readily disposes of seven out of these thirteen charges
or insinuations ; the remaining six I am also prepared
to deal with.

And here I may be allowed to add, that the President
of the Shakespeare Society, after the inspection of this
document which I had the honour to transmit for his
Lordship's information, considers that I may very well
content myself " with the explanation that my correc-
tions were only accidentally anticipated by those of my
reviewer," which his Lordship is pleased to add, " ap-
pears to be the fact."

As, however, the Shakespeare Society have, accord-
ing to theii- President's statement, established a re-
viewer, and Mr. Payne Collier avows himselfto be
" the responsible editor of the last volume of the
Shakespeare Society's Papers," or such review ; thus
standing forth to challenge criticism, he would, I sub-
mit, have no right to complain of any dissection of his
edition of Shakespeare, or exposure of printer's blun-
ders upon the supposed detection of which his literary
reputation exists, had I any wish to retaliate.

But I have none; for every one must feel that in all
criticism of this kind, involving philological difficulties
and debated questions of the nicest character, it is



J)



8

manifestly unfair to select particular instances, and
thence infer the general conduct of editorship.

It would be the easiest task possible, not merely to
charge, but to convict, the best authorities, or pro-
fessedly the most careful editors, of far more important
errors than the worst which have been laid to my
charge. Let me request any one' to turn to Mr. Col-
lier's Shakespeare, vol. vii. p. 332, and direct his atten-
tion to that gentleman's entire ignorance of the com-
mon grammatical idiom drink vp, which actually leads
him to doubt that vinegar is intended by esil, which,
being printed with a capital letter, of course implies
that Mr. Collier believed that it was the river Yssell to
be drunk up I A blunder so momentous as this is the
more to be wondered at, when we have the benefit of
GifFord's — the honest GifFord's, decisive note on the
matter in his edition of Ben Jonson, vol. i. p. 122.
And Mr, Collier's error respecting this word is the
more extraordinary, because Shakespeare uses it else-
where in the ordinary sense of vinegar. But the fact
is that Mr. Collier's edition of Shakespeare — an author,
recollect, most frequently edited, not the first edition
from a newly-discovered manuscript — is replete with
such oversights and blunders, that I intend discarding
it from my library, as an edition likely to put any one
out of temper. I will however try and keep mine,
and avoid retaliation.

If, therefore, in dealing with the reputation of an
eminent critic, a self-satisfied i-eader, a distinguished
antiquary, and an accomplished editor, as the party



responsible for the charges urged against my ideal
amanuensis, I hope Mr. Payne Colh'er will feel entirely
convinced that I can only act in the same spirit of
kindness, conciliation, courtesy, and amiable candour'
so evidently displayed by him towards the editor of a
" lost play of Massinger's", which he certainly himself
appeared unable fluently to read when I had the pleasure
of submitting the manuscript for his inspection. Indeed
it was this evident incompetence on Mr. Collier's part,*
that decided me to undertake the laborious task of
editorship myself, instead of transferring it to that
gentleman, as it was my intention to have done.

Whatever may now be thought or said upon the
subject of the critical attack made upon my literary
character in the name of the Shakespeare Society, I
must feel the proud conviction that I have not abused
the confidence of the Council of the Percy Society, and
that I have endeavoured to perform my duty honestly
and to the best of my ability, in compliance with their
wishes, so far as circumstances have permitted.

The perhaps mistaken feeling on my part, that I was

* Mr. Collier's knowledge of manuscripts may be gathered
from his reading of the account of Twelfth Night from Manning-
ham's Diary, -where Malvolio being mentioned, an allusion is
made to " his gestures in smiling"; but Mr. Collier reads (Shakes-
peare, vol. iii. p. 317) " his gestures inscribing." This, be it
remembered, is in a short extract from a very legible manuscript,
not from a long copy of a very obscure one. It should be added
that I dei-ive my knowledge of this momentous blunder from
Mr. Hunter's " New Illustrations of Shakespeare."



