far. I accepted as a seasonable admonition a friendly
letter from Mr. Rodd : " Notwithstanding all their
squabbles among themselves and abuse of each other,
the dulness of some and wildness of others, I con
sider them as a whole as a body of men who have
rendered singular service to English literature. In
their readings for illustration of his text, they have
thrown great light upon our national history, anti
quities and language, and been the means of calling
into notice several good authors who had fallen into
unmerited obscurity. Let me beg of you to tread
more lightly over their ashes in future." But I was
not likely, although I might modify my future ex-



388 PASSAGES OP A WORKING LIFE:

pressions, to be diverted from my convictions that I
had chosen the right path, however perplexed it
might he. I had abundant encouragement in my
course. Henry Nelson Coleridge wrote to me upon
the appearance of my opening number : " It is at
once a beautiful and instructive edition ; indeed, the
first in the country conceived in a right spirit."
Mrs. Jameson, in a most welcome letter, expressed
her entire sympathy with my opinions : "I thought
I had well studied Shakspere myself, but your
edition has opened fresh sources of reflection and
information." My old friend, Sir Henry Ellis, prof
fered his assistance, and sent me a genuine slice of
the mulberry-tree which he received from the Rev.
Mr. Becket, and saw it cut from the block upon
which Garrick had himself placed his seal. From
Leigh Hunt I received a letter, from which I give
an extract, very characteristic of the writer : " It
rejoices me to see you in a task like this, because it
enables you to live in a world which belongs to you
besides the world of business, and which will do you
as much good as I believe it will give pleasure and
profit to the reader. To live with Shakspere, is to
breathe at once the sweetest and most universal air
of humanity." I could multiply these testimonies of
kindness, were it not distasteful to me to appear
like my own eulogist.

Offers of literary assistance in my undertaking
reached me from various quarters. I had originally
hoped for much direct aid, and had thought that my
task would be lightened by having several persons
engaged upon various departments. I found this
idea, with two exceptions music and costume im
possible of execution, even if I had not become



THE SECOND EPOCH. 389

enamoured of my work, and had derived from it a
solace amidst many cares. The labour had not
wearied me when I had completed three-fourths of
my undertaking. In a postscript to my sixth volume,
I thus expressed my feelings : " It is now somewhat
more than three years since I commenced the pub
lication of The Pictorial Edition of Shakspere, in
Monthly Parts ; and during that period I have pro
duced a Part on the first day of each month, with one
single exception. The task of editing this work has
been to me a most agreeable one. It has been ab
sorbing enough to require my daily attention, to
occupy my habitual thoughts, to shut out dark
forebodings, to lighten the pressure of instant evils.
It has furnished me a useful and honourable occupa
tion, which has not been less zealously pursued be
cause it was associated with the discharge of duties
not so pleasurable. I have worked at this task with
a full consciousness of the responsibility which lay
upon me ; but as I have worked in the spirit of love,
that consciousness has never been painful."

The Two Gentlemen of Verona was printed for the
first time in the folio of 1623. That volume also
contained eight other comedies, three histories, and
six tragedies, of which no previous edition is known.
In addition to these eighteen plays, four other
comedies were there first printed in a perfect shape.
I had, therefore, ample reason for considering that
first folio as standing with regard to half of Shak-
spere s plays in the same relation to the text as the
one manuscript of an ancient author. It was the
only accredited complete copy of four more of his
choicest works. I, therefore, from the first, held that
for three-fifths of Shakspere s plays that folio was



390 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I [Ch. XIV.

