Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 by Various

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[Footnote aa: The effect produced upon the brown ink on the margins of
the Guazzo by the mere washing it for a few seconds with lint and warm
water may be seen in the word "_apollegy_" on folio 25, reverse, of that
volume, which, with the others noticed in this article, will be left
for inspection at the Astor Library, in the care of Dr. Cogswell, for a
fortnight after the publication of this number of the _Atlantic_. This
slight ablution, hardly more effective than the rubbing of a child's wet
finger, leaves only a pale yellow stain upon the paper.]

Now it should be observed, that, among all the fac-similes published of
the marginal readings in Mr. Collier's folio, there are none either
so modern or so antique in their character as the five fac-similes
respectively given above; nor is there in the former a variation of
style approaching that exhibited in the latter, which all surely
represent the work of one hand. Neither do the fac-similes of the folio
corrections exhibit any chirography more ancient, more "Gothic," than
that of the account a specimen of which was published in our previous
article upon this subject,[bb] and which could not have been written
before 1656, and was quite surely not written until ten years later.

[Footnote bb: See the _Atlantic_ for October, 1859, p. 516.]

* * * * *

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 _recentes_ 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 resistent a
ces moyens;_ on a recours alors a l'application du savon, etc., etc.
On frotte, etc., etc. S'il restait, apres cette operation, des traces
opiniatres sur le papier, _il faudrait desesperer 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.]

[Illustration]

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."

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