well-known pecuniary success at billiards--I need not say that I prefer the push game, as requiring no expenditure of muscular force. They were also based in part upon my intimacy with a distinguished operator in Wall Street. Our capital would infallibly have been quadrupled,--what do I say? decupled, centupled, in a short space of time.

My mother is a good, faithful creature. She looks up to me as a Bratley should to a Chylde. She appreciates the honor my father did her by his marriage, and I by my birth. I have frequently remarked a touching fidelity of these persons of the lower classes of society toward those of higher rank.

"I would make any sacrifice in the world," she said, "to help you, my dear A---"

"Hush!" I cried.

I have suppressed my first name as unmelodious and connecting me too much with a religious persuasion meritorious for its wealth alone. Need I say that I refer to the faith of the Rothschild?

"All that I have is yours, my dear Bratley," continued my mother.

Quite touching! was it not? I was so charmed, that I mentally promised her a new silk when she went into half-mourning, and asked her to go with me to the opera as soon as she got over that feeble tendency to tears which kept her eyes red and unpresentable.

"I would gladly aid you," the simple-hearted creature said, "in any attempt to make your fortune in an honorable and manly way."

"Brava! brava!" I cried, and I patted applause, as she deserved. "And you had better make over your stocks to me at once," I continued.

"I cannot without your Uncle Bratley's permission. He is my trustee. Go to him, my dear son."

I went to him very unwillingly. My father and I had always as much as possible ignored the Bratley connection. They live in a part of New York where self-respect does not allow me to be seen. They are engaged in avocations connected with the feeding of the lower classes. My father had always required that the females of their families should call on my mother on days when she was not at home to our own set, and at hours when they were not likely to be detected. None of them, I am happy to say, were ever seen at our balls or our dinners.

I nerved myself, and penetrated to that Ultima Thule where Mr. Bratley resides. His house already, at that early hour of two, smelt vigorously of dinner. Nothing but the urgency of my business could have induced me to brave these odors of plain roast and boiled.

A mob of red-faced children rushed to see me as I entered, and I heard one of them shouting up the stairs,--

"Oh, pa! there's a stiffy waiting to see you."

The phrase was new to me. I looked for a mirror, to see whether any inaccuracy in my toilet might have suggested it.

Positively there was no mirror in the _salon_.

Instead of it, there were nothing but distressingly bright pictures by artists who had had the bad taste to paint raw Nature just as they saw it.

My uncle entered, and quite overwhelmed me with a robust cordiality which seemed to ignore my grief.

"Just in time, my boy," said he, "to take a cut of rare roast beef and a hot potato and a mug of your Uncle Sam's beer with us."

I shuddered, and rebuked him with the intelligence that I had just lunched at the club, and should not dine till six.

Then I stated my business, curtly.

He looked at me with a stare, which I have frequently observed in persons of limited intelligence.

"So you want to gamble away your mother's last dollar," said he.

In vain I stated and restated to him my plans. The fellow, evidently jealous of my superior financial ability, constantly interrupted me with ejaculations of "Pish!" "Bosh!" "Pshaw!" "No go!" and finally, with a loud thump on a table, covered with such costly but valueless objects as books and plates, he cried,

"What a d--d fool!"

I was glad to perceive that he began to admit my wisdom and his stolidity. And so I told him.

"A---," said he, using my abhorred name in full, "I believe you are a greater ass than your father was."

"Sir," said I, much displeased, "these intemperate ebullitions will necessarily terminate our conference."

"Conference be hanged!" he rejoined. "You may as well give it up. You are not going to get the first red cent out of me."

"Have I referred, Sir," said I, "to the inelegant coin you name?"

The creature grinned. "I shall pay your mother's income quarterly, and do the best I can by her," he continued; "and if you want to make a man of yourself, I'll give you a chance in the bakery with me; or Sam Bratley will take you into his brewery; or Bob into his pork-packery."

I checked my indignation. The vulgarian wished to drag me, a Chylde, down to the Bratley level. But I suppressed my wrath, for fear he might find some pretext for suppressing the quarterly income, and alleged my delicate health as a reason for my refusing his insulting offer.

"Well," said he, "I don't see as there is anything else for you to do, except to find some woman fool enough to marry you, as Betsey did your father. There's a hundred dollars!"

I have seldom seen dirtier bills than those he produced and handed to me. Fortunately I was in deep mourning and my gloves were dark lead color.

"That's right," says he,--"grab 'em and fob 'em. Now go to Newport and try for an heiress, and don't let me see your tallow face inside of my door for a year."

He had bought the right to be despotic and abusive. I withdrew and departed, ruminating on his advice. Singularly, I had not before thought of marrying. I resolved to do so at once.

Newport is the mart where the marriageable meet. I took my departure for Newport next day.

II.

THE HEROINE.

I need hardly say, that, on arriving at Newport, one foggy August morning, I drove at once to the Millard.

The Millard attracted me for three reasons: First, it was new; second, it was fashionable; third, the name would be sure to be in favor with the class I had resolved to seek my spouse among. The term _spouse_ I select as somewhat less familiar than _wife_, somewhat more permanent than _bride_, and somewhat less amatory than _the partner of my bosom_. I wish my style to be elevated, accurate, and decorous. It is my object, as the reader will have already observed, to convey heroic sentiments in the finest possible language.

It was upon some favored individual of the class Southern Heiress that I designed to let fall the embroidered handkerchief of affectionate selection. At the Millard I was sure to find her. That enormously wealthy and highly distinguished gentleman, her father, would naturally avoid the Ocean House. The adjective _free_, so intimately connected with the _substantive_ ocean, would constantly occur to his mind and wound his sensibilities. The Atlantic House was still more out of the question. The name must perpetually remind the tenants of that hotel of a certain quite objectionable periodical devoted to propagandism. In short, not to pursue this process of elimination farther, and perhaps offend some friend of the class Hotel-Keeper, the Millard was not only about the cheese, _per se_,--I punningly allude here to the creaminess of its society,--but inevitably the place to seek my charmer.