the only authority, however the quartos might be
advantageously compared with its text with regard
to the other two-fifths. I did not place an exclusive
reliance, as I have often been accused of doing, upon
the text of that folio, but I did not rely by preference
upon those rare quarto morsels which the editors of
the first folio had described as stolen and surreptitious
copies. Within a week after the appearance of my
first number, I had a letter from Mr. John Wilson
Croker, which went to confirm me in my views with
regard to the text. He says, " Let me tell you that
many years ago (near forty I fear) I wrote a great
many pages to establish the principle that you have
adopted the paramount authority of the first folio ;
and, as well as I can recollect, I went through the
whole of Macbeth to prove my position. I know not
whether my MS. is in existence, I rather fear not, as
I have not seen it for near thirty years, but it may
be in some boxes of old papers which are in a lumber
room, and I will have it looked for. If I find it, and
that it contains anything worth copying, you shall
have it. Perhaps, also, I may be able now and then
to give you some hints which may be worth your
consideration." My old friend, Dr. Maginn, in a
letter of the 15th of November, showed that he held
the first folio in the same respect as I did myself,
but was inclined to treat that and all other authori
ties with a licence that appeared to me somewhat
dangerous : " I have not any Shakespeare collections
by me, though I once made a considerable number
of notes with a view of giving an edition, not of the
kind you are publishing, but merely critical with
reference principally to the state of the text. I con
sider with you the first folio to be in the nature of a



THE SECOND EPOCH. 391

MS., and therefore to be kept always primarily in
view, not of course neglecting the second folio, and
the quartos ; but having been reared in a school of
criticism in which even MSS. themselves are used,
not worshipped, I have no objection to wielding the
hook in a manner which you would perhaps consider
as slashing as that of Bentley himself."

Having thus taken up my position with regard to
the text, I went on fearlessly and consistently. I
preferred perhaps a little too exclusively the autho
rity of the folio. I often adopted the text of a reli
able quarto, always pointing out the discrepancies of
the two editions. But I utterly rejected the principle
of making a hash out of two texts, which had been
the common practice of the variorum editors. To
decide amidst various readings was really a much
more difficult task a quarter of a century ago than it
would be now, did the text remain precisely in the
state in which it was when I began my labours.
There did not then exist such a perfect, I might
almost say such a wonderful help to memory as Mrs.
Cowden Clarke s Concordance. Ayscough s Index
was exceedingly imperfect and ill-arranged. The
"Verbal Index" of Twiss two rare volumes, which
cost me three or four guineas was a book that was
to me a perpetual source of perplexity, for the refer
ences of a single word to a hundred different places,
without the slightest key to its use and significance,
led me into a labyrinth whose darkness it was im
possible to penetrate. Honoured be the untiring
industry and correct judgment of that lady, who
came too late to assist me in my first edition, but
who has ever since been my reliable aid whenever I
was engaged in a critical study of Shakspere.



392 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:

My continuous work had sometimes relief when
questions arose which were of a more novel and
exciting character than textual commentary or even
sesthetical criticism. The Merry Wives of Windsor
took me back into the old scenes of iny childhood,
which I retraced in companionship with one whose
mind was as natural and genial as his landscapes are
pure and truthful. Thomas Creswick and his wife
spent a few weeks with us in a cottage at Salt Hill.
A short walk took the painter with his sketch book,
and the editor, with his unwritten knowledge of old
familiar haunts, into Windsor, and there we might
trace the misfortunes of Falstaff, as he was carried
" in the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane," and
thence " slighted into the river where the shore was
shelvy and narrow." "About the fields through
Frogmore " suggested a stroll in another direction, to
find a fit locality for the farm-house where Ann Page
was " a feasting." The Windsor town of mediaeval
architecture was to be imagined, but the position
of its streets with reference to the Castle could be
well defined. Mr. Ores wick s charming designs made
the Merry Wives of Windsor the gem of the come
dies in my edition. But as if Shakspere, the " gentle
Shakspere," was to be always provocative of contro
versy, I became involved in the discussion of the
very doubtful question whether Herne s Oak existed
or had been cut down. The subject is stated so fully
in my original edition, and, with some additional
matter, in the revised issue of the Pictorial Shakspere
now publishing, that it is scarcely necessary to add
anything to my details of the evidence regarding
the controverted points between Mr. Jesse and the
(( Quarterly Review/ 1 beyond printing here an extract



THE SECOND EPOCH. 393

of a letter to me from Mr. Croker, of the 13th of
January, 1842 :

