ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. II.

[vii] [1]

THE TALK OF THE TOWN.

CHAPTER XIX.

ANOTHER DISCOVERY.

When folks are not in accord, and especially if there is fear on one side, communication of all kinds is difficult enough, but personal companionship is well-nigh unendurable. Often and often in evenings not so long ago William Henry had hesitated to come in on his father’s very doorstep, and turned away into the wet and wind-swept streets rather[2] than thrust his unwelcome companionship upon him. Not seldom, in the days between the death of his wife and Margaret’s coming to Norfolk Street, Mr. Erin had left the supper table without a word, and sought his own chamber an hour before his time, rather than endure the sight of the boy whose very existence was a reproach to him, who had had the ill taste to survive his own beloved child, and who had not a pleasure or pursuit in common with him. Now, however, all this was changed; and nothing was more significant of the alteration in the old man’s feelings towards William Henry than the satisfaction he took in his society. So close an attachment the young man might well have dispensed with, since it

kept him sometimes from his Margaret; but he nevertheless was far from discouraging it, since he knew that such familiarity tended in the end to ensure her to him.

It was the antiquary’s whim—or perhaps he thought that association of ideas might help to incline the young man’s heart towards him—to read at night Shakespeare’s plays with[3] him, as they had been wont to do when William Henry was yet a child and no coldness had as yet sprung up between them. At times the young fellow’s attention would flag a little; his thoughts would fly after his heart, which was upstairs in Margaret’s keeping; but as a rule he shared, or seemed to share, the old man’s enthusiasm. His comments and suggestions on the text were always received with a respect which, considering what would have been their fate had they been hazarded six months ago, was almost ludicrous. Such illogical changes in personal estimation are not unexampled; even in modern times there have been instances where the sudden acquisition of wealth, or the unexpected succession to a title, have invested their astonished possessors with attributes in no way connected with either rank or riches; in the present case the admiration expressed was,

however, remarkable, because the very qualities of literary judgment and the like, which were now acknowledged, had been of old contemptuously ignored. William Henry, who had never himself ignored them, was content[4] to find them recognised at last by whatever means, and exchanged his views upon the character of Hamlet with the antiquary with cheerful confidence and upon equal terms.

One night they were reading ‘Lear’ together, and had come to those lines wherein the Duke offers Kent half the administration of the kingdom. To this Kent replies—

I have a journey, sir, shortly to go: My master calls me; I must not say ‘No.’

‘Do you not think, sir,’ observed William Henry, ‘that such a couplet is somewhat inappropriate to the occasion?’

‘How so?’ inquired the antiquary. It was noteworthy that he took the objection with such mildness. The notion of anything in Shakespeare being inappropriate was like suggesting to a fire-worshipper that there were spots on the sun.

‘Well, sir, it strikes me as somewhat too brief and trivial, considering the subject on which he speaks. Now what do you think of this by way of an emendation?’ He drew[5] from his pocket a slip of paper on which the following lines were written in his own handwriting:—

Thanks, sir; but I go to that unknown land That chains each pilgrim fast within its soil, By living men most shunned, most dreaded. Still my good master this same journey took: He calls me; I am content and straight obey. Then farewell, world; the busy scene is done: Kent lived most true; Kent died most like a man.

The antiquary’s face was a study. A few months ago it is doubtful whether anything from William Henry’s pen would have obtained so much as patient consideration. Of his son’s genius Mr. Erin had always thought very little; he esteemed him indeed no more worthy of the title of man of letters than his friend Mr. Talbot himself; but his productions were now on a very different plane. They demanded his best attention and such admiration as it was possible to give.

‘Still my good master this same journey took: He calls me; I am content and straight obey,’

he murmured. ‘That is harmonious and[6] natural; a certain simplicity pervades it: yes, my lad, that is creditable.’

‘I venture to think,’ said the young man deferentially, ‘that the opening lines—

Thanks, sir; but I go to that unknown land, &c—

are not devoid of merit.’

‘Devoid? No, certainly not devoid. Courteous in expression and—um—to the point, but somewhat modern in tone.’

Without speaking, but with a smile full of significance, the young man produced a roll of paper and laid it before his companion.

