When folks are not in accord, and especially if there is fear on one side, communication of all kinds is difficult enough, but personal companionship is well-nigh unendurable. Often and often in evenings not so long ago William Henry had hesitated to come in on his father’s very doorstep, and turned away into the wet and wind-swept streets rather than thrust his unwelcome companionship upon him. Not seldom, in the days between the death of his wife and Margaret’s coming to Norfolk Street, Mr. Erin had left the supper table without a word, and sought his own chamber an hour before his time, rather than endure the sight of the boy whose very existence was a reproach to him, who had had the ill taste to survive his own beloved child, and who had not a pleasure or pursuit in common with him. Now, however, all this was changed; and nothing was more significant of the alteration in the old man’s feelings towards William Henry than the satisfaction he took in his society. So close an attachment the young man might well have dispensed with, since it kept him sometimes from his Margaret; but he nevertheless was far from discouraging it, since he knew that such familiarity tended in the end to ensure her to him.

It was the antiquary’s whim—or perhaps he thought that association of ideas might help to incline the young man’s heart towards him—to read at night Shakespeare’s plays with him, as they had been wont to do when William Henry was yet a child and no coldness had as yet sprung up between them. At times the young fellow’s attention would flag a little; his thoughts would fly after his heart, which was upstairs in Margaret’s keeping; but as a rule he shared, or seemed to share, the old man’s enthusiasm. His comments and suggestions on the text were always received with a respect which, considering what would have been their fate had they been hazarded six months ago, was almost ludicrous. Such illogical changes in personal estimation are not unexampled; even in modern times there have been instances where the sudden acquisition of wealth, or the unexpected succession to a title, have invested their astonished possessors with attributes in no way connected with either rank or riches; in the present case the admiration expressed was, however, remarkable, because the very qualities of literary judgment and the like, which were now acknowledged, had been of old contemptuously ignored. William Henry, who had never himself ignored them, was content to find them recognised at last by whatever means, and exchanged his views upon the character of Hamlet with the antiquary with cheerful confidence and upon equal terms.

One night they were reading ‘Lear’ together, and had come to those lines wherein the Duke offers Kent half the administration of the kingdom. To this Kent replies—

I have a journey, sir, shortly to go:
My master calls me; I must not say ‘No.’

‘Do you not think, sir,’ observed William Henry, ‘that such a couplet is somewhat inappropriate to the occasion?’

‘How so?’ inquired the antiquary. It was noteworthy that he took the objection with such mildness. The notion of anything in Shakespeare being inappropriate was like suggesting to a fire-worshipper that there were spots on the sun.

‘Well, sir, it strikes me as somewhat too brief and trivial, considering the subject on which he speaks. Now what do you think of this by way of an emendation?’ He drew from his pocket a slip of paper on which the following lines were written in his own handwriting:—

Thanks, sir; but I go to that unknown land
That chains each pilgrim fast within its soil,
By living men most shunned, most dreaded.
Still my good master this same journey took:
He calls me; I am content and straight obey.
Then farewell, world; the busy scene is done:
Kent lived most true; Kent died most like a man.

The antiquary’s face was a study. A few months ago it is doubtful whether anything from William Henry’s pen would have obtained so much as patient consideration. Of his son’s genius Mr. Erin had always thought very little; he esteemed him indeed no more worthy of the title of man of letters than his friend Mr. Talbot himself; but his productions were now on a very different plane. They demanded his best attention and such admiration as it was possible to give.

‘Still my good master this same journey took:
He calls me; I am content and straight obey,’

he murmured. ‘That is harmonious and natural; a certain simplicity pervades it: yes, my lad, that is creditable.’

‘I venture to think,’ said the young man deferentially, ‘that the opening lines—

Thanks, sir; but I go to that unknown land, &c—

are not devoid of merit.’

‘Devoid? No, certainly not devoid. Courteous in expression and—um—to the point, but somewhat modern in tone.’

Without speaking, but with a smile full of significance, the young man produced a roll of paper and laid it before his companion.

‘Great heavens! what is this?’ exclaimed Mr. Erin, straightening out the manuscript with trembling fingers, while he devoured it with his eyes.

‘It is something that you hoped to find at Stratford—at Clapton House,’ returned William Henry, quietly. ‘How often have you told me that some manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays must needs be in existence somewhere! You were right; this is the original, or at all events a very early manuscript, of “Lear.”’

‘“Lear”? Shakespeare’s “Lear”? My dear Samuel, you take my breath away. And yet the handwriting seems incontestable; and here is the jug watermark, a clear proof at least of its antiquity. You have read it, of course: does it differ from the quartos?’

‘Yes, materially.’