" Your dissertation on Herne s Oak is conclusive
against Mr. Jesse s fable, but there is one point of
that fable, of the error of which you cannot be ap
prised. Mr. Jesse admits that George IV. frequently
stated that George III. had cut down the tree sup
posed to be Herne s oak ; but that he always
added that it was not so. Now I was the person to
whom George IV. told the whole story, and I told it,
many years ago, to Mr. Jesse, to whom it was then
new, and I can assert that George IV. never added
anything like what Mr. Jesse has stated, but quite
the reverse. I know not from whom else Mr. Jesse
might afterwards have heard the story, nor with
what additions ; but his statement that George IV.
always told the story with the addition in question,
is assuredly not the fact, for he did not so tell it me,
and Mr. Jesse first heard the story from me without
any such addition. Mr. Jesse asked me to allow him
to print my version of the story not at that time
stating that he had heard any other version but
this I refused, out of delicacy to George IV., who, I
think, was still alive, and to the rest of the Royal
family, for the fact is, that George IV. told me the
story as a proof that his father s mental disorder had
shown itself earlier than was generally known ; and
all the circumstances of the anecdote and they are
very curious tended to show that this cutting down
of the tree was an act of temporary derangement.
So much for my share in Mr. Jesse s story. In 1838
George IV. and even William IV. were dead, and I
thought I might, without impropriety, set the
substance of the matter right in the Quarterly



394 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE:

Review/ which I did in the passage you have
quoted."

During my editorial employment upon Twelfth
Night, I was led into considerations with regard to
Shakspere s domestic character by the perusal of Mr.
De Quincey s Life of Shakspere in a Part of the
" Encyclopaedia Britannica " which had just then
appeared. My logical friend had taken up the no
tion that a passage in Twelfth Night was a pathetic
counsel of the poet in his maturest years " against
the errors into which his own inexperience had been
ensnared." He maintains that when the duke says
to the pretended Cesario

" Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent,"

Shakspere intends to notice the disparity of years
between himself and his wife. Mr. De Quincey s
theory that Shakspere s married life was one of un-
happiness, was supported by the dictum of Malone
in 1780, who first dragged a passage of Shakspere s
Will into light, to prove that in this, his last solemn
act, the wife of the rich player of Stratford had not
wholly escaped his memory ; but, as more strongly
to mark how little he esteemed her, he had " cut her
off, not indeed with a shilling, but with an old bed."
Steevens considered the bequest of the second best
bed as " a mark of peculiar tenderness," and assumed
that she was provided for by a settlement. It cer
tainly occurred to me that such conjectures and
inferences were a mere waste of words. I had made
what the critical solvers of historical puzzles call a
discovery. Well do I remember the glee with which,
having written the following paragraph, I showed



THE SECOND EPOCH. . 395

it to my dear friend, Mr. Thomas Clarke, a sound
lawyer, who confirmed my opinion, as fully as did
Mr. Long and Mr. Hill, with whom I subsequently
discussed the matter. " Shakspere knew the law of
England better than his legal commentators. His
estates, with the exception of a copyhold tenement,
expressly mentioned in his will, were freehold. His
WIFE WAS ENTITLED TO DOWER. She was provided
for amply, by the clear and undeniable operation
of the English law. Of the houses and gardens
which Shakspere inherited from his father, she was as
sured of the life-interest of a third, should she survive
her husband, the instant that old John Shakspere
died. Of the capital messuage, called New Place,
the best house in Stratford, which Shakspere pur
chased in 1597, she was assured of the same life-
interest, from the moment of the conveyance, pro
vided it was a direct conveyance to her husband.
That it was so conveyed, we may infer from the
terms of the conveyance of the lands in Old Strat
ford, and other places, which were purchased by
Shakspere in 1 602, and were then conveyed to the
onlye proper use and behoofe of the saide William
Shakespere, his heires and assignes for ever. Of a
life-interest in a third of those lands also was she
assured. The tenement in Blackfriars, purchased in
1614, was conveyed to Shakspere and three other
persons, and after his death was re-conveyed by
those persons to the uses of his will, for and in per
formance of the confidence and trust in them reposed
by William Shakespeare deceased. In this estate,
certainly, the widow of our poet had not dower."

