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‘Begone!’ he cried; ‘begone! both of you.’

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

BY

JAMES PAYN

AUTHOR OF ‘BY PROXY’ ETC. ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

SECOND EDITION

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1885

[All rights reserved]

CONTENTS

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. II.

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 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 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 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 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 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.”’

‘“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 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?’

‘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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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.’

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 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 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.”’

‘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 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.

‘As if every one did not know,’ he continued—’not to mention the fact that in Malone’s own prolegomena the Curtain Theatre is so called in Stackwood’s sermon, A.D. 1578—that in the Elizabethan times every one not only spelt as he liked, and differently at different times, but appended seals to their documents or did without them, as opportunity served. Is it not even probable that Hemynge, being a player and knowing little of business, may have been particularly solicitous of every form of law being observed, however superfluous, and in even so small a matter? Is it not in accordance, I ask, with what we know of human nature that it should be so?’

It was clear that this was no extempore speech, nor even a discourse the claims of which could be satisfied by pen and ink, but one very evidently intended to be printed. Its deliverance gave Frank Dennis time to recover from a certain dismay into which Mr. Erin’s communication had thrown him.

‘Just so,’ he said; ‘you are right, no doubt. The objection as to its being contrary to custom to append seals seems frivolous enough.’

‘And the ground has been cut away from the first, you see, in all other directions,’ exclaimed the antiquary triumphantly. ‘Margaret,’ he continued in high good humour as his niece entered the room, ‘permit me to introduce to you a convert. Mr. Frank Dennis has been hitherto little better than a sceptic, but the light of truth is beginning to dawn upon him through crannies. He has been moved to confess that the note of hand at least is genuine. I have a letter to write before the post goes out, so will leave him in your hands to continue the work of conversion.’

The door closed behind him before Frank Dennis, always slow of speech, could form his reply; but he gave Margaret the benefit of it.

‘I never told your uncle,’ he said in a grave pained voice, ‘that I believed the note of hand to be genuine.’

‘What does it matter?’ exclaimed Margaret reproachfully. ‘I cannot tell you how these miserable disagreements distress me; of themselves, indeed, they are of no consequence, but they irritate my uncle, and have a still worse effect, Frank, upon you. I can ascribe it to no other cause, indeed, that you have almost entirely ceased to visit us.’

This was not quite true; moreover, it was a dangerous assertion to make, likely to draw upon her the very reproach she had always feared, and which she felt was not undeserved. She trembled lest he should reply, ‘No, that was not the reason; it is because you have preferred William Henry’s love to mine.’

It was to her relief, therefore, though also to her great surprise, that he answered in his habitual quiet tone, ‘Perhaps it is, Margaret.’

She did not believe it was, and was convinced that in saving so he had laid a burthen upon his conscience for her sake. His nature, she well knew, was so honest and simple that it shrank from even an evasion of the truth, and the very fact of his having thus evaded it to spare her showed her the depth of his affection. If he, then, still loved her, was it not cruel, she reflected, to ask him to her home to witness her happiness with another? She would miss his company, for that was always pleasant to her as that of a tender and faithful friend; but was it not selfish of her to invite it? It was obvious that he came unwillingly, and only in obedience to her behest. If she ceased to importune him he would certainly cease to come, but she would not lose his friendship. When—that is, if—Willie and she were married, it would be different with him; he would then come and see them as the friend of both.

‘Of course it’s very unfortunate,’ she stammered, with her eyes fixed on the ground, ‘but since my uncle is so thin-skinned about these manuscripts, and you, as he says, are so dreadfully sceptical, it would perhaps be better—until the whole affair has subsided——’

She looked up for a moment in her embarrassment of speech and met Frank’s face; it was gazing at her with an expression of pain and pity and patience which she did not understand and which increased her perplexity.

‘Yes, Margaret, you are right,’ he said: ‘I am better away from here for the present. My coming can do no good, and, as you have surmised, it gives me pain.’

At this the blood rushed to her cheeks, but he went on in the same quiet, resolute tone, as though he had made no reference to his love for her at all.

‘When one cannot say what one will, even when nature dictates it, it is clear that one is in a false position. I shall not come to Norfolk Street any more.’

‘But you are not going away—I mean from your home?’ exclaimed the girl, alarmed by an expression in his face which seemed to forebode some worse thing than his words implied.

‘No, Margaret; I shall be at home, where a word from you will find me at your service always—always.’

He spoke with such a tender stress upon the word that she felt a great remorse for what she had done to him, though indeed it had been no fault of hers. It is impossible, under the present conditions of society at least, that a young woman should make two young men happy at once; one of them must go to the wall. Perhaps if this one had put himself forward instead of the other matters might have been otherwise; the peach falls to the hand that is readiest. There are men that never win the woman they love till she becomes a widow; for my part, in the meantime—but I am writing of Frank Dennis. He was of a patient disposition, and had a very moderate opinion of himself. And yet his love for Margaret was great, and so genuine that he could have been content to see her happy with another man. Why he was not now content was because he did not think she would be happy; but he did not tell her so, for, though honesty might suggest his doing so, honour forbade him. There is an honour quite different from that of the fanfaronnading sort, one which has nothing to do with running a fellow-creature through for a hasty word, or with ruining some one else to pay our card debts—a delicate, scrupulous sense of what is becoming even in our relations with our enemies, a flower of a modest colour which grows in the shade. This was the sort of honour that Frank Dennis possessed, and which prompted him now to keep silence, when he might have said something which would have been much to his own advantage.

