Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/25

 12 s. m. JAN. 6, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

minute analysis, of the consideration of every discernible peculiarity, before they can be pro- nounced safe. It is just this minute analysis that Sir Edward Thompson offers us here per- formed with the last degree of exactness and with very happy intuition, so that these com- parisons, letter by letter, stroke by stroke, may be recommended as interesting reading even to those who have no special liking for palaeography.

The addition in question consists of 147 lines, which form a scene between the London appren- tices, in an insurrection against aliens intruding into the City, and Sir Thomas More. The speech put into More's mouth, it will hardly be denied, has the peculiar persuasive mingling of good sense, lofty appeal, and fine, sonorous, but simple rhythm, by which the good counsellors in all Shakespeare's plays are characterized. The speech comes at the end of the fragment ; the earlier lines are exclamations of the mob-leaders and protests from, unacceptable persons in authority. The excellent collotype fascimile en- ables us to follow Sir Edward Thompson's con- tention that words for the wranglers were written at full speed dashed off, we might suppose, with a sympathetic restlessness, whereas in More's long speech the writer settled down to stronger, more deliberate thought, to calmer and more strictly chosen words, and his hand, in compliance with his mind, wrote a better formed and ampler sort of script. The legend of the never-blotted line does not in this passage receive quite literal confirmation ; three lines, and here and there a word, are erased. Yet, taking the MS. as a whole, it is a first draft which denotes a very prompt and steady flow of invention a simple, forthright method of work to be contrasted, for example, with such a method as that of Balzac.

It is the last page that, as to the general im- pression it makes, comes nearest to the signatures ; and, to complete his grasp of the correspondence between the two, we would suggest to the student by way of exercise to compare them from the easier and perhaps more ordinary point of view. The expert has more often to determine, from a script of known authorship, whether a given signature is genuine, than to determine the authorship of a given script from nothing but a signature. Let it be assumed that More's speech is genuine Shakespeare, could we, upon the ground of that, decide in favour of the signatures being genuine ? It seems to us judging from the facsimiles before us that we could.

There remains some difficulty as to the date of the play ' Sir Thomas More.' Dr. Greg, who had put it at 1592 to 1593, argues now for a later date, and believes that the attribution to Shake- speare is thereby rendered impossible. But most negative conclusions about Shakespeare seem to us, considering how fragmentary is our knowledge of his life, to be highly questionable. Short of a proof that the whole MS. of ' Sir Thomas More ' additions and all belongs to a period later than the end of 1615, the shifting of its date within possible limits may indeed make the attribution somewhat more or somewhat less- probable, but at the unlikeliest will leave an ample margin of possibility.

In illustration of the main theme we are given a usefully clear statement as to the contemporary fashion in handwriting the English script being gradually ousted by the Italian, and the two

being intermixed in the hand of the same writer... We have also the latest explication of the signa- tures, in which some former errors are corrected ; and an account of everything known or reason- ably conjectured as to how and what Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avpn was taught in the_ matter of handwriting. Sir Edward Thompson is secure of great and widespread interest in this valuable piece of work, and no less, we think, is he secure of at least a general provisional agreement on the part of students of his subject.

The Fortnightly Review begins the year with a poem entitled ' Before Ginchy,' by Mr. E. A. Wodehouse, 2nd Lieutenant Scots Guards. It gives us war at its grimmest not only in what it works upon the bodies of the fallen, but also- in what it works in the souls of the living. As verse the poem is unequal : as a conception and interpretation it is fine enough to be unforgettable. Dr. Dillon in ' Germany and the Entente Powers ' gives forcible and reasonable warning as to the conduct of the War. Politicus, starting out with the statement that " the present war has proved the failure of democracy in war," after some analysis of the situation and its causes, proceeds- to give advice upon almost all its factors. We do not ourselves think that comparisons between modern democracies and those of ancient Greece or of Italy in the later Middle Ages are particularly fruitful. The practical suggestions seem to us the strongest part of this article. Of a like pressing importance, and worth equal attention,., are ' The New Government,' by Auditor Tantum ; ' Man-Power and Sea-Power,' by Mr. Archibald Hurd ; and ' Holland's Last Chance,' by Y. Mr.. W. S. Lilly contributes a charming article on Ovid, which is more in our own line. As we might expect from this writer, he holds the balance well between a sympathetic understanding of the pagan view of life, with its various elements of attractiveness, and a just estimate of the changes wrought by Christianity. ' Bucharest when the War Came ' is a brilliant a more compact than usual example of those pictures of the Near East which Mr. W. F. Bailey (who here again has collaborated with Miss Jean V. Bates) furnishes in such goodly number for the pleasure and instruc- tion of m >ny readers. Mr. E. Lipson has our hearty sympathy in his ' Agriculture after the War.' He will not expect from us very profound ' criticism as to his agricultural methods ; but we are heartily with him in his advice to us to look again for good example and precept into the economic theory of the Middle Ages. We have often admired the excellent practical counsels of Miss Edith Sellers : we should like to recommend. her paper here, ' Quarts versus Noggins,' to the careful consideration of all who have the drink question at heart. Prof. Gerothwohl on ' The Octopus of German Culture ' is not only in- forming and vigorous, but highly amusing. His account of the thesis which won a German Ph.D.,. maxima cum laude, a few years ago must be read and pondered to be believed. Is it not curious to mention Heine as the second supreme literary artist of Germany, and to make a point of his being Parisian in sympathy, and not to mention that he was a Jew ? ' Initiative,' by Mr. Gilbert Frankau, is a good story. In ' The Super- Parent and the Child,' by Statist, we have, for the most part, a repetition of counsels which have been already often put forward ; but the