The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 47, September, 1861. Various
by publishing the results of the collation of "Hamlet," to which we shall hereafter refer more particularly, when we shall see that the reason of Mr. Collier's suppression of so large a portion of these alterations and additions was, that their publication would have made the condemnation of his folio swift and certain. We have here a distinct statement of the thing that is not, and a manifest and sufficient motive for the deception.
It has also been discovered that Mr. Collier has misrepresented the contents of the postscript of a letter from Mistress Alleyn to her husband, Edward Alleyn, the eminent actor of Shakespeare's day. This letter was first published by Mr. Collier in his "Memoirs of Edward Alleyn" in 1841, where he represents the following broken passage as part of it:—
"Aboute a weeke a goe there came a youthe who said he was Mr Frauncis Chaloner who would have borrowed X'li. to have bought things for … and said he was known unto you and Mr Shakespeare of the globe, who came … said he knewe hym not, onely he herde of hym that he was a roge… so he was glade we did not lend him the monney … Richard Johnes [went] to seeke and inquire after the fellow," etc.
The paper on which this postscript is written is very much decayed, and has been broken and torn away by the accidents of time; but enough remains to show that the passage in question stands thus,—the letters in brackets being obliterated:—
"Aboute a weeke agoe ther[e] [cam]e a youthe who said he was || Mr. Frauncis Chalo[ner]s man [& wou]ld have borrow[e]d x's.—to || have bought things for [hi]s Mri[s]….. [tru]st hym || Cominge wthout… token…. d ||I would have…. || [i]f I bene sue[r] ….. || and inquire after the fellow," etc.
The parallels || in the above paragraph indicate the divisions of the lines in the original manuscript; and a moment's examination will convince the reader that the existence of those words of Mr. Collier's version which we have printed in Italic letter in the place to which he assigns them is a physical impossibility, as Mr. Hamilton has clearly shown.5 And that the mention of Shakespeare, and what he said, was not on a part of the letter which has been broken away, is made certain by the fortunate preservation of enough of the lower margin to show that no such passage could have been written upon it.
Mr. Collier has also been convicted by Mr. Dyce of positive and malicious misrepresentation in various passages of the Prolegomena and Notes to his last edition of Shakespeare. (London, 1858, 6 vols.) The misrepresentations refer so purely to matters of textual criticism, and the exhibition of even one of them would involve the quotation of passages so uninteresting to the general reader, that we shall ask him to be content with our assurance that these disgraceful attempts to injure a literary opponent and former friend assume severally the form of direct misstatement, suppression of the truth, prevarication, and cunning perversion; the manner and motive throughout being very shabby.6 The purpose of all these attacks upon Mr. Dyce is not only to wound and disparage him, but to secure for the writer a reputation for superior sagacity and antiquarian learning; and we regret that we are obliged to close this part of our paper by saying that we find that the same motive has led Mr. Collier into similar courses during a great part of his literary career. It has been necessary for us to examine all that he has written upon Shakespeare, and we have again and again found ourselves misled into giving him temporary credit for a point established or a fact discovered, when in truth this credit was due to Malone or Chalmers or some other Shakespearian scholar of the past century, and was sought to be appropriated by Mr. Collier, not through direct misstatement, but by such an ingenious wording and construction of sentences as would accomplish the purpose without absolute falsehood. An instance of this kind of manoeuvring is brought to light in connection with the investigations into the discovery and character of a paper known as "The Players' Petition," which was first made public by Mr. Collier in his "Annals of the Stage," (Vol. i. p. 298,) and which has been pronounced a forgery. Of this he says, in his "Reply to Mr. Hamilton," (p. 59,) "Mr. Lemon, Senior, undoubtedly did bring the 'Players' Petition' under my notice, and very much obliged I was," etc. Now Mr. Collier, in the "Annals of the Stage," after extended remarks upon the importance of the document, merely says, "This remarkable paper has, perhaps, never seen the light from the moment it was presented, until it was recently discovered." No direct assertion here that Mr. Collier discovered it, but a leading of the reader to infer that he did; and not a word about Mr. Lemon's agency, until, upon the suggestion of that gentleman's son, it is serviceable to Mr. Collier to remember it. By reference to Mr. Grant White's "Shakespeare," Vol. ii. p. lx., an instance may be seen of a positive misstatement by Mr. Collier, of which, whatever the motive or the manner, the result is to deprive Chalmers of a microscopic particle of antiquarian credit and to bestow it upon himself. In fact, our confidence in Mr. Collier's trustworthiness, which, diminished by discoveries like these, as our knowledge of his labors increased, has been quite extinguished under the accumulated evidence of either his moral obliquity or his intellectual incapacity for truth. We can now accept from him, merely upon his word, no statement as true by which he has anything to gain.