‘Good-bye, Margaret,’ was all he said, as he took her hand in his. He would, if he could, have even eliminated a certain tenderness from his tone, because he knew it gave her pain; but he could not so utterly conquer nature.

‘Good-bye, Frank,’ was all she said in reply, or dared to say.

She was thinking of him and not of herself at all. It was pity for him which made her voice falter and her soul quail within her, lest at that supreme moment he should have demanded from her, once for all, another sort of dismissal.

As to love, her heart was loyal to her Willie; and yet, though she would not have confessed it even to herself, she had a secret sense as the door closed upon this other one that she had burned her boats.

CHAPTER XXI.

A TIFF.

When one is not en rapport with one’s friends about any particular subject, in which for the time they are interested, it is better to leave them, for it is certain they would rather have our room than our company. If you happen to be at Bullock Smithy, for example, during a contested election, when your host at the Hall and all his family are looking forward to the regeneration of the species—conditional upon the return of Mr. Brown—and you don’t much care about it yourself (or even doubt of its being accomplished that way), you had better for the present leave the Hall and revisit it under less exciting circumstances. They will politely lament your departure, but privately be very glad to get rid of you. You may be (you are) a charming person, but just now you are a little in the way. They resent your presence as spirit-rappers resent that of ‘the sceptic,’ as they call every one endowed with reason and common-sense. The common harmony is disturbed by it as by a false note.

Thus it happened that the withdrawal of Frank Dennis from his friends in Norfolk Street was upon the whole a relief to them. They could talk unreservedly among themselves of the subject that lay next their hearts, and which was really assuming great importance for all of them.

If the mere amount of the Shakespearean manuscripts could have assured, as it undoubtedly made more probable, their authenticity, the voice of detraction ought to have been silenced; for there was some new discovery made in that wonderful treasure chamber of the Temple almost every day. Contracts and mortgages, theatrical disbursements, miscellaneous letters, deeds of gift, all immediately relating to Shakespeare, if not in his very hand, were constantly being found. Records which a few months ago would have filled Mr. Erin’s heart with rapture were now, indeed, welcomed by him, but almost as a matter of course. ‘The gentleman of considerable property in the Temple,’ as the antiquary had been wont to vaguely term him, had now grown as familiar to him as though he had had a name as well as a local habitation.

‘Well, what news from our friend to-day, Samuel?’ was the cheery question he would address to his son on his return home every evening, and it was very seldom that there was no news.

Mr. Erin indeed had cause to be grateful to this unknown person, since he had (though not without reluctance) given permission for the publication of the papers, which had accordingly been advertised to appear in a handsome quarto at two guineas. They included all the documents, the ‘Lear’ (of which unfortunately three leaves were missing) and a few pages of ‘Hamlet.’ These last differed but little from those of the accepted text, a circumstance which did not escape the notice of the enemy, who did not hesitate to aver that the forger, whoever he was, had found ‘Hamlet’ too difficult a nut to crack.

The best reply, as Mr. Erin wisely concluded, to so coarse a sarcasm was the publication of Shakespeare’s Deed of Trust, conveying the ‘Lear’ to John Hemynge, in which he said, ‘Should this bee everre agayne Impryntedd, I doe order tyhatt itte bee so doun from this mye true written Playe, and nott from those now prynted’—an injunction which, had there been an entire copy extant, would doubtless have included the ‘Hamlet’ also.

To the ‘Miscellaneous papers and legal instruments, under the hand and seal of William Shakespeare, including the tragedy of “King Lear“ and a small fragment of “Hamlet,”’ was prefixed a preface by Mr. Erin himself, setting forth the circumstances under which they had come into his possession, challenging criticism and defying inquiry. This publication was of course the crucial test. While our opinions are expressed viva voce, or even with pen and ink, they are of little consequence to the world at large, however much they may affect our little circle of friends and enemies. I know many persons who might have remained in possession of great works of genius in manuscript had they not been so indiscreet as to print them; the annalist’s sarcasm of nisi imperasset applies to authors as well as kings.

The book evoked a storm of censure. ‘My eyes will scarcely permit me to read it,’ wrote Malone (’posturing as a sick lion,’ sneered Mr. Erin), ‘but I have read enough to convince me that the whole production is a forgery.’ Others fell foul of the style, the ideas, the very punctuation of the discovered manuscripts. They acknowledged that the phraseology was simple, but added that ‘it was that sort of simplicity that belongs to the fool.’ As it was some time before the advocates of the discovery could get out their rejoinders—with which many of those who had signed the certificate were busy—Mr. Samuel Erin had for the present a pretty time of it. He was like a man caught in a downpour of hailstones without an umbrella. He never blenched, however, for a single instant; one would have thought that waterproofs and overalls had been invented before his time for his especial behalf. But poor Margaret trembled and shivered. How could people be so wicked as to say such things of Willie! She would not have been so distressed had she not seen that he shrank from these stings himself. Womanlike, she concealed her own pain and strove to comfort him.

‘As for these imputations upon your honour, Willie, they are not worth thinking of; it is as though they called you a negro, when every one who has ever seen you knows you to be a white man. Still less need you trouble yourself about their criticisms; for what can it matter to you whether the manuscript, or the printed copy, of Shakespeare’s works has the greater worth?’

‘That’s true,’ assented the young fellow; but by his knitted brows and downcast looks she knew that it did matter to him nevertheless.

‘This is what I have always feared for you, should you publish a book of your own,’ she went on earnestly. ‘You are so sensitive, darling. How thankful I am that Shakespeare (who can afford to smile at it) is bearing the brunt of all this, and not you!’