10

as competent to read and make a transcript of a manu-
script of the time of Charles I, as any common copyist
at twopence a page under Mr. Payne Collier's Direc-
torship, induced me to devote such portions of what I
could fairly call my leisure time for four years to read-
ing and copying a manuscript of forty-eight folio pages.

I have therefore no apology to offer that ray tran-
script was made hastily, although I have the fact to
urge, as some apology for the printer's errata, that
engagements and occupation of a pressing nature
obliged me, in order to meet the arrangements of the
Council of the Percy Society for the issue of No. Ixxx
on the 1st January, to pass the sheets of "Believe
as you List" very rapidly through the press, — so
rapidly, that I doubt if I even read the proof of my
Preface, which I observe was dated the day it was
written, 30th December, 1848, and I certainly did not
see a revise of the last sheet, in which three of the
thirteen most serious charges of incompetency made
against me occur. The errata which I detected, while the
sheet was at press, in pp. 26, 27, and 28, of Asofrubal
for Asdrubal, to which the name was of course subse-
quently corrected, did not appear to me to be of such
importance as to call upon the funds of the Society for
the expense of a cancel.

But what am I not entitled to say to my Critic, or
the responsible Editor of the " Shakespeare Society's
papei's," who upon this obvious misprint of ol for d,
actually in his charge asserts that the name " AsorubaP
should always have been Asdrubal. Can Mr. Collier



11

shew to the Shakespeare Society that the name has
been or is so printed in the Percy Society's volume,
or as he asserts, with an for a c[ ?

Am I not fairly entitled, then, delicately to inquire
if he, the responsible Editor, who cannot read and copy
print correctly, may not in his free and fearless course
of editorship confound an i with a j, a c with a b, and
heaven knows what else, to suit his own notions of
orthography, and imagine a g which might or might
not have existed in a manuscript he had seen, could
appreciate, but did not understand ? And does he
not, when commenting upon any literal inaccuracy
I may have overlooked in printing the name Asdrubal,
fairly lay himself open to the retort of having made
what would be treated at a police office as a false
charge, which however I am quite cei'tain no gentleman
could intentionally have been guilty of, although I
have known such things done by anonymous writers in
periodical reviews, and sometimes feel shocked at
observing notices of such matters in the newspapers.

I leave my critic to comment upon my commas as
he pleases, and to make sense or nonsense of Massinger,
at the reader's discretion ; my preface explains why
the punctuation cannot be consistent, and shews my
reason for having adopted a different style, commencing
with sheet d.

Under the circumstances in which I am placed,
I refrain from making any charges, and will con-
fine myself to repelling the remaining six, hitherto
unnoticed, brought against my competency as an



12

Editor ; these in general exhibit a lamentable defi-
ciency of recollection and a curious want of knowledge,
as well as taste, coupled with a love of puerile con-
jecture. Why, for instance, should ray critic be ig-
norant of the history of the King of Bohemia, and
waste so many words in strutting about "a late and
sad example" ?

The Council of the Percy Society have, however,
before them the means of satisfying themselves by
reference to the manuscript from which I have edited
Massinger's supposed lost play, whether what I shall
proceed to state is correct or not ; and as no insinuation
has been made that I have forged the manuscript, I
suppose its genuineness is not doubted by the Shakes-
peare Society.

I pass over the erudite remarks offered by my critic
for the information of the members of that Society,
such as that an u was formerly used instead of a
v; that "eyes" were often of old spelt " eies," &c.,
because I am quite convinced that every member of
the Percy Society must be aware of these facts.

