The following Publications of the New Shakspere Society have been issued for 1874 : Series I. Transactions: The New Shakspere Society's Transactions, Part I, containing four Papers by the Rev. F. G. Fleay, M. A., with Reports of the Discussions on them, a Table of the Quarto Editions of Shakspere's Works, 1593-1630; and a print of the genuine Parts of Timon and Pericles; with an Appendix containing, 1. Mr James Spedding's Paper on the several shares of SHAKSPERE and FLETCHER in Henry VIII, with the late Mr S. Hickson's, Mr Fleay's, and Mr Furnivall's independent confirmations of Mr Spedding's results. 2. The late Mr S. Hickson's Paper on the several shares of SHAKSPERE and FLETCHER (when young) in the To Noble Kinsmen, with Mr Fleay's and Mr Furnivall's Notes, and Tables of Metrical Tests, confirming Mr Hickson's results. Series II Plays: 1. A Parallel-Text Edition of the First two Quartos of Romeo and Juliet, 1597 and 1599, arranged so as to show their Differences, and with Collations of all the Quartos and Folios, edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq. This Edition is presented to the Society by H. R. H. Prince Leopold, one of its 2, 3. The First two Quartos of Romeo and Juliet 1597 and 1599: simple Reprints, edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq. Series IV. Shakspere Allusion-Books. Part I. a. Greenes Groatesworth of Wit [written in 1592], 1596; b. Henry Chettle's 'Kind-Harts Dreame' [written in 1593]; c. Englandes Mourning Garment' [1603]; d. A Mourneful Dittie, entituled Elizabeths Losse, together with A Welcome for King James [1603]; e. extracts from Willobie his Avisa; Or the true Picture of a Modest Maid, and of a Chast and constant wife,' 1594; f. extracts from Marston, Carew, &c.; g. Gabriel Harvey's Third Letter, from his 'Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets,' 1592; h. five sections,-Poetrie; Poets; Comparative Discourse of our English Poets, with the Greeke, Latine, and Italian Poets; Painters; Musique ;-from Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia, 1598, &c. &c.; edited by C. Mansfield Ingleby, Esq., LL.D. Dr Ingleby presented to every Member of the Society who had paid his Subscription by Nov. 7, 1874, a copy of his Still Lion, an attempt to establish a Science of Criticism of Shakspere's Text. Mr Furnivall also presented to every Member a copy of his Introduction to Gervinus's Commentaries. The following Publications have been issued for 1875: Series II. Plays: 4. A revised Edition of the second, or 1599, Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, collated with the other Quartos and the Folios; edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq. 5, 6. Henry V: a. Facsimile Reprints of the Quarto and First Folio, edited by Brinsley Nicholson, M.D. Series I. Transactions, 1874, Part II; 1875, Part I, Containing Papers by Messrs Hales, Fleay, Simpson, and Spedding, and Professors Ingram and Delius, with Reports of the Discussions on them. Mr Halliwell has presented to every Member a copy of Mr A. H. Paget's "Shakespeare's Plays: a Chapter of Stage History." The following Publications of the New Shakspere Society are in the Press : Series II. Plays: 7, 8. Henry V: b. Parallel Texts of the Quarto and First Folio, arranged so as to show their differences; c. a revised edition of the Play; the whole edited by Brinsley Nicholson, M.D. 9, 10. The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Shakspere and Fletcher; a. A Reprint of the Quarto of 1636; b. a revised Edition, with Introduction, Notes, and Glossarial Index of all the words, distinguishing Shakspere's from Fletcher's, by Harold Littledale, Esq., Trinity College, Dublin. Series III. Originals and Analogues. Part I. a. The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, written first in Italian by Bandell, and nowe in Englishe by Ar[thur] Br[ooke], 1562; edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq. b. The goodly hystory of the true and constant loue between Rhomeo and Julietta; from Painter's Palace of Pleasure, 1567; edited by P. A. Daniel, Esq. Series VI. Shakspere's England. William Harrison's Description of England, 