The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 47, September, 1861. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ in 1820, shown rather the faithfulness, the patience, and the judgment of a literary antiquary, than the insight, the powers of comparison, the sensibility, and the constructive ingenuity of a literary critic. And one of the great improbabilities against his authorship of all the corrections in his folio is, that it is not according to Nature that so late in life he should develop the constructive ability necessary for the production of many of its specious and ingenious, though inadmissible, original readings.

      We see, then, no way of avoiding the conclusion that this notorious folio was first submitted to erasure for stage purposes; that afterward, at some time between 1650 and 1675, it was carefully corrected for the press with the view to the publication of a new edition; and that finally it fell into the hands of Mr. Collier, who, either alone or by the aid of an accomplice, introduced other readings upon its margins, for the purpose of obtaining for them the same deference which he supposed those already there would receive for their antiquity. Either this is true, or Mr. Collier is the victim of a mysterious and marvellously successful conspiracy; and by his own unwise and unaccountable conduct—to use no harsher terms—has aided the plans of his enemies.

      Mr. Collier's position in this affair is, in any case, a most singular and unenviable one. His discoveries, considering their nature and extent and the quarters in which they were made, are exceedingly suspicious:—the Ellesmere folio, the Bridgewater House documents, including the Southampton letter, the Dulwich College documents, including the Alleyn letter, the Petition of the Blackfriars Company in the State Paper Office, and the various other letters, petitions, accounts, and copies of verses, all of which are justly open to suspicion of tampering, if not of forgery. What a strange and unaccountable fortune to befall one man! How has this happened? What fiend has followed Mr. Collier through the later years of his life, putting manuscripts under his pillow and folios into his pew, and so luring him on to moral suicide? Alas! there is probably but one man now living that can tell us, and he will not. But this protracted controversy, which has left so much unsettled, has greatly served the cause of literature, in showing that by whomsoever and whensoever these marginal readings, which so took the world by storm nine years ago, were written, they have no pretence to any authority whatever, not even the quasi authority of an antiquity which would bring them within the post-Shakespearian period. All must now see, what a few at first saw, that their claim to consideration rests upon their intrinsic merit only. But what that merit is, we fear will be disputed until the arrival of that ever-receding Shakespearian millenium when the editors shall no longer rage or the commentators imagine a vain thing.

* * * * *

      THE BATH

        Off, fetters of the falser life,—

        Weeds that conceal the statue's form!

        This silent world with truth is rife,

        This wooing air is warm.

        Now fall the thin disguises, planned

        For men too weak to walk unblamed;

        Naked beside the sea I stand,—

        Naked, and not ashamed.

        Where yonder dancing billows dip,

        Far-off, to ocean's misty verge,

        Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship,

        The Orient's cloudy surge.

        With spray of scarlet fire before

        The ruffled gold that round her dies,

        She sails above the sleeping shore,

        Across the waking skies.

        The dewy beach beneath her glows;

        A pencilled beam, the light-house burns:

        Full-breathed, the fragrant sea-wind blows,—

        Life to the world returns!

        I stand, a spirit newly born,

        White-limbed and pure, and strong, and fair,—

        The first-begotten son of Morn,

        The nursling of the air!

        There, in a heap, the masks of Earth,

        The cares, the sins, the griefs, are thrown

        Complete, as, through diviner birth,

        I walk the sands alone.

        With downy hands the winds caress,

        With frothy lips the amorous sea,

        As welcoming the nakedness

        Of vanished gods, in me.

        Along the ridged and sloping sand,

        Where headlands clasp the crescent cove,

        A shining spirit of the land,

        A snowy shape, I move:

        Or, plunged in hollow-rolling brine,

        In emerald cradles rocked and swung,

        The sceptre of the sea is mine,

        And mine his endless song.

        For Earth with primal dew is wet,

        Her long-lost child to rebaptize:

        Her fresh, immortal Edens yet

        Their Adam recognize.

        Her ancient freedom is his fee;

        Her ancient beauty is his dower:

        She bares her ample breasts, that he

        May suck the milk of power.

        Press on, ye hounds of life, that lurk

        So close, to seize your harried prey!

        Ye fiends of Custom, Gold, and Work,

        I hear your distant bay!

        And like the Arab, when he bears

        To the insulted camel's path

        His garment, which the camel tears,

        And straight forgets his wrath;

        So, yonder badges of your sway,

        Life's paltry husks, to you I give:

        Fall on, and in your blindness say,

        We hold the fugitive!

        But leave to me this brief escape

        To simple manhood, pure and free,—

        A child of God, in God's own shape,

        Between the land and sea!

      SACCHARISSA MELLASYS

      I. THE HERO

      When I state that my name is A. Bratley Chylde, I presume that I am already sufficiently introduced.

      My patronymic establishes my fashionable position. Chylde, the distinguished monosyllable, is a card of admission everywhere,– everywhere that is anywhere.

      And my matronymic, Bratley, should have established my financial position for life. It should have—allow me a vulgar term—"indorsed" me with the tradesmen who have the honor to supply me with the glove, the boot, the general habiliment, and all the requisites of an elegant appearance upon the carpet or the trottoir.

      But, alas! I am not so indorsed—pardon the mercantile aroma of the word—by the name Bratley.

      The late Mr. A. Bratley, my grandfather, was indeed one of those rude, laborious, СКАЧАТЬ