Read Ebook: The Atlantic Monthly Volume 08 No. 47 September 1861 A Magazine of Literature Art and Politics by Various

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But the modern cursive pencil-writing!--for you see that it is this cursive writing that damns this folio,--what story does that tell? What is its character? Who wrote it? Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Ingleby have answered these questions by the publication of between twenty and thirty fac-similes of this pencil-writing, consisting in only five instances of more than a single word, letter, or mark. But these are undeniably the work of a modern hand,--a hand of this century, as may be seen by the following reproductions of two of the fac-similes:--

We have chosen the word "begging" for fac-simile not merely because of the marked character of its chirography. It has other significance. Mr. Collier asks, "What is gained by it?" and says, that, as there is no corresponding change in the text, "'begging' must have been written in the margin ... merely as an explanation, and a bad explanation, too, if it refer to 'pregnant' in the poet's text." It is, of course, no explanation; but it seems plainly that it is the memorandum for a proposed, but abandoned, substitution. Who that is familiar with the corrections in Mr. Collier's folio does not recognize this as one of those which have been so felicitously described by an American critic as taking "the fire out of the poetry, the fine tissue out of the thought, and the ancient flavor and aroma out of the language"? The corrector in this case plainly thought of reading,

"And crook the begging hinges of the knee";

We see, then, no way of avoiding the conclusion that this notorious folio was first submitted to erasure for stage purposes; that afterward, at some time between 1650 and 1675, it was carefully corrected for the press with the view to the publication of a new edition; and that finally it fell into the hands of Mr. Collier, who, either alone or by the aid of an accomplice, introduced other readings upon its margins, for the purpose of obtaining for them the same deference which he supposed those already there would receive for their antiquity. Either this is true, or Mr. Collier is the victim of a mysterious and marvellously successful conspiracy; and by his own unwise and unaccountable conduct--to use no harsher terms--has aided the plans of his enemies.

Mr. Collier's position in this affair is, in any case, a most singular and unenviable one. His discoveries, considering their nature and extent and the quarters in which they were made, are exceedingly suspicious:--the Ellesmere folio, the Bridgewater House documents, including the Southampton letter, the Dulwich College documents, including the Alleyn letter, the Petition of the Blackfriars Company in the State Paper Office, and the various other letters, petitions, accounts, and copies of verses, all of which are justly open to suspicion of tampering, if not of forgery. What a strange and unaccountable fortune to befall one man! How has this happened? What fiend has followed Mr. Collier through the later years of his life, putting manuscripts under his pillow and folios into his pew, and so luring him on to moral suicide? Alas! there is probably but one man now living that can tell us, and he will not. But this protracted controversy, which has left so much unsettled, has greatly served the cause of literature, in showing that by whomsoever and whensoever these marginal readings, which so took the world by storm nine years ago, were written, they have no pretence to any authority whatever, not even the quasi authority of an antiquity which would bring them within the post-Shakespearian period. All must now see, what a few at first saw, that their claim to consideration rests upon their intrinsic merit only. But what that merit is, we fear will be disputed until the arrival of that ever-receding Shakespearian millenium when the editors shall no longer rage or the commentators imagine a vain thing.

THE BATH.

Off, fetters of the falser life,-- Weeds that conceal the statue's form! This silent world with truth is rife, This wooing air is warm.

Now fall the thin disguises, planned For men too weak to walk unblamed; Naked beside the sea I stand,-- Naked, and not ashamed.

Where yonder dancing billows dip, Far-off, to ocean's misty verge, Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship, The Orient's cloudy surge.

With spray of scarlet fire before The ruffled gold that round her dies, She sails above the sleeping shore, Across the waking skies.

The dewy beach beneath her glows; A pencilled beam, the light-house burns: Full-breathed, the fragrant sea-wind blows,-- Life to the world returns!

I stand, a spirit newly born, White-limbed and pure, and strong, and fair,-- The first-begotten son of Morn, The nursling of the air!

There, in a heap, the masks of Earth, The cares, the sins, the griefs, are thrown Complete, as, through diviner birth, I walk the sands alone.

With downy hands the winds caress, With frothy lips the amorous sea, As welcoming the nakedness Of vanished gods, in me.

Along the ridged and sloping sand, Where headlands clasp the crescent cove, A shining spirit of the land, A snowy shape, I move:

Or, plunged in hollow-rolling brine, In emerald cradles rocked and swung, The sceptre of the sea is mine, And mine his endless song.

For Earth with primal dew is wet, Her long-lost child to rebaptize: Her fresh, immortal Edens yet Their Adam recognize.