1577, 1587, edited from its two versions by Fredk. J. Furnivall, Esq., M. A. Series II. Cymbeline: a. A Reprint of the Folio of 1623; b. a revised Edition, with Introduction and Notes, by W. J. Craig, Esq., M.A., Trinity College, Dublin. The following works have been suggested for publication 1. Parallel Texts of the imperfect sketches of b. Hamlet, and its Quarto 2 (with the Folio and a revised Text); c. Merry Wives of Windsor, and Folio 1; d. The Contention, and Henry VI, Part 2, in F1; The True Tragedy, and Henry VI, Part 3, in FI. 2. Parallel Texts of the following Quarto Plays and their versions in the First Folio, with collations: Richard III, Q1; 2 Henry IV, Q1; Troilus and Cressida, Q1; Lear, QI: to show the relations of the Folio text to that of the previous editions. Of Othello, four Texts, Q1, Q2, F1, and a revised Text. 3. Parallel Texts of the two earliest Quartos of Midsummer Night's Dream, and Merchant of Venice; to show which edition is the better basis for a revised text. 4. The First Quartos of Much Ado about Nothing; Loues Labour's Lost; Richard II; 1 Henry IV; from which the copies in the Folio were printed. Reprints in Quarto of the remaining Folio Plays, with collations. When possible, the passages which Shakspere used from North's Plutarch, Holinshed's and Halle's Chronicles, &c., will be printed opposite the texts of his Roman and Historical Plays. Also the plots of the old plays of The Taming of a Shrew,' "Promos and Cassandra,'The troublesome raigne of King John,' &c., will be printed parallel with the plots of Shakspere's Plays that were founded on them. In all Reprints of Quarto and Folio editions of Shakspere's Plays, the numbers of act, scene, and line, will be given in the margin, so as to make the books handy to work with. Series V. The Contemporary Drama. Works suggested by Mr Richard Simpson (see The Academy, Jan. 31, 1874, p. 120-1) :— a. The Works of Robert Greene, Thomas Nash (with a selection from Gabriel Harvey's), Thomas Lodge, and Henry Chettle. b. The Arraignment of Paris (Peele's); Arden of Feversham; George-a-Greene; Locrine; King Edward III (of which Act ii. is by a different hand, and that, almost certainly Shakspere's); Mucedorus; Sir John Oldcastle; Thomas Lord Cromwell; The Merry Devil of Edmonton: The London Prodigal; The Puritan ; A Yorkshire Tragedy; Faire Em; The Birth of Merlin; The Siege of Antwerp; The Life and Death of Thomas Stucley; A Warning to Fair Women. (Perhaps "The Prodigal Son,' and 'Hester and Ahasuerus,' extant in German translations.) c. The Martinist and Anti-Martinist Plays of 1589-91; and the Plays relating to the quarrel between Dekker and Jonson in 1600. d. Lists of all the Companies of Actors in SHAKSPERE's time, their Directors, Players, Plays, and Poets. e. Dr Wm. Gager's Meleager, a tragedy, printed Oct. 1592 (with the correspondence relating to it between Dr Gager of Christ Church, and Dr John Reynolds of Corpus (Univ. Coll. Oxf. MS. J. 18; and at Corpus). Also, Reynolds's rejoinder in 1593, The Overthrow of Stage Plays,' &c., with the letters between him and Gentilis. Also, Gentilis's 'Disputatio de Actoribus et Spectatoribus Fabularum non notandis.' Hannov. 1659. And 'Fucus sive Histriomastix' (a play against Reynolds), Lambeth MS. 838.). f. Robert Chester's Love's Martyr-from which Shakspere's lines to the 'Phoenix and Turtle' were taken-with an Introduction showing who Salisbury was, to whom the Chorus Vatum dedicates the book; and showing the relation between Chester's poem and Shakspere's Cymbeline. Richard II, and the other Plays in Egerton MS. 1994 (suggested by Mr J. O. Halliwell). The Returne from Pernassus, 1606; to be edited by the Rev. A. B. Grosart. Series VI. Edward Hake's Touchstone, 1574; William Stafford's Compendious or briefe Examination of certeyne ordinary Complaints of divers of our Countreymen, in these our Days, 1581; and Thomas Powell's Tom of all Trades, 1631; edited by F. J. Furnivall, Esq., M. A. Series VII. Mysteries, &c. Ancient Mysteries, with a Morality, from the Digby MS. 133, re-edited from the unique MS. by the Rev. W. W. Skeat, M.A.; The Towneley Mysteries, re-edited from the unique MS. by