The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 47, September, 1861

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,[40 - The Poetical Decameron, or Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry, particularly of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I. London, 1820.] 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.

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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."[41 - Reply, p. 22.] 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"?[42 - Rev. N.L. Frothingham, D.D., in the Christian Examiner for November, 1853.] 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.

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.

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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,