180
NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. iv. AUG. 26, 1911.
Seme Supposed Shakespeare Fnrperies, by
Ernest Law, with facsimiles of documents (Bell),
is uniform with the author's recent book on
- Shakespeare as a Groom of the Chamber.' The
story of the documents here in question is com- plicated, and curious in itself ; but their import- ance is, apart from this, undoubted, for they supply the means of dating some of Shake- speare's greatest plays.
The two pages in facsimile, given at the beginning of the little book, arc supposed to have been part of the Revels Book of 1605, and to give a contemporary list of plajs, including seven of Shakespeare's.
Suspicion is thrown on this account, and another of 1611-12, because Peter Cunningham in 1868 offered them for sale, stating that he had found them thirty years before under the vaults of Somerset House. Cunningham had no right to the documents, and they were reclaimed for the Record Office ; but he had actually in 1842 announced the discovery of them and edited them ! All this he apparently forgot in 1868, being at that time in bad health, and a drunkard.
There has been, Mr. Law points out, no proper inquiry or scrutiny into these documents, which have, with little or no evidence, been taken by eminent Shakespearians as forgeries, mainly, perhaps, because Cunningham was associated with that scandalous forger Payne Collier. Cimningham made no denial, and his silence may .have been due to his mental collapse. Six months after Grant White denounced him in The Galaxy, a defunct American journal, he died (1869).
A new race of critics then arose who assigned ' Othello ' not to 1611, but to the date given in the suspected MS., 1604 ; and in 1880 Halliwell- Phillipps announced that he had found among Malone's papers in the Bodleian a memorandum, made before 181.2, " of Shakespeare's plays, with the dates of their performances at Court in 16045, all but tallying with Cunningham's notorious list." Even strange spellings such as " Shaxberd " were reproduced by Malone, and the memorandum remained in a bundle of unsorted papers for some fifty years or more. It is not in Malone's hand- writing, but is taken by Halliwell-Phillipps to be a genuine transcript made for him from some early seventeenth - century document. That authority, however, acknowledged that the subject ne.?ded further investigation.
Such investigation is now supplied by Mr. Law, who, in addition, argues the point of ade- quate motive for forgery. He has the support of Dr. C. W. Wallace, who declares both lists to be in .a handwriting of the time and absolutely genuine, and of Sir George Warner, who "could detect no sign of any modern fabrication at all."
Mr. Law also had the ink used in the 1604-5 list subjected to chemical analysis at a Govern- ment laboratory. The resultant report decisively confirms the view that the ink used is " uniform throughout the book," and not faded more in one part than the other.
We presume that in the words we have quoted " the book " means " the Revels Book," and that the two suspected pages were compared with other contemporary pages in it. Mr. Law's account is not precisely clear, and throughout he writes in a loose, wordy style which does not tend to lucidity. There is an idle repetition of
the word " of " in a long sentence on p. 21, which
would doubtless have been avoided if the sentence
had been better constructed.
All Shakespeare students should, however, be grateful to Mr. Law for the care and per- tinacity he has shown in the investigation of a question long left ia doTibt, and prejudged without research. He has established a very strong case for the Cunningham extracts, founded both on the opinions of experts and examination of the MSS. themselves. That there is something yet to be said on the other side was shown recently in The Athenaeum ; but the question must now be left to the very small body of. students who have experience in reading Elirabethan records.
The Castles and Walled Towns of England, by Alfred Harvey is an excellent addition to " The Antiquary's Books " (Methuen). It gives in a brief compass a general view of the subject, and adds three or four full descriptions of the various classes of castle, which are divided according to keeps. The two last chapters deal with ' Walled Towns,' and there is besides the usual Index a ' List of Castles in England and Wales Existing or Known to have Existed,' arranged under counties. This should be very useful, especially as the importance and extent of the remains are indicated ingeniously by various signs.
There are forty-six illustrations and various plans, which are clear, though on a small scale. Altogether Mr. Harvey has performed very well a work which needed doing, and a mastery of his book will add much to the interest of any tour in England.
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