The bad effect of what he does is increased by the manner in which he seeks to shield himself from the consequences of his acts. He should have said at once, "Let this matter be investigated, and here am I to aid in the investigation," Soon after this folio was brought into public notice, Mr. Charles Knight proposed that it should be submitted to a palaeographic examination by gentlemen of acknowledged competence; but so far was Mr. Collier from yielding to this suggestion, that we have good reason for saying that it was not until after the volume passed, in 1859, into the hands of Sir Frederic Madden of the British Museum, that the more eminent Shakespearian scholars in London had even an opportunity to look at it closely.7 The attacks upon the genuineness of the writing on its margins Mr. Collier was at once too ready to regard as impeachments of his personal integrity, and to shirk by making counter-insinuations against the integrity of his opponents and the correctness of their motives. He attributes to the pettiest personal spite or jealousy the steps which they have taken in discharge of a duty to the interests of literature and the literary guild, and at the risk of their professional reputations, and then slinks back from his charges with,—"I have been told this, but I don't believe it: this may be so, but yet it cannot be: I did something that Mr. So-and-so's father did not like, yet I wouldn't for a moment insinuate," etc., etc.8 Then, Mr. Collier, why do you insinuate? And what in any case do you gain? Suppose the men who deny the good faith of your marginalia are the small-souled creatures you would have us believe they are, they do not make this denial upon their personal responsibility merely; they produce facts. Meet those; and do not go about to make one right out of two wrongs. Cease, too, this crawling upon your belly before the images of dukes and carls and lord chief-justices; digest speedily the wine and biscuits which a gentleman has brought to you in his library, and let them pass away out of your memory. Let us have no more such sneaking sentences as, "I have always striven to make myself as unobjectionable as I could"; but stand up like a man and speak like a man, if you have aught to say that is worth saying; and your noble patrons, no less than the world at large, will have more faith in you, and more respect for you.
But what has been established by the examination of Mr. Collier's folio and the manuscripts which he has brought to light? These very important points:—
The folio contains more than twice, nearly three times, as many marginal readings, including stage-directions and changes of orthography, as are enumerated in Mr. Collier's "List of Every," etc.
The margins retain in numerous places the traces of pencil-memorandums.9
These pencil-memorandums are in some instances written in a modern cursive hand, to which marginal readings in ink, written in an antique hand, correspond.
There are some pencil-memorandums to which no corresponding change in ink has been made; and one of these is in short-hand of a system which did not come into use until 1774.10
These pencil-memorandums in some instances underlie the words in ink which correspond to them.
Similar modern pencil-writing, underlying in like manner antique-seeming words in ink, has been discovered in the Bridgewater folio,
See Dyce's
Such hasty examinations as those which it must have received at the Society of Antiquaries and the Shakespeare Society, where Mr. Collier took it, are of little importance.
See, for instance, "I have been told, but I do not believe it, that Sir F. Madden and his colleagues were irritated by this piece of supposed neglect; and that they also took it ill that I presented the Perkins folio to the kindest, most condescending, and most liberal of noblemen, instead of giving it to their institution." (
This is finally admitted even by Mr. Collier's supporters. The Edinburgh Reviewer says,—"But then the mysterious pencil-marks! They are there, most undoubtedly, and in very great numbers too. The natural surprise that they were not earlier detected is somewhat diminished on inspection. Some say they have 'come out' more in the course of years; whether this is possible we know not. But even now they are hard to discover, until the eye has become used to the search. But when it has,—especially with the use of a glass at first,—they become perceptible enough, words, ticks, points, and all."
In