‘Great heavens! what is this?’ exclaimed Mr. Erin, straightening out the manuscript with trembling fingers, while he devoured it with his eyes.

‘It is something that you hoped to find at Stratford—at Clapton House,’ returned William Henry, quietly. ‘How often have you told me that some manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays must needs be in existence somewhere! You were right; this is the original, or at all events a very early manuscript, of “Lear.[7]”’

‘“Lear”? Shakespeare’s “Lear”? My dear Samuel, you take my breath away. And yet the handwriting seems incontestable; and here is the jug watermark, a clear proof at least of its antiquity. You have read it, of course: does it differ from the quartos?’

‘Yes, materially.’

‘Thank Heaven!—I mean, how extraordinary! One can hardly, indeed, wish a line of Shakespeare’s to differ from what is already engraven in our hearts; but still to get his first thoughts! Truly a rapturous day!’

‘I rather think, sir,’ said William Henry, ‘that after investigation you will acknowledge that these were not only his first thoughts but his best thoughts. There is a polish on the gem that has heretofore been lacking. The manuscript will, if I am not mistaken, prove Shakespeare to have been a more finished writer than has been hitherto imagined. There are many new readings, but once again to refer to that speech of Kent’s: you admired it in its modern form, into which I purposely cast it, confident that its merits would not escape you[8] even in that guise; out in its proper and antique dress just be so good as to reperuse it; perhaps you will give it voice, the advantage of a trained utterance.’

Thus advised, Mr. Erin, nothing loth, repeated the lines aloud:—

Thanks, Sir; butte I goe toe thatte unknowne land That chaynes each Pilgrime faste within its soyle.

He read sonorously and with a somewhat pompous air, but effectively; the dignity of the subject sustained him; moreover the sight of the old spelling and quaint calligraphy stirred him as the clang of the trumpet moves the war-horse to exhibit his best paces.

‘It is certainly very fine,’ was his verdict upon his own performance. ‘Who does not pronounce that speech replete with pathos and energy must resign all pretensions to poetical taste.’

‘But as an emendation on the received version,’ persisted William Henry—

‘I have a journey, sir, shortly to go—

will you not admit that it compares favourably with that?’

[9]

‘I consider it, my dear Samuel,’ was the solemn reply, ‘a decided improvement.’

He spoke in a tone of conviction, which admitted of no question; sudden as his conversion was (for in praising what in fact he had believed to be his son’s composition he had gone to the extreme limit that his conscience would permit), it was perfectly genuine.

There are only a very few people in the world who form an independent judgment on anything upon its intrinsic merits. Most of us are the slaves of authority, or what is supposed to be authority, in matters of opinion. In letters men are almost as much victims to a name as in art. The scholar blind to the beauties of a modern poem can perceive them in an ancient one even where they do not exist. He cannot be persuaded that Æschylus was capable of writing a dull play; the antiquary prefers a torso of two thousand years old to a full-length figure by Canova. This may not be good sense, but it is human nature.

‘I need not ask you,’ continued Mr. Erin, after a pause, during which he gazed at the[10] manuscript like Cortez, on his peak, at the Pacific, ‘whether this precious document came from the same treasure house as the rest?’

‘Yes, sir; it almost seems as if there were no end to them. I have not yet explored half the curious papers on which my patron seems to set so little store.’

The antiquary’s eyes sparkled under his shaggy brows; if the young man had read his very heart he could not have replied to its secret thoughts more pertinently. An hour before he had hardly dreamt of the existence of such a prize, but, now that it had been found, it at once began to suggest the most magnificent possibilities. This was the first, but why should it be the last? If the manuscript of the ‘Lear’ had survived all the accidents of time and chance, why not that of the ‘Hamlet’ also—the ‘Hamlet,’ with its ambiguous utterances, so differently rendered by the Shakespearean oracles, and which stood so much in need of an authoritative exponent?

When a man (for no merit of his own beyond a little bribery at elections) is made a[11] baronet, he is not so enraptured but that he beholds in the perspective a peerage, and even dreams that upon a somewhat ampler waistcoat (but still his own) may one day repose the broad riband of the Garter.