Then came the ‘rejoinders,’ like sunshine after storm. ‘There was not an ingenuous character or disinterested individual in the whole circle of literature,’ wrote one enthusiastic partisan, ‘to whom the manuscripts had been subjected who was not convinced of their authenticity.’ They had ‘not only convinced the scholar and the antiquary, but the paper-maker.’ As to the secrecy observed with respect to their origin and possessor, ‘what becomes of the acumen of the critic if such details are necessary to establish the genuineness of such a production? His occupation is gone.’ As to the intrinsic merits of the ‘Lear,’ the seal of Shakespeare’s genius was stamped upon it. ‘A wit so pregnant, an imagination so unbounded, a knowledge so intuitive of the weakness of the human heart as was here exhibited could belong to no other man. If it was not his, it was inspiration itself.’

‘Here, indeed,’ thought William Henry, ‘is something like criticism. This is an independent opinion with which the carping of prejudice or personal malevolence is not to be mentioned in the same breath.’

And, indeed, if these eulogies had been the products of the best minds in the most perfect state of equilibrium they could scarcely have given him a more exquisite gratification. He had a sensation about his forehead as though a wreath of laurels rested there, or even a halo. He touched the stars with his head, and if he moved upon the earth at all it was on wings. It was delightful to Margaret to see him thus. She hardly recognised in him, exultant and self-conscious, the same young fellow whom she had known depressed and obscure. She was proud beyond measure of the position he had made for himself in the world of letters, but happier still because it seemed to make him hers, to put her uncle’s consent to their union beyond all question. Yet, as love’s fashion is, she still pictured to herself at times delays, opposition, and even obstacles.

‘We must not be too sure, my darling,’ she said to him lovingly one day, ‘though all things seem to smile on us. It is but the promise after all, the bud but not the flower, the blossom but not the fruit’.

‘True,’ he answered thoughtfully; ‘all this is but a mock engagement; the battle has yet to come. It is something, however, that the fighting will be on the same field; one at least knows the ground.’

She stared at him, in doubt as to what he meant; then, as if alarmed by her wondering looks, he stammered out, ‘I was thinking of Mr. Erin; we now know him thoroughly, or rather he has become another man from what he was.’

‘My uncle has changed, no doubt, and for the better,’ she said.

‘There is change everywhere and for the better,’ he answered, smiling.

He took from his pocket one of the printed cards which were now formally issued to purchasers of the lately published volume for leave to examine the manuscripts.

SHAKESPEARE.
Admit Albany Wallis, a subscriber, to view the papers.

‘Think of Mr. Wallis having bought the book! Malone and he have quarrelled about it, it seems.’

‘Not about the book,’ put in Margaret quietly; ‘I am afraid he is not even yet a true believer, but I like him better for having bought the book than even if he were. He felt he had behaved badly to us when he came here with that wretched Mr. Talbot, and his purchase of it was by way of making some amends. Where he differed from Mr. Malone was about the John Hemynge deed you brought from the Temple; Mr. Malone has had the malevolence to stigmatise even that as a forgery; but, as Mr. Wallis points out, since you were away from Norfolk Street only three-quarters of an hour, such a fraud was impossible and out of the question. He is a just man with a mind open to conviction, and he has had the courage to confess himself in the wrong.’

‘Whoever told you all this?’ inquired William Henry in amazement.

‘A person who is no friend of his, but, like him, has a generous nature.’

‘Methinks you do protest too much,’ observed the young man drily. ‘No one was saying anything against your informant, who it was easy to perceive was Mr. Frank Dennis. I thought he had literally withdrawn his countenance from us of late, as he has done long ago in another sense.’

‘No one can control his own opinions, Willie,’ said Margaret gently. ‘I have heard you yourself say a hundred times, concerning this very matter, that every one had a right to them, but, since the very knowledge of Frank’s entertaining certain views (though he never expressed them except upon compulsion) was an annoyance to my uncle, he thought it better to absent himself.’

‘But still you meet him elsewhere?’

‘I met him in the street the other day by accident. He gave me, it is true, the information I have just given to you, but he did not volunteer it. It was I who spoke to him first about Mr. Wallis.’

‘It seems he took great care to undeceive you as to that gentleman’s having any belief in me.’

‘In you, Willie? We never even spoke of you.’

This was very true: he had become a subject to which, for Frank’s sake, she never alluded in Frank’s presence.

‘Well, of course I am not responsible for the manuscripts; but do you suppose that Dennis was thinking of them, for which he does not care one farthing, even if he was talking of them? He was thinking of me. When he depreciates them to you he depreciates me; when he quotes the opinion of Mr. Wallis or of any one else he is quoting it against me. You need not blush, Margaret, as if my mind had just awakened to a suspicion of the truth. Do you suppose I don’t know what Mr. Frank Dennis has been after, all along?’

‘I will not pretend to be ignorant of what you mean, Willie,’ said Margaret firmly, ‘but you are quite mistaken if you imagine that Frank Dennis has ever breathed a word to me, or, as I believe, to any one, to your disadvantage: he has a loyal heart and is a true friend.’

‘A friend, indeed!’ said William Henry scornfully.

‘Yes, indeed and in need. I will lay my life on it, Willie. A man who detests all falsehood and deceit, and even if he entertained an unworthy thought of a rival would hold his peace about him.’

‘That is why, no doubt, he did not speak of me,’ put in the young man bitterly. ‘Detraction can be conveyed by silence as well as by a forked tongue.’

‘You are both unjust and unkind, Willie.’

‘Still the fact remains that, whenever you see this gentleman, I do not rise—I will not say by comparison, because I believe you love me—but I do not rise in your opinion. You cannot deny it; your face confesses it. Under these circumstances you can hardly think me unreasonable if I ask you for the present not to meet Mr. Frank Dennis, even “by accident in the street.”’