the Rev. Richard Morris, LL.D. Series VIII. Miscellaneous. Autotypes of the parts of the Play of Sir Thomas More that may possibly be in young SHAKSPERE's handwriting, from the Harleian MS. 7368. Thomas Rymer's Tragedies of the last Age considered and examined', 1673, 1692; and his 'A short View of Tragedy of the last Age', 1693. THE NEW SHAKSPERE SOCIETY. (THE FOUNDER'S PROSPECTUS REVISED.) To do honour to SHAKSPERE', to make out the succession of his plays, and thereby the growth of his mind and art; to promote the intelligent study of him, and to print Texts illustrating his works and his times, this New Shakspere Society is founded. It is a disgrace to England that while Germany can boast of a Shakspere Society which has gathered into itself all its country's choicest scholars, England is now without such a Society. It is a disgrace, again, to England that even now, 258 years after SHAKSPERE's death, the study of him has been so narrow, and the criticism, however good, so devoted to the mere text and its illustration, and to studies of single plays, that no book by an Englishman exists which deals in any worthy manner with SHAKSPERE as a whole, which tracks the rise and growth of his genius from the boyish romanticism or the sharp youngmanishness of his early plays, to the magnificence, the splendour, the divine intuition, which mark his ablest works. The profound and generous 66 Commentaries" of Gervinus-an honour to a German to have written, a pleasure to an Englishman to read-is still the only book known to me that comes near the true treatment and the dignity of its subject, or can be put into the hands of the student who wants to know the mind of SHAKSPERE. I am convinced that the unsatisfactory result of the long and painful study of SHAKSPERE by so many English scholars-several, men of great power and acuteness arises mainly from a neglect of the only sound method of beginning that study, the chronological one. Unless a man's works are studied in the order in which he wrote them, you cannot get at a right understanding of his mind, you cannot follow the growth of it. This has been specially brought home to me by my work at Chaucer. Until I saw that his This spelling of our great Poet's name is taken from the only unquestionably genuine signatures of his that we possess, the three on his will, and the two on his Stratford conveyance and mortgage. None of these signatures have an e after the k; four have no a after the first e; the fifth I read -eere. The e and a had their French sounds, which explain the forms "Shaxper', &c. Though it has hitherto been too much to ask people to suppose that SHAKSPERE knew how to spell his own name, I hope the demand may not prove too great for the imagination of the Members of the New Society. 2 Miss Bunnett's translation, with an Introduction by myself, is publisht by Smith and Elder, 12s. Mr H. N. Hudson's 'Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Character' (Sampson Low and Co.), with comments on twenty-five of his best Plays, is the best original commentary of its kind in English that I know. It is of course much indebted to German criticism. Mrs Jamieson's Characteristics of Women (5s., Routledge) has some most subtle and beautiful studies of Shakspere's chief woman-creations. See too Prof. Dowden's able and interesting Mind and Art of Shakspere. (H. S. King.). The ordinary editions put the Plays higgledy-piggledy; often, like the Folio, beginning with Shakspere's almost-last play, the Tempest, and then putting his (probably) third, the Two Gentlemen of Verona, next it. No wonder readers are all in a maze. Further, though I caa put my finger on Chaucer's "nyghtyngale that clepeth forth the fresshë levës newe," and say Here is first the real Chaucer,' yet I (though past 49) cannot yet do the like for Shakspere. (Is it "the nimble spirits in the arteries," note 1, page 6 (perhaps an insertion in the amended edition of 1597), or in The Comedie of Errors, iii. 2, Sing, Siren, for thy selfe, and I will dote; How many of the readers of this can? Yet oughtn't we all to have been able to do it from the time we were 18, or twenty-one ? Pity was