In the postscript to Twelfth Night, I had said,
adverting to a letter printed by Mr. Collier in his



396 PASSAGES OF A WOKKING LIFE:

" New Facts," " There was one who knew Shakspere
well who, illustrious as he was by birth and station,
does not hesitate to call him, one of the poor players
of Blackfriars, my especial friend who testifies
decidedly enough to the public estimation of his
domestic conduct." That letter purported to have
been written in 1608 by Lord Southampton to Lord
Chancellor Ellesmere. I must give another extract
from Mr. Croker s correspondence with me on the
subject of Shakspere, to show how carefully this
friend watched my progress, and with what critical
acumen he anticipated the objections of the present
day to discoveries of this apocryphal character. " I
observe you quote and rely upon the letter signed
H. S. discovered among Lord Ellesmere s papers
by Mr. Collier. If that letter be genuine I must
plead guilty to a great want of critical sagacity, for
somehow it smacks to me of modern invention, and
all my reconsideration of the subject, and some other
circumstances which have since struck me, corrobo
rate my doubts. Mr. Collier is, of course, above all
suspicion of having any hand in a fabrication, but it
appears that one person at least, and perhaps more,
had access to the papers before him, though it would
seem that the particular bundle appeared not to
have been opened since it was first tied up. In
short, I see such strong external evidence of authen
ticity, and, on the other hand, such internal evidence
(in my judgment) of the contrary, that I am
puzzled."

In the spring of 1841 I commenced the publica
tion of " Knight s Store of Knowledge for all
Readers" a series of original treatises by various
authors. It was issued in weekly numbers at two-



THE SECOND EPOCH. 397

pence. The first and second numbers were de
voted to Shakspere and his writings, and they bore
my name as their author. At this period I had
finished six volumes of the Pictorial Shakspere, and
the seventh, consisting of the doubtful plays and
poems, was being printed. I had not yet commenced
writing the biography, but I had collected various
materials for that object ; had visited Stratford, and
had inspected several documents preserved there. I
was thus prepared to write the papers in the " Store
of Knowledge," with many new materials, and a
tolerably complete acquaintance with whatever had
been published of this very obscure life. That this
unpretending production of mine had supplied a
want, I was assured in a letter which I have before
me from John Sterling, written in February, 1842,
when he was staying at Falmouth. He thanks me
for the pleasure and instruction furnished by the
first volume of my new edition of Shakspere " The
Library Edition," published on the 1st of January,
1842, and he then adds, " I had previously read with
great delight your convincing and comprehensive
Life of the Poet in the Store of Knowledge. I was
charmed to find so much external evidence for a
view which the study of his style so richly compo
site must have more or less obscurely suggested to
all intelligent readers." The praise of such a man
furnished ample encouragement to me to devote my
best exertions to the completion of the " Biography "
which I had announced. The outline in the " Store
of Knowledge " embodied, with slight variations, the
general view which I subsequently elaborated. As
those papers have probably passed into oblivion, I
shall here attempt a very brief analysis of the



398 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE!

portions in which I expressed my strong objections,
or grave doubts, as to much that had been previously
given to the world as the authentic facts of Shak-
spere s life. My discovery as to his wife s dower,
had perhaps made me a little too sceptical perhaps
a little too rash, in regard to many of the stories
embodied in the elaborate "Life of William Shak-
speare," by Edmund Malone, which occupies .nearly
three hundred pages of the edition of 1821. I had
earned that volume with me to Stratford in my first
visit just noticed ; and during my few days sojourn
there, had made many marginal notes, for the most
part recording my first doubts of the received biogra
phies. At the head of the section in which it is
attempted to prove that Shakspere s father was an
impoverished and dishonoured man, I find written,
u It appears to me that all this may be pounded into
nothing."

About six months afterwards, I published in my
Pictorial Edition, an "Illustration of the Sonnets."
In this elaborate analysis I worked out my theory
that the poems of Shakspere, which Meres had, in
1598, termed his "sugared sonnets," amongst his
private friends, when published as "never before
imprinted," in 1609, " were a collection of ( Sibylline
leaves rescued from the perishableness of their writ
ten state, by some person who had access to the high
and brilliant circle in which Shakspere was esteemed ;
and that this person s scrap-book, necessarily imper
fect and pretending to no order, found its way to the
hands of a bookseller, who was too happy to give to
that age what its most distinguished man had written
at various periods, for his own amusement, and for
the gratification of his private friends. "