‘I will not speak to him, Willie, if you object to it,’ said Margaret in a low voice. She was the more distressed at what he had said because she had a secret consciousness that it was not undeserved. He did not indeed sink in her opinion after her talks with Frank, and certainly did not suffer by contrast; but, on the other hand, he did not rise, while her confidence in the genuineness of the Shakespearean documents did sink.

Thence arose misgivings as to the future, doubts whether Willie would be permitted to win her, and a certain unsteadiness, not indeed of purpose but of outlook.

‘Of course you must speak to him if you meet him, Maggie,’ continued William Henry in a tone from which all irritation had disappeared; ‘only for the present do not seek his society. You will not long have to deny yourself the pleasure, since in a few weeks—that is, I intend very shortly to ask Mr. Erin to give you to me for my very own.’

‘Oh, Willie! He will never do it,’ she returned, not however with much conviction, but as one who toys with doubt. ‘I am sure he does not dream of your having such an intention.’

‘Then he must be as blind as Gloster, Maggie.’

This allusion to the ‘Lear’ was somehow—it would have been difficult to say why—unwelcome to her. Love no doubt depends upon very small and comparatively mundane matters, but still that her hopes of marriage with her lover should hang upon the general belief in the genuineness of an old manuscript seemed a little humiliating. She would have far preferred, had it been possible, that William Henry should have won his way to a modest competence by his own pen. Perhaps he had hopes of this, and some surprise in store for her; or why should he have used that phrase ‘in a few weeks’? It was true that he had substituted for it a more vague expression, but she could not help thinking that he had some definite plan in his mind to precipitate events. What could it be?

CHAPTER XXII.

A BARGAIN.

‘The book goes bravely, Samuel,’ observed Mr. Erin, as father and son were sitting together one evening with Margaret between them. William Henry’s hand was resting on the back of her chair, and at times he addressed her in tones so low that his words must needs have had no more meaning for a third person than if they had been in a foreign tongue. Yet both his contiguity and his confidences remained unreproved. Perhaps among other recently developed virtues in the young man it was put down by Mr. Erin (who himself had a quick eye for the main chance) to William Henry’s credit that he never questioned his father’s right to treat the Shakespearean papers as his own, or to demand any account of his stewardship with respect to them.

The antiquary, however, had scruples of his own, which, if they did not compel him to part with hard money, induced him to look upon his milch cow with very lenient and indulgent eyes.

It was surely only natural that these two young people should entertain a very strong mutual attachment; through long familiarity they doubtless seemed more like brother and sister to one another than cousins. It could not be said, in short, that Mr. Erin winked at their love-making, but he shut his eyes to it. It would have been very inconvenient to have said ‘No’ to a certain question, and quite impossible to say ‘Yes.’ It was better that things should take their own course, even if it was a little dangerous, than to make matters uncomfortable by interference.

‘From first to last, my lad,’ he continued in a cheerful voice, ‘we shall make little short of 500l., I expect.’

‘Indeed,’ said William Henry indifferently. To do him justice he cared little for money at any time, and just now less than usual. His appetite, even for fame, had for the present lost its keenness. Love possessed him wholly; he cared only for Margaret.

‘To think that a new reading of an old play—though to be sure it is Shakespeare’s play—should produce so much!’ went on Mr. Erin complacently. ‘Good heavens! what would not the public give for a new play by the immortal bard?’

‘The question is,’ observed William Henry, ‘what would you give, Mr. Erin?’

The remark was so unexpected, and delivered in such a quiet tone, that for a moment the antiquary was dumbfounded, and between disbelief and expectancy made no reply.

‘My dear Samuel,’ he murmured presently, ‘is it possible you can be serious, that you have in your possession——’

‘Nay, sir,’ interrupted the young man smiling; ‘I never said that. I do not possess it, but within the last few days I have known of the existence of such a manuscript.’

‘You have known and not told me!’ exclaimed the antiquary reproachfully; ‘why, I might have died in the meantime!’

‘Then you would have seen Shakespeare, and he would have told you all about it,’ returned William Henry lightly.

‘Do not answer your father like that,’ said Margaret in low, reproving tones.

It was plain, indeed, that Mr. Erin was greatly agitated. His eyes were fixed upon his son, but without speculation in them. He looked like one in a trance, to whom has been vouchsafed some wondrous vision.

‘I know what is best,’ returned the young man under his breath, pressing Margaret’s shoulder with his hand. His arm still hung over her chair; his manner was studiously unmoved, as becomes the master of a situation.

‘Where is it?’ gasped the old man.

‘In the Temple. I have not yet obtained permission to bring it away. Until I could do that I felt it was useless to speak about the matter—that I should only be discredited. Even you yourself, unless you saw the manuscript, might hesitate to believe in its authenticity.’

‘The manuscript?’ exclaimed Mr. Erin, his mind too monopolised by the splendour of the discovery to descend to detail; ‘you have really seen it, then, with your own eyes? An unacted play of Shakespeare’s!’

‘An unpublished one, at all events. I have certainly seen it, and within these two hours, but only in my patron’s presence.’

‘He said that whatever you found was to be yours,’ exclaimed Mr. Erin petulantly.

‘Well, up to this time he has been as good as his word,’ said William Henry smiling.

‘Indeed he has,’ remarked Margaret. ‘We must not be ungrateful, uncle.’

‘Nevertheless, people should perform what they, promise,’ observed the antiquary severely.