Her ancient freedom is his fee; Her ancient beauty is his dower: She bares her ample breasts, that he May suck the milk of power.

Press on, ye hounds of life, that lurk So close, to seize your harried prey! Ye fiends of Custom, Gold, and Work, I hear your distant bay!

And like the Arab, when he bears To the insulted camel's path His garment, which the camel tears, And straight forgets his wrath;

So, yonder badges of your sway, Life's paltry husks, to you I give: Fall on, and in your blindness say, We hold the fugitive!

But leave to me this brief escape To simple manhood, pure and free,-- A child of God, in God's own shape, Between the land and sea!

SACCHARISSA MELLASYS.

THE HERO.

When I state that my name is A. Bratley Chylde, I presume that I am already sufficiently introduced.

My patronymic establishes my fashionable position. Chylde, the distinguished monosyllable, is a card of admission everywhere,-- everywhere that is anywhere.

But, alas! I am not so indorsed--pardon the mercantile aroma of the word--by the name Bratley.

The late Mr. A. Bratley, my grandfather, was indeed one of those rude, laborious, and serviceable persons whose office is to make money--or perhaps I should say to accumulate the means of enjoyment--for the upper classes of society.

But my father, the late Mr. Harold Chylde, had gentlemanly tastes.

How can I blame him? I have the same.

He loved to guide the rapid steed along the avenue.

I also love to guide the rapid steed.

He could not persuade his delicate lungs--pardon my seeming knowledge of anatomy--to tolerate the confined air in offices, counting-houses, banks, or other haunts of persons whose want of refinement of taste impels them to the crude distractions of business-life.

I have the same delicacy of constitution. Indeed, unless the atmosphere I breathe is rendered slightly narcotic by the smoke of Caba?as and slightly stimulating by the savor of heeltaps,--excuse the technical term,--I find myself debilitated to a degree. The open air is extremely offensive to me. I confine myself to clubs and billiard-rooms.

My late father, being a man distinguished for his clear convictions, was accustomed to sustain the statement of those convictions by wagers. The inherent generosity of his nature obliged him often to waive his convictions in behalf of others, and thus to abandon the receipt of considerable sums. He also found the intellectual excitement of games of chance necessary to his mental health.

I cannot blame him for these and similar gentlemanly tastes. My own are the same.

The late Mr. A. Bratley, at that time in his dotage, and recurring to the crude idioms of his homely youth, constantly said to my father,--

"Harold, you are a spendthrift and a rake, and are bringing up your son the same."

I object, of course, to his terms; but since he foresaw that my habits would be expensive, it is to be regretted that he did not make suitable provision for their indulgence.

He did not, however, do so. Persons of low-breeding never can comprehend their duties to the more refined.

The respective dusts of my father and grandfather were consigned to the tomb the same week, and it was found that my mother's property had all melted away, as--allow me a poetical figure--ice-cream melts between the lips of beauty heated after the German.

Yes,--all was gone, except a small pittance in the form of an annuity. I will not state the ridiculously trifling amount. I have seen more than our whole annual income lost by a single turn of a card at the establishment of the late Mr. P. Hearn, and also in private circles.

Something must be done. Otherwise, that deprivation of the luxuries of life which to the aristocratic is starvation.

I stated my plans to my mother. They were based in part upon my well-known pecuniary success at billiards--I need not say that I prefer the push game, as requiring no expenditure of muscular force. They were also based in part upon my intimacy with a distinguished operator in Wall Street. Our capital would infallibly have been quadrupled,--what do I say? decupled, centupled, in a short space of time.

My mother is a good, faithful creature. She looks up to me as a Bratley should to a Chylde. She appreciates the honor my father did her by his marriage, and I by my birth. I have frequently remarked a touching fidelity of these persons of the lower classes of society toward those of higher rank.

"Hush!" I cried.

I have suppressed my first name as unmelodious and connecting me too much with a religious persuasion meritorious for its wealth alone. Need I say that I refer to the faith of the Rothschild?

"All that I have is yours, my dear Bratley," continued my mother.

Quite touching! was it not? I was so charmed, that I mentally promised her a new silk when she went into half-mourning, and asked her to go with me to the opera as soon as she got over that feeble tendency to tears which kept her eyes red and unpresentable.

"I would gladly aid you," the simple-hearted creature said, "in any attempt to make your fortune in an honorable and manly way."

"Brava! brava!" I cried, and I patted applause, as she deserved. "And you had better make over your stocks to me at once," I continued.

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