THE SECOND EPOCH. 399

I commenced the composition of " William Shak
spere, a Biography," at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the
summer of 1842. The first book, comprising about
half the volume, was published in November of that
year. This portion embraces the scanty materials
for a life of Shakspere properly so called, up to the
period when he left Stratford to enter upon his dra
matic career in London. But I endeavoured to
associate Shakspere with the circumstances around
him, in a manner which might fix them in the mind
of the reader by exciting his interest. I might have
accomplished the same end by somewhat extending
the notice in the "Store of Knowledge," accompanied
by a History of Manners and Customs, a History
of the Stage, &c., &c. The form of my biography
might appear fanciful. It has been called by a
prosaic critic a burlesque. But the narrative essen
tially rested upon facts, and if criticism required me
to move in the old tramway, I was content to have
chosen a byway more circuitous, but probably more
pleasing.




CHAPTEE XX.



HE "Penny Cyclopaedia" was finished in
twenty-seven volumes, in the spring of
1844. The notion of a Supplement had
not then been matured. The work was
deemed complete, as far as the efforts of the editor
and his contributors could keep pace with the rapid
march of invention, the improvements of legislation,
and the onward rush of every department of
knowledge. It is in the very nature of such works that
they must be to some extent imperfect. Not Argus
with his hundred eyes could note down all the me
tamorphoses of Time, the great magician, as lie calls
them into life.

Soon after the close of this labour of eleven years,
I received an honour upon which I look back as one
of my unalloyed " Pleasures of Memory." It comes
before me now with the vagueness of an agreeable
dream. To give some precision to my recollections, a
friend transcribed for me, from the vast file of news
papers in the British Museum, some paragraphs
from those of June, 1844. I will give one from
the " Athenaeum" of the 15th of that month:
" Change is our order the order of the nineteenth
century ; and, in marking progress, we may record
here that authors and publishers seem about to
handy-dandy/ and that the contributors to the
Penny Cyclopaedia, and some personal friends,



THE SECOND EPOCH. 401

have given Mr. Charles Knight a sumptuous enter
tainment at the Albion Tavern, on the completion of
that work." The word "handy-dandy" may send
my readers to their Shakspere : " Change places, and
handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the
thief? " This were an unsavoury allusion to the
change indicated above ; if there were any meaning
intended. But perhaps the " Athenaeum" had turned
to Todd s "Johnson," and had there found this de
finition : " A play amongst children, in which some
thing is shaken between two hands, and then a guess
is made in which hand it is retained." There was
little of the material reward of industry to be retained
in my palm had it been ever so " itching ; " and this
my "authors" knew. But when one individual
amongst " publishers " received such an unusual com
pliment as was bestowed upon me, I trust that I may
regard the circumstance in the spirit of the " Athe
naeum " as " marking progress " in the relations be
tween two classes that were generally considered
natural enemies, but whose interests are identical and
ought never to be separated.

Upon reflection, I do not think it would be seemly
in me to present my own recollections of the circum
stances attending this dinner. Nor could I faithfully
do so. I was at once joyous and frightened in my
novel position. As to remembering what I said
myself, in returning thanks, it comes before me "like
a tangled chain." One thing I recollect. I quoted
from Joan of Arc s speech in Henry VI.

Glory is like a circle in the water,
"Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought. "

And then I ejaculated "not so knowledge."



402 PASSAGES OF A WORKING LIFE I

But I must give some relation of this dinner ; and
I therefore blend portions of the reports of "The
Times " and the " Morning Chronicle," without any
deviation of phrase.

" On the suggestion of several eminent persons,
it was proposed to give an entertainment to Mr.
Knight, in celebration of the successful completion
of the " Penny Cyclopsedia," and to express their
sense of the value and usefulness of the literary un
dertakings in which he has been engaged as editor or
publisher. Accordingly a large party met on Wed
nesday evening at the Albion Tavern.

" The Chair was taken by Lord Brougham ; and
amongst the company assembled were Lord Wrot-
tesley, the Rev. Mr. Jones the tithe commissioner,
Mr. Bellenden Ker, Mr. John Lefevre, Mr. Parkes,