For the second time Margaret felt a gentle pressure upon her shoulder; it seemed as though Willie had whispered, ‘You hear that.’

‘The play is called “Vortigern and Rowena,”’ continued the young man.

‘An admirable subject,’ murmured the antiquary ecstatically.

‘It is, of course, historical; there are Hengist and Horsus.’

‘Horsa,’ suggested Mr. Erin.

‘Shakespeare writes it Horsus; Horsa was perhaps his sister.’

‘Perhaps,’ admitted the antiquary with prompt adhesion. ‘And the treatment? How does it rank as regards his other productions?’

‘Nay, sir, that is for you to judge; I am no critic.’

‘But you tell me that your patron will not part with it.’

‘I have not yet persuaded him to do so; but I by no means despair of it, and in the meantime I have a copy of it.’

‘My dear Samuel!’

‘At first I tried to commit it to memory, but found the task beyond my powers. It is a very long play.’

‘The longer the better,’ murmured the antiquary.

‘But not when one has to get it by heart,’ observed William Henry drily. His tone and manner were more in contrast to those of the elder man than ever; as one grew heated the other seemed to grow cooler and cooler. There was no question as to which of them, just at present, was likely to prove the better hand at a bargain.

‘But why do you talk thus, Samuel? The play, the play’s the thing; since you have it why do you not produce it? You cannot imagine that delay—indeed, that anything—can enhance the interest I feel in this most marvellous of our discoveries.’

William Henry’s face grew very grave.

‘It is true that whatever is mine is yours, in a sense,’ he said; ‘but still you must pardon me for remarking that they are my discoveries.’

Margaret started in her chair; if she had not felt William Henry’s grasp upon her wrist—for he had shifted his position and was confronting the antiquary face to face—she would have risen from it. She had never given her cousin credit for such self-assertion, and she trembled for its result. She did not even yet suspect it had a motive in which she herself was concerned; but the situation alarmed her. It was like that of some audacious clerk who demands of his master a partnership, with a certain difference that made it even graver.

‘What is it you want?’ inquired the antiquary. He too had become conscious that the relations between William Henry and himself were about to enter on a new phase; nevertheless his tone was conciliatory, like that of a man who, though somewhat tried, cannot afford to quarrel with his bread-and-butter.

‘I am the last man, I hope, to be illiberal,’ he continued. ‘If I were dealing with a stranger I should frankly own that what you have, or rather, hope to have, to dispose of is a valuable commodity; to me, indeed, as you know, it is more valuable than to any mere dealer in such wares. Nevertheless I hope you will be reasonable; after all it is a question of what the thing will fetch. I suppose you will not ask a fancy price?’

William Henry smiled. ‘Well, some people might think it so, Mr. Erin, but it is not money at all that I require of you.’

‘Not money?’ echoed the antiquary in a voice of great relief. ‘Well, that indeed shows a proper spirit. I am really pleased to find that we are to have no haggling over a matter of this kind, which in truth would be little short of a sacrilege. If you have fixed your mind upon any of my poor possessions, though it should even be the “Decameron,“ the earliest edition extant, and complete except for the title-page——’

‘It is not the “Decameron,“ sir.’

‘Or the quarto of 1623, with marginal notes in my own hand. But no; that is a small matter indeed by comparison with this magnificent discovery. I hardly know what I have which would in any way appear to you an equivalent; but be assured that anything at my disposal is very much at your service.’

‘Then if you please, sir, I will take Margaret.’

‘Margaret!’ Mr. Erin repeated the name in tones of such supreme amazement as could not have been exceeded had the young man stipulated for his wig. Perhaps his surprise was a little simulated, which was certainly not the case with Margaret herself; she sat in silence, covered with blushes, and with her eyes fixed on the table before her, very much frightened, but by no means ‘hurt.’ While she trembled at Willie’s audacity she admired it.

[f54]

‘Then, if you please, sir, I will take Margaret.’

Mr. Erin shot a glance at her which convinced him that he would get no help from that quarter. If she had not been cognisant of the young fellow’s intention it was clear that the proposal he had made was not displeasing to her. The antiquary ransacked his mind for an objection that would meet the case; there were plenty of them there, but none of them fit for use and at the same time strong enough. A very powerful one at once occurred to him in the question, ‘What do you propose to live upon?’ but unhappily the answer was equally obvious, ‘Upon you!’ A most intolerable suggestion, but one which—on the brink of a bargain—it was not convenient to combat.

For a moment, too, the objection of consanguinity occurred to him, that they were cousins; an admirable plea, because it was quite insurmountable; but though this might have had its weight with Margaret, he doubted of its efficacy in William Henry’s case, inasmuch as he probably knew that they were not cousins. To have this question raised in the young lady’s presence—or indeed at all—was not to be thought of. In the end he had to content himself with the commonplace argument of immaturity, unsatisfactory at the best, since it only delays the evil day.

‘Margaret? You surely cannot be serious, my dear lad. Why, your united ages scarcely make up that of a marriageable man. This is really too ridiculous. You are not eighteen.’

The rejoinder that that was an objection which time could be relied on to remove was obvious, but William Henry did not make it. He was not only playing for a great stake; it was necessary that it should be paid in ready money.

‘I venture to think, Mr. Erin,’ he said respectfully, ‘that our case is somewhat exceptional. We have known one another for a long time, and very intimately; it is not a question of calf love. Moreover, to be frank with you, my value in your eyes is now at its highest. You may learn to esteem me more; I trust you may; but as time goes on I cannot hope commercially to be at such a premium. Now or never, therefore, is my time to sell.’

