A TIFF.

When one is not en rapport with one’s friends about any particular subject, in which for the time they are interested, it is better to leave them, for it is certain they would rather have our room than our company. If you happen to be at Bullock Smithy, for example, during a contested election, when your host at the Hall and all his family are looking forward to the regeneration of the species—conditional upon the return of Mr. Brown—and you don’t much care about it yourself (or even doubt of its being accomplished that way), you had better for the present leave the Hall and revisit it under less exciting circumstances. They will politely lament your departure, but privately be very glad to get rid of you. You may be (you are) a charming person, but just now you are a little in the way. They resent your presence as spirit-rappers resent that of ‘the sceptic,’ as they call every one endowed with reason and common-sense. The common harmony is disturbed by it as by a false note.

Thus it happened that the withdrawal of Frank Dennis from his friends in Norfolk Street was upon the whole a relief to them. They could talk unreservedly among themselves of the subject that lay next their hearts, and which was really assuming great importance for all of them.

If the mere amount of the Shakespearean manuscripts could have assured, as it undoubtedly made more probable, their authenticity, the voice of detraction ought to have been silenced; for there was some new discovery made in that wonderful treasure chamber of the Temple almost every day. Contracts and mortgages, theatrical disbursements, miscellaneous letters, deeds of gift, all immediately relating to Shakespeare, if not in his very hand, were constantly being found. Records which a few months ago would have filled Mr. Erin’s heart with rapture were now, indeed, welcomed by him, but almost as a matter of course. ‘The gentleman of considerable property in the Temple,’ as the antiquary had been wont to vaguely term him, had now grown as familiar to him as though he had had a name as well as a local habitation.

‘Well, what news from our friend to-day, Samuel?’ was the cheery question he would address to his son on his return home every evening, and it was very seldom that there was no news.

Mr. Erin indeed had cause to be grateful to this unknown person, since he had (though not without reluctance) given permission for the publication of the papers, which had accordingly been advertised to appear in a handsome quarto at two guineas. They included all the documents, the ‘Lear’ (of which unfortunately three leaves were missing) and a few pages of ‘Hamlet.’ These last differed but little from those of the accepted text, a circumstance which did not escape the notice of the enemy, who did not hesitate to aver that the forger, whoever he was, had found ‘Hamlet’ too difficult a nut to crack.

The best reply, as Mr. Erin wisely concluded, to so coarse a sarcasm was the publication of Shakespeare’s Deed of Trust, conveying the ‘Lear’ to John Hemynge, in which he said, ‘Should this bee everre agayne Impryntedd, I doe order tyhatt itte bee so doun from this mye true written Playe, and nott from those now prynted’—an injunction which, had there been an entire copy extant, would doubtless have included the ‘Hamlet’ also.

To the ‘Miscellaneous papers and legal instruments, under the hand and seal of William Shakespeare, including the tragedy of “King Lear“ and a small fragment of “Hamlet,”’ was prefixed a preface by Mr. Erin himself, setting forth the circumstances under which they had come into his possession, challenging criticism and defying inquiry. This publication was of course the crucial test. While our opinions are expressed viva voce, or even with pen and ink, they are of little consequence to the world at large, however much they may affect our little circle of friends and enemies. I know many persons who might have remained in possession of great works of genius in manuscript had they not been so indiscreet as to print them; the annalist’s sarcasm of nisi imperasset applies to authors as well as kings.

The book evoked a storm of censure. ‘My eyes will scarcely permit me to read it,’ wrote Malone (’posturing as a sick lion,’ sneered Mr. Erin), ‘but I have read enough to convince me that the whole production is a forgery.’ Others fell foul of the style, the ideas, the very punctuation of the discovered manuscripts. They acknowledged that the phraseology was simple, but added that ‘it was that sort of simplicity that belongs to the fool.’ As it was some time before the advocates of the discovery could get out their rejoinders—with which many of those who had signed the certificate were busy—Mr. Samuel Erin had for the present a pretty time of it. He was like a man caught in a downpour of hailstones without an umbrella. He never blenched, however, for a single instant; one would have thought that waterproofs and overalls had been invented before his time for his especial behalf. But poor Margaret trembled and shivered. How could people be so wicked as to say such things of Willie! She would not have been so distressed had she not seen that he shrank from these stings himself. Womanlike, she concealed her own pain and strove to comfort him.