The doubt expressed as to the interchange of tv and
V in manuscripts of this period, in such words as
" wast,'''' p. 4, " lawolta, p. Q6, &c,, is lamentable; I
refrain from saying more. Let Mr. Collier turn to
his own edition of Shakespeare, vol. vii, p. 209, and he
will find that vast, in Hamlet, act i, sc. 2, is mis-
printed loast or waste, in the old copies, subsequent to
that of 1603. And that gentleman attributes it to a
" very easy" compositor's error. Can Mr. Collier shew



13

the arrangement of a printer's case of letters in 1600 ?
Certainly from what is now supposed to have been the
old arrangement of printers' cases, no letters could be
less accidentally mistaken than v and w. In fact tlie
arrangement seems to have been made to prevent this
possibility. For my part, I am inclined to attribute
the indiscriminate use of the letters v and w to a very
different cause.

In the passage " Theis pulled out", p. 63, my critic
is pleased to assert that "the word 'eyes' has been
evidently omitted". This does not appear to me to be
quite so evident; although "the eyes pulled out" is
the evident meaning of the passage, which was written
as I have printed it, and, I believe, was so written, to
give a quick or passionate expression to the words
" Th' eis", the original transcriber having omitted the
apostrophe.

It is stated, and it would appear not without con-
sideration, by my critic, that "lonely", at p. 73, is
misprinted for " lovely", which he endeavours to shew,
after explaining certain facts which every member of
the Percy Society must at once admit to be perfectly
correct, that the turning of the letter n forms an u, and
that u was formerly used instead of v; adding, rather
unnecessarily, as it appears to me, in a tone of triumph,
" such must have been the case".

Now, I feel satisfied that such has not been the case,
and that I have not only correctly read, but that the
printer has correctly rendered the woi'd in question
lonely: and a more poetical or beautiful reading I



14

cannot conceive. But ray critic would drag down
Massinger to the level of his own " lovely''"' mind if he
could. The meaning of the passage in which the word
occurs, may be taken in simple prose as " So alone, so
solitary in you is that feeling of pity". What can be
more dignified ? (remember, they are the words of
fallen royalty, addressed to a coui-tezan); and compare
them with the wretched pertness of " So lovely, so
beautiful in you is that feeling of pity" — which would
almost tempt any one to add to such " must-have-been-
the-case" editorship as this, for the completion of the
sentence, and " my darling you are."

Demetri for Demetrius, p. 13, requires no com-
ment. It is so in the manuscript.

Conjure, — p. 107, " the last mistake of the kind" my
kind critic thinks proper to notice, — he is pleased to in-
form the members of the Shakespeare Society should be
"fortune". Now, I assert, and the proof is before the
Council of the Percy Society, that whatever the word
in the manuscript may be, it is not fortune. " Con-
jure", although I cannot at the moment produce the
example, I have certainly somewhere seen used for
"applause", " clapping of hands". I admit, however,
this to be a conjectural reading of mine ; the word is
clearly enough written Consure, and Mr. Halliwell (no
mean authority) thinks it a transcriber's error for
censtire.

And now, sixthly and lastly, for the word " inglinge,"
p. 16, which my critic asserts "ought unquestionably
to be ' jugling' or 'juggling.' " Flaminius is talking to



15

Berecinthius, the priest of Cybele, of the mysteries of his
religion. Surely my critic is ignorant that the mys-
teries of this goddess were of a character which might
justify the epithet given to them by Massinger; but
which would have no point if that applied to them by
the Shakespeare Society's reviewer were admitted to
be the reading. Of course, the new Vice-President of
the Society of Antiquaries must be aware of this.
"Inglinge," however,is unquestionably the word used in
the manuscript, and, although Dyce, Gifford, and
Halliwell are quoted as authorities to shew that I
cannot read or understand correctly a manuscript of
the time of Charles I, and the AthencEum, therefore,
considers me to be an incompetent editor, I think my
anonymous critic, or critics, ought not to have omitted
to consult Nares, as the respectable authority followed
by Mr. Payne Collier in his " Yssell" draught.

Shade of Gifford arise, and defend an honest editor-
Arise, and shield the memory of Massinger from tlie
"juggling mysteries" of the Shakespeare Society!

T. Crofton Croker.

3, Glovcester Road,
Old Brompton.



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