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:--
[Illustration: Handwriting sample.]
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.
* * * * *