‘Thank Heaven!—I mean, how extraordinary! One can hardly, indeed, wish a line of Shakespeare’s to differ from what is already engraven in our hearts; but still to get his first thoughts! Truly a rapturous day!’

‘I rather think, sir,’ said William Henry, ‘that after investigation you will acknowledge that these were not only his first thoughts but his best thoughts. There is a polish on the gem that has heretofore been lacking. The manuscript will, if I am not mistaken, prove Shakespeare to have been a more finished writer than has been hitherto imagined. There are many new readings, but once again to refer to that speech of Kent’s: you admired it in its modern form, into which I purposely cast it, confident that its merits would not escape you even in that guise; out in its proper and antique dress just be so good as to reperuse it; perhaps you will give it voice, the advantage of a trained utterance.’

Thus advised, Mr. Erin, nothing loth, repeated the lines aloud:—

Thanks, Sir; butte I goe toe thatte unknowne land
That chaynes each Pilgrime faste within its soyle.

He read sonorously and with a somewhat pompous air, but effectively; the dignity of the subject sustained him; moreover the sight of the old spelling and quaint calligraphy stirred him as the clang of the trumpet moves the war-horse to exhibit his best paces.

‘It is certainly very fine,’ was his verdict upon his own performance. ‘Who does not pronounce that speech replete with pathos and energy must resign all pretensions to poetical taste.’

‘But as an emendation on the received version,’ persisted William Henry—

‘I have a journey, sir, shortly to go—

will you not admit that it compares favourably with that?’

‘I consider it, my dear Samuel,’ was the solemn reply, ‘a decided improvement.’

He spoke in a tone of conviction, which admitted of no question; sudden as his conversion was (for in praising what in fact he had believed to be his son’s composition he had gone to the extreme limit that his conscience would permit), it was perfectly genuine.

There are only a very few people in the world who form an independent judgment on anything upon its intrinsic merits. Most of us are the slaves of authority, or what is supposed to be authority, in matters of opinion. In letters men are almost as much victims to a name as in art. The scholar blind to the beauties of a modern poem can perceive them in an ancient one even where they do not exist. He cannot be persuaded that Æschylus was capable of writing a dull play; the antiquary prefers a torso of two thousand years old to a full-length figure by Canova. This may not be good sense, but it is human nature.

‘I need not ask you,’ continued Mr. Erin, after a pause, during which he gazed at the manuscript like Cortez, on his peak, at the Pacific, ‘whether this precious document came from the same treasure house as the rest?’

‘Yes, sir; it almost seems as if there were no end to them. I have not yet explored half the curious papers on which my patron seems to set so little store.’

The antiquary’s eyes sparkled under his shaggy brows; if the young man had read his very heart he could not have replied to its secret thoughts more pertinently. An hour before he had hardly dreamt of the existence of such a prize, but, now that it had been found, it at once began to suggest the most magnificent possibilities. This was the first, but why should it be the last? If the manuscript of the ‘Lear’ had survived all the accidents of time and chance, why not that of the ‘Hamlet’ also—the ‘Hamlet,’ with its ambiguous utterances, so differently rendered by the Shakespearean oracles, and which stood so much in need of an authoritative exponent?

When a man (for no merit of his own beyond a little bribery at elections) is made a baronet, he is not so enraptured but that he beholds in the perspective a peerage, and even dreams that upon a somewhat ampler waistcoat (but still his own) may one day repose the broad riband of the Garter.

‘What is very remarkable in the present manuscript,’ continued William Henry, ‘is that it is free from the ribaldry which but too often disfigures the plays of Shakespeare.’

‘The taste of the time was somewhat coarse,’ observed Mr. Erin. It was almost incredible even to himself, but he felt that his tone was deprecatory; he was actually making apologies for the Bard of Avon to this young gentleman of seventeen.

‘Nevertheless I cannot believe that Shakespeare pandered to it,’ observed William Henry gravel. ‘These things are in my opinion introduced by the players of the period, and afterwards inserted in the stage copies of the plays from which they were literally printed; and thus the ear of England has been abused. If the discovery of this manuscript should clear Shakespeare’s memory from these ignoble stains, it will be a subject of national congratulation.’

‘Very true,’ assented Mr. Erin. He felt that the remark was insufficient, wanting in enthusiasm, and altogether upon a lower level than the other’s arguments; but the fact was his mind was dwelling upon more personal considerations. He was reflecting upon his own high position as the proprietor of this unique treasure and on what Malone would say now.

These reflections, while they filled him with self-complacency, made him set a higher value upon William Henry than ever; for, like the magician in the Arabian story, he could do nothing without his Aladdheen to help him.