be dated earlier than 1763. Safely might the heaviest odds be laid that in no year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth "did friende Marle promyse G. Peel his syster that he would send hyr watche and the cookerie book by the man," or that "Ned Alleyn made pleasante affirmation to G. Peel of friend Will's theft of the speech in Hamlet concerning an actor's excellencye."

From top to toe the imposture is obvious. But the general reader of the eighteenth century was confiding, unsuspicious, greedy of novel information. The description of the source of the document seemed to him precise enough to silence doubt.

III

The Theatrical Review of 1673 succeeded in launching the fraud on a quite triumphal progress. Again and again, as the century advanced, was G. Peel's declaration to "friende Marle" paraded, without hint of its falsity, before snappers-up of Shakespearean trifles. Seven years after its first publication, the epistle found admission in a slightly altered setting to so reputable a periodical as the Annual Register. Burke was still directing that useful publication, and whatever information the Register shielded, was reckoned to be of veracity. "G. Peel" and "friende Marle" were there in the year 1770, suffered to exchange their confidences in the most honourable environment.

Another seven years passed, and in 1777 there appeared an ambitious work of reference, entitled Biographia Literaria, or a Biographical History of

THE PROGRESS OF THE FRAUD

195

Literature, which gave its author, John Berkenhout, a free-thinking physician, his chief claim to remembrance. Steevens was a friend of Berkenhout, and helped him in the preparation of the book. Into his account of Shakespeare, the credulous physician introduced quite honestly the fourteen-year old forgery. The reputed date of 1600, which the supposititious justice of the peace had given it in the Theatrical Review, was now suppressed. Berkenhout confined his comment to the halting reminiscence: "Whence I copied this letter I do not recollect; but I remember that at the time of transcribing it, I had no doubt of its authenticity."

Thrice had the trick been worked effectively in conspicuous places before Steevens died in 1800. But the evil that he did lived after him, and within a year of his death the imposture renewed its youth. A correspondent, who concealed his identity under the signature of "Grenovicus" (i.e., of Greenwich), sent Peel's letter in 1801 to the Gentleman's Magazine, a massive repertory of useful knowledge. There it was duly reprinted in the number for June. "Grenovicus" had the assurance to claim the letter as his own discovery. "To my knowledge," he wrote, "it has never yet appeared in print." He refrained from indicating how he had gained access to it, but congratulated himself and the readers of the Gentleman's Magazine on the valiant feast that he provided for them. His action was apparently taken by the readers of the Gentleman's Magazine at his own valuation.

Meanwhile the discerning critic was not altogether passive. Isaac D'Israeli denounced the fraud in his Curiosities of Literature; but he and others did

their protesting gently. The fraud looked to the expert too shamefaced to merit a vigorous onslaught. He imagined the spurious epistle must die of its own inanity. In this he miscalculated the credulity of the general reader. "Grenovicus" of the Gentleman's Magazine had numerous disciples.

1

Many a time during the past century has his exploit been repeated. Even so acute a scholar as Alexander Dyce thought it worth while to reprint the letter in 1829 in the first edition of his collected works of George Peele (Vol. I., page 111), although he declined to pledge himself to its authenticity. The latest historian of Dulwich College 1 has admitted it to his text with too mildly worded a caveat. Often more recently has "G. Peel" emerged from seclusion to darken the page of a modern popular magazine. I have met him unabashed during the present century in two literary periodicals of repute in the Academy (of London), in the issue of the 18th of January, 1902, and in the Poet Lore (of Philadelphia), in the following April number. Future disinterments may safely be prophesied. In the jungle of the Annual Register or the Gentleman's Magazine the forgery lurks unchallenged, and there will always be inexperienced explorers, who from time to time will run the unhallowed thing to earth there, and bring it forth as a new and unsuspected truth.

Perhaps forgery is too big a word to apply to Steevens's concoction. Others worked at later periods on lines of mystification similar to his; but, unlike his disciples, he did not seek from his misdirected ingenuity pecuniary gain or even notoriety. He never set his name to this invention of "Peel" and

1 William Young's History of Dulwich College, 1889, II., 41–2.

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"Marle," and their insipid chatter about Hamlet at the "Globe." Steevens's sole aim was to delude the unwary. It is difficult to detect humour in the endeavour. But the perversity of the human intellect has no limits. This ungainly example of it is only worth attention because it has sailed under its false colours without very serious molestation for one hundred and forty-three years.

X

SHAKESPEARE IN FRANCE 1

I

NOTHING but good can come of a comparative study of English and French literature. The political intercourse of the two countries has involved them in an endless series of broils. But between the literatures of the two countries friendly relations have subsisted for over five centuries. In the literary sphere the interchange of neighbourly civilities has known no interruption. The same literary forms have not appealed to the tastes of the two nations; but differences of æsthetic temperament have not prevented the literature of the one from levying substantial loans on the literature of the other, and that with a freedom and a frequency which were calculated to breed discontent between any but the most cordial of allies. While the literary geniuses of the two nations have pursued independent ideals, they have viewed as welcome courtesies the willingness and readiness of the one to borrow sustenance of the other on the road. It is unlikely that any full or formal balance-sheet of such lendings and borrowings

1 This paper was first printed in The Nineteenth Century, June, 1899.