‘What is very remarkable in the present manuscript,’ continued William Henry, ‘is that it is free from the ribaldry which but too often disfigures the plays of Shakespeare.’

‘The taste of the time was somewhat coarse,’ observed Mr. Erin. It was almost incredible even to himself, but he felt that his tone was deprecatory; he was actually making apologies for the Bard of Avon to this young gentleman of seventeen.

‘Nevertheless I cannot believe that Shakespeare pandered to it,’ observed William Henry gravel. ‘These things are in my opinion introduced by the players of the period, and afterwards inserted in the stage copies of the plays from which they were literally printed; and thus the ear of England has been abused. If the discovery of this manuscript should clear Shakespeare’s memory from these ignoble[12] stains, it will be a subject of national congratulation.’

‘Very true,’ assented Mr. Erin. He felt that the remark was insufficient, wanting in enthusiasm, and altogether upon a lower level than the other’s arguments; but the fact was his mind was dwelling upon more personal considerations. He was reflecting upon his own high position as the proprietor of this unique treasure and on what Malone would say now.

These reflections, while they filled him with self-complacency, made him set a higher value upon William Henry than ever; for, like the magician in the Arabian story, he could do nothing without his Aladdheen to help him.

[13]

CHAPTER XX.

A TRUE LOVER.

If Mr. Erin imagined that ‘what Malone would say now’—i.e. after the discovery of the ‘Lear’ manuscript—must needs be in the way of apology and penitence, he was doomed to disappointment. So far from the circumstance carrying conviction to the soul of that commentator, and making him remorseful for his past transgressions, it seemed to incite him to the greater insolence, just as (so Mr. Erin expressed it) the discovery of a new Scripture might have incited the Devil not only against it, but against the old ones. He reiterated all his old objections and fortified them with new ones; he refused to accept the testimony of the Hemynge note of hand, which had satisfied his friend and ally Mr. Wallis; he repeated his horrid suggestions that the Shakespeare lock was a[14] girl’s ringlet, and, in a word, ‘raged’ like the heathen. Having declined to look at the ‘Lear’ upon the ground of ‘life being too short for the examination of such trash,’ he pronounced it to be ‘plain and palpable forgery.’ ‘Three words,’ he said, ‘would

suffice for the matter,’ and published ‘An Inquiry into Certain Papers Attributed to Shakespeare,’ extending to four hundred pages quarto.

Whereto Mr. Erin responded at equal length, with ‘a studious avoidance of the personality which Mr. Malone had imported into the controversy,’ but at the same time taking the liberty to observe that in acting his various parts on the stage of life, Fortune had denied that gentleman every quality essential to each, inasmuch as he was a critic without taste, a poet without imagination, a scholar without learning, a wit without humour, an antiquary without the least knowledge of antiquity, and a man of gallantry, in his dotage. This was a very pretty quarrel as it stood; but, far from being confined to two antagonists, it was taken[15] up by scores on each side: it was no longer ‘a gentle passage of arms,’ as the combat à outrance used to be euphoniously called, but a mêlée. Only the ancient rules of a fair fight were utterly disregarded; both parties went at it hammer and tongs, and hit one another anywhere and with anything. One would have almost imagined that instead of a disagreement among scholars it had been a theological controversy.

To the statement that no one who was not a fool or a knave believed in the Shakespearean manuscripts, Mr. Samuel Erin, scorning to make any particular rejoinder, replied by simply publishing a list of those who had appended their names to his certificate. To this he added a footnote stating the opinion which Dr. Parr had expressed concerning the Profession—namely, that there were many beautiful things in the liturgy of the Church of England, but all inferior to it, which produced a vehement disavowal from that hot-tempered cleric; he mentioned that he had never stated anything so foolish, and that the words in question had[16] been used by Dr. Warton, an observation which caused some coolness between the two learned divines.

To say that William Henry, the football between these two opposing parties, enjoyed it, would be an exaggeration; he liked being in the air—and indeed he was lauded by many persons to the very skies—but did not so much relish the being knocked and trodden under foot below.

As a popular poet once remarked of the reviewers, ‘I like their eulogies well enough, but d—n their criticisms,’ so the young man would have preferred his notoriety to have been without this alloy; but on the whole it pleased him vastly.