Though he spoke of himself as the article of barter he was well aware that Mr. Erin’s thoughts were fixed upon another purchase, which, as it were, included him in the same ‘lot.’

‘But, my dear Samuel, this is so altogether unexpected.’

‘So is the discovery of the manuscript,’ put in the young fellow with pitiless logic.

‘It is like springing a mine on me, my lad.’

‘The “Vortigern and Rowena“ is also a mine, or I hope will prove so,’ was the quick rejoinder.

Whatever might be urged against William Henry Erin, it could not be said that he had not his wits about him.

‘You have only the copy,’ objected the antiquary, though he felt the argument to be inadequate, since it was liable to be swept away.

‘Nay,’ returned the young man, smiling, ‘what becomes of the acumen of the critic, if internal evidence is insufficient to establish authenticity? His occupation is gone.’

This was Mr. Erin’s favourite quotation from the ‘Rejoinder;’ to use it against him was like seething a kid in its mother’s milk, and it roused him for the first time to vigorous opposition. It is possible that he also saw his opportunity for spurring the other on to gain possession of the precious document.

‘That is all mighty fine, young sir, but this is not a question of sentiment. I must see this play in Shakespeare’s own handwriting before I can take your most unlooked-for proposal into consideration at all. At present the whole affair is in the air.’

‘You shall see the play,’ said William Henry composedly.

‘Moreover,’ continued the antiquary with equal firmness, ‘it will not be sufficient that I myself should be convinced of its authenticity. It must receive general acceptance.’

‘I can hardly promise, sir, that there will be no objectors,’ returned the young man drily; ‘Mr. Malone, for example, will probably have something to say.’

The mention of ‘that devil,’ as the antiquary, in moments of irritation, was wont to call that respectable commentator, was most successful.

‘I speak of rational beings, sir,’ returned Mr. Erin, with quite what is called in painting his ‘early manner.’ ‘What Malone may take into his head to think is absolutely indifferent to me. I speak of the public voice.’

‘As heard, for instance, at the National Theatre,’ suggested William Henry earnestly. ‘Suppose that “Vortigern and Rowena“ should be acted at Drury Lane or Covent Garden, and be received as the bona fide production of Shakespeare? Would that test content you?’

That such an ordeal would be of a sufficiently crucial nature was indubitable, yet not more so than the confidence with which it was proposed. If the least glimmer of doubt as to the genuineness of the Shakespearean MSS. still reigned in the antiquary’s mind the voice and manner of his son as he spoke those words would have dispelled it. The immaturity of the two young people was not much altered for the better since Mr. Erin had cited it as a bar to their union, but, under the circumstances now suggested, their position would be very materially improved. A play at Drury Lane in those days meant money in pocket; a successful play was a small fortune, and might even be a large one. He would have greatly preferred to have this precious MS., like the others, for nothing, but, after all, what was demanded of him was better than being asked to give hard cash for a pig in a poke. It was only a promise to pay upon conditions which would make the payment comparatively easy.

‘If “Vortigern and Rowena“ is successful,’ continued William Henry with the quiet persistence of a carpenter who strikes the same nail on the head, ‘it must be understood that I have permission to marry Margaret as soon as she pleases.’

Poor Mr. Erin looked appealingly at his niece. ‘You will surely not be so indelicate,’ his glance seemed to say, ‘as to wish to precipitate a matter of this kind?’ But he looked in vain. She did not, it is true, say, ‘I will though;’ there was even a blush on her cheek, which might have seemed to flatter his expectations: but she kept silence, which in such a case it was impossible to construe otherwise than as consent.

Some old gentlemen would have hereupon felt themselves justified in saying that ‘young women were not so forward in their time,’ or ‘that such conduct was in their experience unprecedented,’ a reflection, to judge by the frequency with which it is indulged in under similar circumstances, that would seem to give some sort of consolation; but the antecedents of Mr. Samuel Erin were unhappily, as we have hinted, not of a sufficiently ascetic nature to enable him to use this solace.

‘Perhaps you would like to read the play?’ suggested William Henry.

‘Very much,’ replied the antiquary with eagerness.

‘Just as you please, Mr. Erin. It is yours of course, upon the understanding, supposing it to realise expectation, that we have your consent to our marriage.’

‘Very good,’ replied the antiquary, without any eagerness at all, and in a tone which (had such a substitution been feasible) would have better suited with ‘Very bad.’

CHAPTER XXIII.

AN UNEXPECTED ALLY.

All that had gone before as regarded the Shakespeare MSS. sank into almost insignificance as compared with the stir made by the ‘Vortigern and Rowena.’ The superiority of new lamps over old ones has, with that well-known exception in the ‘Arabian Nights,’ been pretty generally acknowledged in all climes and times. If a scrap of writing from the great genius, who had left nothing of himself behind him, save, as had been hitherto supposed, a couple of signatures, had had its attractions; if the original drafts of a well-known play or two had set the town by the ears; one may imagine the excitement produced by the discovery of a brand-new drama in the master’s hand. Mr. Samuel Erin’s door in Norfolk Street was positively besieged by applicants to view the wonder.

That gentleman, however, declined for the present to gratify the public curiosity. Conscious as he was of the importance of his own position, he was also fully aware of the necessity of strengthening it against all comers, among whom must necessarily be many foes. William Henry had been as good as his word. He had, though with great difficulty, persuaded his patron to part with the precious manuscript, which had been duly placed in the antiquary’s hands. Both by external and internal evidence he was fully satisfied with its authenticity; but it was necessary that the world without should share his conviction. Mahomet, it seems, was for a considerable time content with a single believer; nor when we consider that that believer was his wife, is it discreditable to his claims. If he could only have converted his valet de chambre also, he ought to have been well satisfied. Mr. Erin, as we are aware, was in a much better position as to followers, but then he wanted so much more. Mahomet, so far as we know, had not just then a two-guinea edition of the Koran in hand, the sale of which was beginning to slacken. It was doubtful whether the immediate publication of the ‘Vortigern’ might not injure its predecessor, unless its genuineness could be better authenticated.