his first original work, the key of his life was undiscovered; but that found, it at once opened his treasure-chest, the rest of the jewels he has left us were at once disclosed in their right array, the early pathetic time of his life made clear, its contrast with the later humorous one shown, and, for the first time these 470 years, the dear old man stood out as he was known in Wycliffe's time. Something of this kind must take place in the mind of every one who will carefully and reverently follow SHAKSPERE'S steps on his way up to the throne of Literature, where he, our English poet, sits, the glory not of our land alone, but of the world. Dramatic poet though SHAKSPERE is, bound to lose himself in his wondrous and manifold creations; taciturn " as the secrets of Nature" though he be; yet in this Victorian time, when our geniuses of Science are so wresting her secrets from Nature as to make our days memorable for ever, the faithful student of SHAKSPERE need not fear that he will be unable to pierce through the crowds of forms that exhibit SHAKSPERE'S mind, to the mind itself, the man himself, and see him as he was; while in the effort, in the enjoyment of his new gain, the worker will find his own great reward. Fortunately for us, SHAKSPERE has himself left us the most satisfactorybecause undesigned-evidence of the growth in the mechanism of his art, in the gradual changes in his versification during his life, changes that must strike every intelligent reader, and which I cannot at all understand the past neglect of. To cite only one such change, that from the sparing use of the unstopt line to the frequent use of it':-a test which, when applied to three of SHAKSPERE'S unripest, and three his ripest (though not best) plays, gives the following result, surely shows its exceeding value at a glance, though of course it alone is not conclusive. Working with this and other mechanical tests such as Mr Spedding's, of the pause, of double endings (or redundant final syllables), of the weak ending in as, in, &c. (including light endings), the use of rymes, Alexandrines, &c.-we can, without much trouble, get our great Poet's Plays into an order to Here are two extreme instances. The early one has a stop at the end of every one of its first 16 lines. The late one has only 4 end-stopt lines. (See the late C. Bathurst's 'Differences of Shakspere's Versification at different Periods of his Life,' 1857.) (Early) Loues Labour's lost, iv. 3 (p. 135, col. 1, Booth's reprint) O'tis more then neede. Ber. And where that you haue yow'd to studie (Lords), probably From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. in 1597 (Late) The Tragedie of Cymbeline, iv. 2 He must haue some Attendants. Though his H[umJor From one bad thing to worse: Not Frenzie, Not To come alone, either he so vndertaking, 2 The proportion in The Life of King Henry the Eight is 1 in 2.75; but in this play there are clear traces of another hand-Fletcher's, Mr Tennyson tells me. (See Mr Spedding's able paper in Gents. Mag., August, 1850, and the most striking confirmations of his results by Mr Hickson, in I Notes and Queries, ii. 198, and others; all printed in the Appendix to Part 1 of the New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1874.) The last long speech of Cranmer looks as if it was written first in Elizabeth's time,-at the time of her dying sickness in March 1603then pulld in two, and a complimentary bit on King James I. inserted in the middle. Mr Spedding, however, always held, and the Metrical tests show, that it was not; but that the whole Play was late. which we can then apply the higher tests' of conception, characterization, knowledge of life, music of line, dramatic development, and imagination, and see in how far the results of these tests coincide with, or differ from, those of the former ones; whether the conscious growth of power agrees or not with the unconscious change of verse:2 Having settled this, we can then mark out the great Periods of SHAKSPERE'S work-whether with Gervinus and Delius we make Three, or, guided by the verse-test, with Bathurst, we make Four, or with other Critics Five, and define the