Margaret was almost angry with him for taking men’s hard words so coolly, but comforted herself by reflecting that her Willie must have a heavenly temper.

‘As for me,’ she would say, ‘I could scratch their eyes out. It drives me wild to listen to what uncle sometimes reads aloud out of their horrid pamphlets.’

[17]

To which the young fellow would gallantly reply, ‘To have such a partisan, who would not compound for fifty such detractors? And, after all, these good people have a right to their own opinions, though it must be confessed they express them with some intemperance. I have given them the “Lear“ manuscript, but I cannot give them the taste and poetic feeling necessary to appreciate it.’

What of course had wounded Margaret was not their antagonistic criticism, nor even their supercilious contempt, but the accusations they had not scrupled to make against William Henry’s good faith. One does not talk of the ‘poetic feeling’ of a hostile jury. But love has as many causes of admiration as Burton in his ‘Anatomy’ finds for melancholy; and the young fellow’s very carelessness about these charges was, in Margaret’s eyes, a feather in his cap, and proved, for one thing, their absolute want of foundation. If she did not understand all the niceties of the points of difference between the ‘Lear’ manuscript and the ‘Lear’ as[18] it was printed in her uncle’s quarto edition of the play, it was not for want of instruction. There was little else talked of in Norfolk Street, which was perhaps one of the reasons which made the visits of Frank Dennis still more rare. It was clear that the whole subject of the Shakespearean discoveries was distasteful to him; and it must be confessed that he did not even affect that interest in them which good

breeding, and indeed good nature, would have seemed to suggest. As to the comparative merits of the old and new readings, or rather, as Mr. Erin maintained, of the accepted and the original text, he had no opinion to offer one way or the other. ‘I am no critic,’ he would say; ‘so that while my differing from you might give you some annoyance, my agreement with you could afford you no satisfaction’—a remark that did not by any means content the antiquary.

When one’s friends have no opinions of their own it cannot surely hurt them to adopt our opinions, and it is only reasonable that they should do so. It was quite a comfort (because[19] not wholly looked for) to find that when pushed home on a subject within his own judgment Mr. Dennis’s heart in these matters was at least in the right place. Thus, when referring one day to the onslaughts of his opponents, Mr. Erin instanced as an example of their microscopic depravity a certain objection that had been made to the Hemynge’s note of hand. ‘You know, of course, my good fellow, how it has been proved beyond all dispute that there were two John Hemynges.’

‘I was here when Mr. Albany Wallis came and the other deed was found,’ was the young man’s reply.

‘Tut! tut! why, that of course; but, dear me, how behindhand you are. One would really have thought as an old friend, however little interest you take in these matters for their own sake, that you would have kept abreast with us so far. Why, this receipt here has been found since then, with a memorandum in the bard’s own hand, “Receipt forre moneyes givenne me bye the talle Hemynge onne accounte o’ the Curtain Theatre.[20]”’

‘I did not happen to have heard of it,’ said Dennis, regarding the new-found treasure, if not with indifference, certainly with some lack of rapture.

‘Well, now you see it,’ continued Mr. Erin with irritation. ‘Of course it disposes of all doubt in that direction. But now, forsooth, the note of hand is objected to upon the ground of its seals.’

‘Good heavens!’ ejaculated Dennis, and this time it was evident that he was really moved.

‘No wonder you are indignant. I now remember that I drew your particular attention to the document in question. Well, it is almost incredible that their accusation has shrunk to the puny charge that a note of hand, even in Shakespeare’s time, would not have had seals appended to it. Is it not amazing that human nature can stoop to such detraction? If it had been Malone—a mere reptile—who makes a point of the Globe being a theatre instead of a playhouse—but this is some lawyer[21] it seems, a child of the Devil, I’ll warrant, like the rest of his craft.’

Considering that William Henry, now Mr. Erin’s ‘dear Samuel,’ had been articled to a conveyancer with the idea of becoming a lawyer himself when full grown, this was a somewhat sweeping as well as severe remark; but, carried away by the torrent of his wrath, the speaker was wholly unconscious of this little inconsistency.