‘As for these imputations upon your honour, Willie, they are not worth thinking of; it is as though they called you a negro, when every one who has ever seen you knows you to be a white man. Still less need you trouble yourself about their criticisms; for what can it matter to you whether the manuscript, or the printed copy, of Shakespeare’s works has the greater worth?’

‘That’s true,’ assented the young fellow; but by his knitted brows and downcast looks she knew that it did matter to him nevertheless.

‘This is what I have always feared for you, should you publish a book of your own,’ she went on earnestly. ‘You are so sensitive, darling. How thankful I am that Shakespeare (who can afford to smile at it) is bearing the brunt of all this, and not you!’

Then came the ‘rejoinders,’ like sunshine after storm. ‘There was not an ingenuous character or disinterested individual in the whole circle of literature,’ wrote one enthusiastic partisan, ‘to whom the manuscripts had been subjected who was not convinced of their authenticity.’ They had ‘not only convinced the scholar and the antiquary, but the paper-maker.’ As to the secrecy observed with respect to their origin and possessor, ‘what becomes of the acumen of the critic if such details are necessary to establish the genuineness of such a production? His occupation is gone.’ As to the intrinsic merits of the ‘Lear,’ the seal of Shakespeare’s genius was stamped upon it. ‘A wit so pregnant, an imagination so unbounded, a knowledge so intuitive of the weakness of the human heart as was here exhibited could belong to no other man. If it was not his, it was inspiration itself.’

‘Here, indeed,’ thought William Henry, ‘is something like criticism. This is an independent opinion with which the carping of prejudice or personal malevolence is not to be mentioned in the same breath.’

And, indeed, if these eulogies had been the products of the best minds in the most perfect state of equilibrium they could scarcely have given him a more exquisite gratification. He had a sensation about his forehead as though a wreath of laurels rested there, or even a halo. He touched the stars with his head, and if he moved upon the earth at all it was on wings. It was delightful to Margaret to see him thus. She hardly recognised in him, exultant and self-conscious, the same young fellow whom she had known depressed and obscure. She was proud beyond measure of the position he had made for himself in the world of letters, but happier still because it seemed to make him hers, to put her uncle’s consent to their union beyond all question. Yet, as love’s fashion is, she still pictured to herself at times delays, opposition, and even obstacles.

‘We must not be too sure, my darling,’ she said to him lovingly one day, ‘though all things seem to smile on us. It is but the promise after all, the bud but not the flower, the blossom but not the fruit’.

‘True,’ he answered thoughtfully; ‘all this is but a mock engagement; the battle has yet to come. It is something, however, that the fighting will be on the same field; one at least knows the ground.’

She stared at him, in doubt as to what he meant; then, as if alarmed by her wondering looks, he stammered out, ‘I was thinking of Mr. Erin; we now know him thoroughly, or rather he has become another man from what he was.’

‘My uncle has changed, no doubt, and for the better,’ she said.

‘There is change everywhere and for the better,’ he answered, smiling.

He took from his pocket one of the printed cards which were now formally issued to purchasers of the lately published volume for leave to examine the manuscripts.

‘Think of Mr. Wallis having bought the book! Malone and he have quarrelled about it, it seems.’

‘Not about the book,’ put in Margaret quietly; ‘I am afraid he is not even yet a true believer, but I like him better for having bought the book than even if he were. He felt he had behaved badly to us when he came here with that wretched Mr. Talbot, and his purchase of it was by way of making some amends. Where he differed from Mr. Malone was about the John Hemynge deed you brought from the Temple; Mr. Malone has had the malevolence to stigmatise even that as a forgery; but, as Mr. Wallis points out, since you were away from Norfolk Street only three-quarters of an hour, such a fraud was impossible and out of the question. He is a just man with a mind open to conviction, and he has had the courage to confess himself in the wrong.’

‘Whoever told you all this?’ inquired William Henry in amazement.