To this end, Mr. Erin took the bold step of convening a committee of commentators and critics to report upon the MS. A selection was made from those who had signed the certificate, and who were therefore favourable; but others were invited who had not so compromised themselves, and even who might be supposed to be hostile, including Mr. Albany Wallis. No one could say that it was a hole-and-corner business, far less that the assembly was packed. It would, without doubt, have been much more agreeable to Mr. Erin if it had been, for he had to listen to some very unpleasant things. These, for the most part, it was true, were said by small men. Just as in the great railway meetings of the present day, the shareholder who has just put enough in the undertaking to qualify him to speak at all is always the most loquacious, so the second-rate critics, who had not much chance of being listened to in the world without, were, if not the most sceptical, the most vituperative; and poor Mr. Erin was not a chairman who could ignore them. The style, the matter, the calligraphy of the ‘Vortigern,’ nay, even the very paper on which it was written, underwent the sharpest scrutiny and evoked some very bitter remarks. Dr. Parr and Dr. Warton, the two great cards of the certificate, were strongly in favour of the play, and carried many with them, including the laureate Pye, and his brother poet, Sir James Burgess. But there were also many adversaries.

The fact was, notwithstanding that famous dictum about the occupation of the critic being gone if the intrinsic merit of a work was not sufficient to establish its genuineness, and though the excellence of the ‘Vortigern’ was on the whole admitted, the story of how it came into William Henry’s hands was the real obstacle to its acceptance. His patron of the Temple was too much wrapped in mystery to be satisfactory to the minds of most.

The committee was to sit for two days, and then decide by vote upon the all-important question, was there or was there not sufficient evidence before them of the authenticity of the play? William Henry was always present, a witness whose examination was always proceeding, but, as it were, in a circle. The keenest expert could get nothing out of him beyond what had been already got. He had nothing to tell, save what he had already told. His manner was cool and collected, and produced a favourable impression. Sir James Burgess said, ‘If this young man is not speaking the truth, he is a marvellous actor, and we are informed, upon authority which in this case can certainly not be disputed, that he is but seventeen.’ The authority was not quite so good as Sir James imagined, but the fact was as he stated it.

Alone with Mr. Erin and Margaret, the young fellow was even more self-reliant; he was hopeful. Whatever decision the committee might arrive at, there was still, he would say, the appeal to the public; and in that he expressed his confidence. In this Mr. Erin could not agree; if the play was discredited by those who had been so solemnly convened to judge of it, he doubted of its acceptance out of doors. On the second and all-important day there was even a fuller attendance than on the first. Among the new-comers was the Bishop of St. Andrews, a good-natured divine enough, but who produced an unfavourable impression by quoting Porson’s ‘Iambics,’ ‘Three children sliding on the ice,’ which the great professor pretended to have found in an old trunk among some manuscript plays of Sophocles—an obvious satire upon the Shakespearean discoveries. Greek wit is never so mirth-provoking as to endanger life, but at this specimen it was difficult for Mr. Samuel Erin to force a smile. What even more depressed him was the unexpected arrival of Mr. Reginald Talbot. How this young man had gained admittance he could not understand; but at such a time the real ground of objection to him could not, of course, be stated. Public opinion had been challenged, and on the brink of its decision it would have been madness indeed to have any altercation with one who had evinced his scepticism.

Talbot had come in alone and taken his seat rather apart from the rest: his face looked less florid than usual, but resolute enough; after one glance round the room he fixed his eyes upon the ground. Every moment the antiquary expected to hear his blatant voice giving utterance to some offensive imputation; but he remained silent, listening to the pros and cons of his seniors, with no particular interest, as it seemed, in the matter.

William Henry had seen him enter, of course—there were few things that escaped his observation—but had shown no sign of concern, far less of apprehension. He either did not fear him, or had screwed his courage to the sticking place. Now and then, indeed, he glanced nervously at the door; but from no fear of an enemy. He had some misgiving lest Margaret’s anxiety upon his account might compel her to come and hear for herself how matters were going on; a very groundless apprehension, for nothing could have been more foreign to her retiring and modest nature than to have intruded herself upon such an assembly.

After all who wished to speak had had their say, the Laureate rose and addressed the meeting. He had listened very attentively, he said, to the opinions that had been advanced on both sides upon the subject of controversy; and if he could not say that he had himself come to a definite conclusion, he thought that he had at least gathered the general view of those present. The play before them was undoubtedly a remarkable one; he could not take upon himself to say from internal evidence whether it was, or was not, written by William Shakespeare, but, on the whole, he believed it to have been so. Persons better qualified than himself to judge of such matters had expressed themselves for and against the other proofs of its authenticity. Again, on the whole, these seemed to him to be in its favour. But what, after all, was their great stumbling-block was the mystery—and as it seemed to him the unnecessary mystery—that hung about its discovery.

