Page:The Review of English Studies Vol 1.djvu/71

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SHAKESPEARE AND SIR THOMAS MORE

59

though it of course by no means suffices to prove that the insurrection-scene be written by Heywood. Who knows how full of repetitions the old dramatists are will laugh at such idea.

On the other hand, I do not think that a simple statement that the handwriting is not Heywood’s, should cause us to abandon the idea of his possible authorship.^[1] To begin with, it must be proved incontestably that the “147 lines” are the author’s original draft. I must confess, however, that this seems to me to be not quite beyond doubt. There are some points in the script which, to say the least, allow as well of the explanation of its being a copy,^[2] none that force us to take it for the original.

If, then, we draw the conclusion from what has been put forward, the final judgment must needs be that Shakespeare’s authorship of the “147 lines” is more than doubtful.

June, 1924.

↑ Whether Drayton’s handwriting is out of the question or not (see his hastily written lines in Oliver Elton’s Michael Drayton, London, 1905, p. 86), I feel incompetent to judge.
↑ That a word like “help” is crossed out (71) and “advantage” is put in instead might happen to every one who copies a text and occasionally keeps only the sense of a word in his mind, “watrie parsnip,” which he crossed out for “sorry parsnip,” is even decidedly the more expressive word, which one wonders the author should not prefer. The words “alas, alas” which the writer D. interlined and C. deleted are so curiously out of place, that they might be the rest of some passage which had been crossed out in the original draft. The copyist found them left standing, felt uncertain, and reintroduced them in the end. It was not the only case in which he appended an omitted item. The most remarkable fact, however, is—a friend drew my attention to it—that a very high percentage of the mistakes in the text are due to a sort of anticipation during the writing. What is crossed out follows after a few words. The deleted “sh,” line 28, seems to be “Shro” in the next line (for small s see line 38); “ar,” 35, see 36: “what ar”; “But,” 37, see second part of the sentence: “but not men”; 95, “in,” see: “you wer in armes”; 102, “le,” see: “only lent”; 107, “ar,” see: “as you are”; 129, “why you,” see 130: “why you must.”

Does this point to the writer’s composing while he wrote? A line e.g. like “and twere in no error yf I told you all, you wer in armes gainst god,” in the first part of which the word “in” had to be deleted, might have originated, it seems to me, by the copyist having his finger or his eye erroneously already on the second “wer in.” Also, in the “But” case of v. 37, the copyist made some such blunder. The mistake “theise,” line 67, for “the,” on the other hand, is too isolated to allow of important conclusions, because the word “state” follows: as “theise” = “these” (see line 144), the word may be due to mishearing, the “s” from “state” being drawn to the “the.” But this quite clearly may be mere chance.

[1] Whether Drayton’s handwriting is out of the question or not (see his hastily written lines in Oliver Elton’s Michael Drayton, London, 1905, p. 86), I feel incompetent to judge.

[2] That a word like “help” is crossed out (71) and “advantage” is put in instead might happen to every one who copies a text and occasionally keeps only the sense of a word in his mind, “watrie parsnip,” which he crossed out for “sorry parsnip,” is even decidedly the more expressive word, which one wonders the author should not prefer. The words “alas, alas” which the writer D. interlined and C. deleted are so curiously out of place, that they might be the rest of some passage which had been crossed out in the original draft. The copyist found them left standing, felt uncertain, and reintroduced them in the end. It was not the only case in which he appended an omitted item. The most remarkable fact, however, is—a friend drew my attention to it—that a very high percentage of the mistakes in the text are due to a sort of anticipation during the writing. What is crossed out follows after a few words. The deleted “sh,” line 28, seems to be “Shro” in the next line (for small s see line 38); “ar,” 35, see 36: “what ar”; “But,” 37, see second part of the sentence: “but not men”; 95, “in,” see: “you wer in armes”; 102, “le,” see: “only lent”; 107, “ar,” see: “as you are”; 129, “why you,” see 130: “why you must.”

Does this point to the writer’s composing while he wrote? A line e.g. like “and twere in no error yf I told you all, you wer in armes gainst god,” in the first part of which the word “in” had to be deleted, might have originated, it seems to me, by the copyist having his finger or his eye erroneously already on the second “wer in.” Also, in the “But” case of v. 37, the copyist made some such blunder. The mistake “theise,” line 67, for “the,” on the other hand, is too isolated to allow of important conclusions, because the word “state” follows: as “theise” = “these” (see line 144), the word may be due to mishearing, the “s” from “state” being drawn to the “the.” But this quite clearly may be mere chance.

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[2]