‘A person who is no friend of his, but, like him, has a generous nature.’

‘Methinks you do protest too much,’ observed the young man drily. ‘No one was saying anything against your informant, who it was easy to perceive was Mr. Frank Dennis. I thought he had literally withdrawn his countenance from us of late, as he has done long ago in another sense.’

‘No one can control his own opinions, Willie,’ said Margaret gently. ‘I have heard you yourself say a hundred times, concerning this very matter, that every one had a right to them, but, since the very knowledge of Frank’s entertaining certain views (though he never expressed them except upon compulsion) was an annoyance to my uncle, he thought it better to absent himself.’

‘But still you meet him elsewhere?’

‘I met him in the street the other day by accident. He gave me, it is true, the information I have just given to you, but he did not volunteer it. It was I who spoke to him first about Mr. Wallis.’

‘It seems he took great care to undeceive you as to that gentleman’s having any belief in me.’

‘In you, Willie? We never even spoke of you.’

This was very true: he had become a subject to which, for Frank’s sake, she never alluded in Frank’s presence.

‘Well, of course I am not responsible for the manuscripts; but do you suppose that Dennis was thinking of them, for which he does not care one farthing, even if he was talking of them? He was thinking of me. When he depreciates them to you he depreciates me; when he quotes the opinion of Mr. Wallis or of any one else he is quoting it against me. You need not blush, Margaret, as if my mind had just awakened to a suspicion of the truth. Do you suppose I don’t know what Mr. Frank Dennis has been after, all along?’

‘I will not pretend to be ignorant of what you mean, Willie,’ said Margaret firmly, ‘but you are quite mistaken if you imagine that Frank Dennis has ever breathed a word to me, or, as I believe, to any one, to your disadvantage: he has a loyal heart and is a true friend.’

‘A friend, indeed!’ said William Henry scornfully.

‘Yes, indeed and in need. I will lay my life on it, Willie. A man who detests all falsehood and deceit, and even if he entertained an unworthy thought of a rival would hold his peace about him.’

‘That is why, no doubt, he did not speak of me,’ put in the young man bitterly. ‘Detraction can be conveyed by silence as well as by a forked tongue.’

‘You are both unjust and unkind, Willie.’

‘Still the fact remains that, whenever you see this gentleman, I do not rise—I will not say by comparison, because I believe you love me—but I do not rise in your opinion. You cannot deny it; your face confesses it. Under these circumstances you can hardly think me unreasonable if I ask you for the present not to meet Mr. Frank Dennis, even “by accident in the street.”’

‘I will not speak to him, Willie, if you object to it,’ said Margaret in a low voice. She was the more distressed at what he had said because she had a secret consciousness that it was not undeserved. He did not indeed sink in her opinion after her talks with Frank, and certainly did not suffer by contrast; but, on the other hand, he did not rise, while her confidence in the genuineness of the Shakespearean documents did sink.

Thence arose misgivings as to the future, doubts whether Willie would be permitted to win her, and a certain unsteadiness, not indeed of purpose but of outlook.

‘Of course you must speak to him if you meet him, Maggie,’ continued William Henry in a tone from which all irritation had disappeared; ‘only for the present do not seek his society. You will not long have to deny yourself the pleasure, since in a few weeks—that is, I intend very shortly to ask Mr. Erin to give you to me for my very own.’

‘Oh, Willie! He will never do it,’ she returned, not however with much conviction, but as one who toys with doubt. ‘I am sure he does not dream of your having such an intention.’

‘Then he must be as blind as Gloster, Maggie.’

This allusion to the ‘Lear’ was somehow—it would have been difficult to say why—unwelcome to her. Love no doubt depends upon very small and comparatively mundane matters, but still that her hopes of marriage with her lover should hang upon the general belief in the genuineness of an old manuscript seemed a little humiliating. She would have far preferred, had it been possible, that William Henry should have won his way to a modest competence by his own pen. Perhaps he had hopes of this, and some surprise in store for her; or why should he have used that phrase ‘in a few weeks’? It was true that he had substituted for it a more vague expression, but she could not help thinking that he had some definite plan in his mind to precipitate events. What could it be?