Characteristics of each Period.' We can then put forth a Student's Handbook to SHAKSPERE, and help learners to know him. But before this, we can lay hand on SHAKSPERE'S text, though here, probably, there will not be much to do, thanks to the labours of the many distinguisht scholars who have so long and so faithfully workt at it.. Still, as students, we should follow their method. First, discuss the documents: print in parallel columns the Quarto and Folio copies of such plays as have both, and determine whether any Quarto of each Play, or the Folio, should be the basis of its text, with special reference to Richard III. Secondly, discuss all the best conjectural readings, seeking for contemporary confirmations of them; and perhaps drawing up a Black List of the thousands of stupid or ingeniously fallacious absurdities that so-called emenders have devised. Thirdly, led by Mr Alexander J. Ellis, discuss the pronunciation of SHAKSPERE and his period, and the spelling that ought to be adopted in a scholars'-edition of his Plays, whether that of the Quartos or Folio, or any of SHAKSPERE'S Contemporaries. It is surely time that the patent absurdity should cease, of printing 16th- and 17th-century plays, for English scholars, in 19thcentury spelling. Assuredly the Folio spelling must be nearer SHAKSPERE'S than that; and nothing perpetuates the absurdity (I imagine) but publishers' thinking the old spelling would make the book sell less. Lastly, we could (unless we then found it needless) nominate a Committee of three, two, or one, to edit SHAKSPERE'S Works, with or without a second to write his Life. The above, the main, work of the Society, will be done as in ordinary Literary and Scientific Societies, by Meetings, Papers, and Discussions; the Papers being shorter, and the Discussions much fuller, than in other bodies. The Society's first Meeting was held on Friday, March 13, at 8 P.M., at University College, Gower Street, London, W.C., as the Committee of the Council of the College have been good enough to grant the use of the College rooms to the New Shakspere Society at a nominal charge, to cover the cost of gas and firing. Offers of Papers to be read at the Society's Meetings are wisht for, and should be made to the Director. The Papers read will be issued as the Society's Transactions, and will form Series 1 of the Society's Publications. The second part of the New Shakspere Society's work will be the publication of-2. A Series of SHAKSPERE'S Plays, beginning with the best or mo. instructive Quartos, both singly, and in parallel Texts with other sketch-Qurtos or the Folio, when the Play exists in both forms; and when not, from the olio only. This Series will include a. Reprints of the Quartos and first Folio;. b. trial-editions of the whole of Shakspere's Plays in the spelling of the Quarto or Folio that is taken as the basis of the Text. 3 A. Series of the Originals 1 Mr J. W. Hales's 7 Tests are, 1. External Evidence (dates of printing); 2. Internal (from allusions in the Plays, &c.); 3. Metre; 4. Language and Style (3 and 4 comprised under Form); 5. Power of Characterization; 6. Dramatic Unity; 7. Knowledge of Life. (See The Academy, Jan. 17, 1874, p. 63; Jan. 31, p. 117.) The Sonnets and Minor Poems would be discusst in their chronological order with the Plays. The doubtful Plays like Hen. VI, Titus Andronicus, Pericles (of which Mr Tennyson has convinced me that Shakspere wrote at least the parts in which Pericles loses and finds his wife and daughter: see a print of them in the New Shakspere Society's Transactions, Part 1), The Two Noble Kinsmen (see West. Rev., April, 1847, and the second Paper in the Appendix to the New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1874, Part 1), &c., could be discusst here. The Plays just mentioned will be edited for the Society. The Second and Third Parts of Henry VI would be set beside The first part of the contention' and the true tragedy'; The Merry Wives' by its first sketch, &c. In the first Trial-editions of the Plays in Quarto for the Society, the spelling of the text adopted as the basis of the edition, whether Quarto or Folio, will be followd. |