Here there were audible expressions of assent. Mr. Erin, pale and trembling, but much more with anger than with fear, was about to rise, but the Laureate waved him back. He was not going to have his peroration spoilt by any man. There was a general murmur of ‘Pye, Pye,’ which under any other circumstances, would have sounded exquisitely humorous; it was like a bread riot of the upper classes. ‘Under these circumstances,’ continued the orator, ‘if anyone can be found who has seen the MS. as it were in situ, and has met the unknown patron of the Temple in the flesh, so as to corroborate so far the testimony of this young gentleman’ (here he pointed to William Henry), ‘I, for one, shall have no hesitation in acknowledging myself a believer; but in the absence of such a witness I must take leave, at least, to reserve my judgment.’

There was a long and significant silence. If the speaker had not expressed the views of the majority, he had done so for many of those present; while the want of corroborative testimony, such as he had indicated, was felt by all. Even Mr. Erin, perhaps for the first time, understood how evidence which had been, and was, perfectly conclusive to himself, might well fail, thus unsupported, to satisfy the public mind. He felt like the young blood who had recently been endeavouring for a bet to dispose within five minutes of a hundred sovereigns to as many persons on London Bridge for a penny apiece. His MSS. were genuine, but if he could not persuade people to believe it, where would be his profit?

‘Well,’ continued the Laureate in self-satisfied tones, for he was pleased with the impression his eloquence had produced, and especially that he had reduced the antiquary—in whose mind he had created a desert and called it peace—to silence: ‘Well! the question is, Is there such a witness as I have described?’

‘Yes, there is.’

These words fell upon the general ear like a bombshell, but no one was more utterly astounded by them than Mr. Samuel Erin himself. He could hardly believe his ears, and when he looked to the quarter from which they proceeded—and to which every one else was looking—he could not believe his eyes; for the man that had uttered them was Mr. Reginald Talbot.

The young man was not, indeed, in appearance quite the sort of witness whom one would have chosen to establish the authenticity of an ancient literary document; though at a police court, in some case of assault (provided the victim was respectable, and he had been for the prosecution), he might have been passable enough. His dress was that of a young man of fashion, but not of good fashion; his manner was suggestive less of confidence than of swagger, and his face spoke of indulgence in liquor. On the other hand, this impression may have been partly caused by his contrast with these learned pundits, most of them in wigs, and some of them in shovel hats; he scarcely seemed to belong to the same race. The very eye-glass, which headed the cane he carried so jauntily in his hand, was out of keeping with their eye-glasses, and looked like some gay young lens who had refused to be put into spectacles, and was winking at life on its own hook.

‘Does any one know this young gentleman?’ inquired Mr. Pye, with significant hesitation.

‘Yes, I know him,’ observed Mr. Albany Wallis. ‘I have, it is true, but slight acquaintance with his personal character, but he comes of respectable parentage.’

‘You may add that he has two hundred a year of his own, good money,’ observed Mr. Talbot with some complacency, and a strong Irish accent.

Mr. Pye looked at him very dubiously, and in spite of this assurance of his financial solvency, addressed himself to the previous speaker.

‘In the case before us, Mr. Wallis—and I need not say how your opinion will weigh with us,—do you consider this gentleman as a dependable witness?’

Mr. Reginald Talbot turned very red, and, not having a retort on hand suitable to bestow on a poet laureate, very wisely held his tongue.

‘I am bound to say,’ said Mr. Wallis gravely, ‘that Mr. Talbot has given some attention to the authenticity of the Shakespeare MSS., and up to this time he has expressed himself, and with somewhat unnecessary vehemence, to their discredit; any evidence he may therefore have to offer in their favour will have some weight with me.’

Then all the company awaited in expectant silence for Mr. Reginald Talbot’s narrative.

‘What Mr. Wallis has said is quite right,’ said that young gentleman, with unnecessary affability. ‘I did use to think that there was something amiss with those Shakespeare papers. I had an idea that Mr. William Henry Erin yonder was playing tricks, so I made it my business to watch him. I hung about his chambers in the New Inn—they are on the ground floor, though pretty high up—and with a short ladder I have made shift to see what was going on when he was alone in his room, and little suspected it.’

William Henry, standing apart with folded arms, listened to this confession of his former friend with a contemptuous smile. If it was a revelation to him, he displayed the indifference of a North American Indian.

‘For days and days I watched him and discovered nothing. Then I dogged his steps to the city, where he went every afternoon; on two occasions he turned, as if to see whether he was followed, and I think he saw me.’

William Henry shook his head.

‘Well, at all events I thought he did, and gave it up. The third time, walking on the other side of the street, and very careful to leave a safe distance between us, I tracked him to a staircase in the Temple. He stopped at a door on the first floor, and entered without knocking. I waited a bit and then followed him. An old gentleman was seated in the room alone, in an armchair, reading; he looked up from his book in great astonishment, and inquired very curtly who I was.

‘I said that I came upon business of importance, after young Mr. Erin. He rose, and opening an inner door, exclaimed: “Here is a friend of yours, sir: what is the meaning of his intrusion here?“ He spoke very angrily, but I felt that he had some reason for it, and when Erin came out and said, “Talbot, you have ruined me,“ I felt sorry for what I had done. There was nothing for it but to make a clean breast of it, and with many apologies, of which not the slightest notice was taken, I explained that curiosity, and a suspicion that the world was being gulled by these pretended discoveries, had induced me to look into the matter myself.

‘“You are a spy, then,“ cried the old gentleman. I thought for a moment that he was going to throw me out of the window; but his rage instantly subsided. “Take him into the next room, Erin, and show him all,“ he said. He took me accordingly, and there I saw an immense quantity of old manuscripts strewed about the floor; I should say whole cartfuls of them. I was so sorry and so ashamed of myself that I never spoke a word till Erin let me out again.

‘“I am sorry I came,“ I said; “but I am quite satisfied, sir, that Erin spoke the truth.”