Poetry, 1883, is a work involving a great deal of research, and is valuable for throwing light on the development of the theatre. In 1854 he published a singlevolume edition of the plays, adopting a multitude of new readings on the authority of written notes in a copy of the Second Folio he had purchased. He adhered to these emendations in his six-volume edition of 1858. His contention was that the marginal notes in his copy of the folio, known from the name of one of its owners as the 'Perkins Folio,' were made in the seventeenth century before the Restoration, and consequently by some one who had heard the plays given by actors who were governed by traditions of the author's stage directions. The question of the value of these thirteen hundred corrections is treated exhaustively by Richard Grant White in the Shakespeare Scholar, and it is shown that most of them had been anticipated, and few, not more than 117, are even plausible. He, however, acquits Collier of conscious deceit. On the question of their genuineness, experts have shown that they are in two different handwritings and that some of them are palpably modern forgeries. It is difficult to determine how far Mr. Collier is guilty; probably he at first deceived himself and then was tempted to buttress his cause by forgery. He also presented several Elizabethan documents which are plainly forgeries but were copied in reputable publications. A letter from the Earl of Southampton concerning Burbage and Shakespeare is likely to startle the student in the preface to some of the early nineteenth-century editions, for it is a very ingenious and plausible fabrication. The matter created great excitement at the time, and Mr. Collier behaved exactly like an innocent person. The question, though interesting, does not bear on criticism, least of all on æsthetic criticism, and need not detain us.

Collier discovered in the British Museum a manuscript diary of John Maningham, containing an interesting account of the first presentation of Twelfth Night before the lawyers' society, February 2, 1602, at the Middle Temple. Collier misquotes it in his History of Dramatic Poetry, and it was afterwards found by Hunter, who claims-apparently original discovery. Hunter unearthed the personality of John Maningham, and, following out the reference to the Italian play Gl'Inganni (the cheats), showed that the plot bears more resemblance to Gl'Inganniti (the cheated), making it slightly probable that Shakespeare could read Italian.

Joseph Hunter was a man of curious, antiquarian learning, and we are indebted to him for his Collections concerning the Founders of New Plymouth, N. E. He published in 1845 two volumes of Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare. He made the extraordinary mistake of regarding The Tempest as an early play and the original of Love's Labour's Won, mentioned by Meres. This of course deprives him of the least consideration as a judge of literature, but in several cases his out-of-the-way learning enables him to throw new light on obscure passages and obsolete expressions. He inclines to give too much authority to the Second Folio in cases of considerable variation. His book is full of instances of parallelisms from literature contemporary with Shakespeare, usually more curious than convincing. He gives a full account of the name of Shakespeare and its variants, from Shagsper and Saxpere down, and a history of Shakespeare's father's family and descendants, in which he adds little to the researches of Malone.

Joseph Singer brought out a ten-volume edition in 1826, characterized by careful collection of existing authorities and commentaries, giving to the First Folio

preponderant authority. Later he attacked Collier's emendations with great vigor.

Alexander Dyce, known for his editions of the plays of Middleton, Beaumont and Fletcher, Marlowe, Webster, and Greene, published an edition of Shakespeare in nine volumes in 1857, and another in 1864, in which he retracted many of his former readings. In spite of his unfortunate indecisions, his textual criticism is of high value, and his glossary excellent. His remarks on Knight's and Collier's editions (1854) revive the tradition of good, old eighteenth-century critical vituperation; e. g., of Knight's Hamlet he remarks with candor, 'of which tragedy his text is beyond all doubt the worst that has appeared in modern times.' 'To suppose (as Caldecot does) that "the most fond and winnowed opinions" could mean all judgments, not the simplest only, but the most sifted and wisest, is little short of insanity.'

'What he says here about Cleopatra's "wand lip" (i. e., that her lip is as potent as a magician's wand) cannot be allowed the merit of originality; at least it had been previously said in that mass of folly, ignorance, and conceit, Jackson's Shakespeare's Genius Justified.'

O good old man, how well in thee appears

The constant [wrangling] of the antique world.

The above is by no means an exhaustive list of the commentaries up to 1850, when the work was sifted by the editors of the Cambridge Edition.

Thomas Tyrwhitt (1730-86), the learned editor of Chaucer, published anonymously in 1776 Observations and Conjectures upon Some Passages of Shakespeare, and gave many suggestions to Malone. William Sidney Walker (1795-1846) was an acute textual critic.

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His Critical Examination and Notes on the Plays and Poems was not published till after his death, and is of recognized value. But most of the men mentioned were merely antiquarians, wrapped in the funeral shroud of erudition.' They hunt up microscopic facts with little reference to their correlation; they throw light on the meaning of the text, not on its significance. They say nothing of the plays as poetry beyond referring to the force or harmony of individual lines. Characters, construction, and philosophy, the higher technical qualities and the higher poetic qualities, they ignore. Between these and such critics as Coleridge, Lamb, and Hazlitt there is a great gulf fixed. They illustrate one side of English historical scholarship, the uninspired side. Their virtues are industry and good sense, and they evince their good sense by dealing with material suited to their powers. They do not in any way illustrate and forward the progress of the human mind as the others do.

CHAPTER VIII

FOREIGN CRITICISM OF SHAKESPEARE

ALTHOUGH the object of this book is to trace the course of English appreciation of Shakespeare's plays as shown in a few of the most authoritative writers, German and French criticism has, since the eighteenth century, reacted so profoundly on English thought that a brief outline of the most important of the foreign writings is necessary even in a general sketch of the subject. At present, translations of Shakespeare's plays are more frequently, and on the whole better, presented in Germany and Austria than the originals are in England and America. This is owing, first, to the existence in all the important continental cities of theatres under official control and aided by the state or munici pality; second, to the thorough and painstaking manner in which Germans carry out any undertaking; and third, to the fact that they have not fallen into the habit of lavish expenditure in scenic decoration which in our country, and in England, too, has made the cost of the representation of a Shakespearean play so great as to be almost prohibitive, besides distracting the audience from imaginative appreciation of the play. It is greatly to be regretted that the popular educative value of Shakespeare's wonderful art is therefore largely lost among those who speak his language; indeed, it is nothing less than a national misfortune; but at present we can only regret it without much hope for its amelioration.

A translation of a great poem is at best but a shadow and a suggestion of the original, for the substance is so