Now, seeing that Sir Edward Sullivan has, by necessary implication, given me the lie direct,' that he should complain of departure from literary courtesy' far outdoes the proverbial instance of the Gracchi complaining of sedition. But, in truth, the above passage is absolutely unjustifiable and inexcusable. For Sir Edward Sullivan here merely follows Canon Beeching, who writes, Mr. Greenwood has charged the biographers of Shakespeare with dishonesty for their interpretation of the familiar passage of Kindhart's Dream, in which Chettle apologises for the rudeness of Greene in his Groatsworth of Wit'; and he admits that he has read my reply to that accusation, which is as follows:

I have not charged the biographers with dishonesty for their interpretation of the passage in question. What I complain of, and complain of in very strong terms, is, that these biographers and critics . . . actually so write as to convey to the mind of the ordinary reader that Chettle makes mention of Shakespeare by name in the Preface to his work, and that, consequently, the supposed allusion is not a matter of inference and argument, but a fact patent on the document itself! The usual way of doing this is by quietly slipping in Shakespeare's name in a bracket, without any admonition to the reader that his name is not mentioned at all. This I call a 'dishonest method of writing a biography,' and so it is. but I have, of course, made no charge of personal dishonesty."

As to this supposed allusion to Shakespeare, which such eminent Shakespeareans as Mr. Fleay and Mr. Howard Staunton (as well as a lawyer like Mr. E. K. Castle, K.C.) summarily dismissed as no allusion at all, I have dealt with it very fully in Chapter XI of my book, and in Chapter III of my Rejoinder to Canon Beeching, and so far I have seen no answer to the reasoning I have there set forth.

I will only add a word, therefore, with regard to Sir Edward Sullivan's note concerning the expression quality.' Chettle, alluding to somebody unnamed, but who, as I contend, must be one of the playwrights addressed by Greene, writes: 'I am as sorry as if the originall fault had bene my fault, because myself have seene his [and here it is that the biographers quietly slip in Shakespeare's,' in brackets] demeanour no lesse civil, than he excelent in the qualitie he professes.' The Stratfordian critics contend that 'quality' must necessarily refer to the profession of an actor, and that that actor must be Shakspere. I have ventured to dispute both of these propositions. Whereupon Sir Edward Sullivan writes, Mr. Greenwood endeavours to show that the word "quality" which was at the time commonly used to designate the profession of an actor, was also used says Gifford? 'I will just venture to inform those egregious critics that the heroes of it [the old play] are laughing both at Will Kempe and Shakespeare,' and more to the like effect. Was Gifford not ‘rational,' or is Sir Edward one of those egregious critics'? But it is as clear as daylight, except to the wilfully blind, that as I have written, 'the players are held up to ridicule before a cultivated audience of Cambridge scholars and students.' The passage concerning Shakespeare is as obviously sarcastic as any passage in literature.

22 In re Shakespeare, p. 94.

of other professions as well. He cites cases where it is used of an outlaw's occupation, and of a printer's, but none to show that it was ever employed in reference to a playwright.'

Well, I have cited Butler's Hudibras to show that in his time it was used of a poetaster,' and if Sir Edward wishes for an earlier instance of the use of the word, as applied to a writer, I can refer him to the passage I have already quoted from Florio's Montaigne, viz. : 'I have in my time seen some who by writing did earnestly get both their titles and living. . . affect the ignorance of so vulgar a qualitie."

923

But even if it were necessary to hold that an actor is referred to, it certainly does not follow that that actor was Shakspere; for, as I have shown, George Peele was one of the playwrights addressed by Greene, and Peele was a successful player, as well as playwright, and might quite truly have been alluded to both as having facetious grace, in writing, and being excellent in the quality' he professed. So much for this celebrated passage, the interpretation of which is, certainly, important, but, as certainly, not all-important,' to my case.

Sir Edward Sullivan summons as witnesses in his favour the somewhat obscure bards who, together with Ben Jonson, wrote verses of no great distinction to be inscribed on the introductory pages of the First Folio, seven years after Shakspere's death. The exigencies of time and space do not allow me to expatiate on this branch of an inexhaustible subject except to say a word or two on our old friend Leonard Digges.

Now I pointed out (p. 336 of my book) that Digges wrote some verses which were prefixed to the 1640 edition of Shakespeare's poems, and which are such a tissue of absurdities, and so entirely inapplicable to Shakespeare, that 'Digges was either writing with his tongue in his cheek, or had no conception what he was talking about.' What says Sir Edward Sullivan on this? After alluding to Digges's earlier lines, which appear in the First Folio of 1623, he writes, alluding to myself: ́he discovers that Digges wrote another set of verses which appeared in the 1640 edition of the Folio' (sic!). He then, with a contemptuousforsooth' thrown in, quotes my criticism as above, and continues :

In other words, a certain witness makes an affidavit at a certain date containing allegations in reference to the authority of a certain volume. Several years afterwards [original italics] the same witness makes another affidavit, in no sense contradicting the earlier one, but happening to contain a phrase or two descriptive of the author's art which counsel learned in the law professes he cannot make sense of. And on such grounds the contents of the previous affidavit are to be rejected as unworthy of belief.

Now, surely, Sir Edward Sullivan, who at any rate assumes the

23 In Everyman out of His Humour (iv. 2), Shift says, 'I have now reconciled myself to other courses, and profess a living out of my other qualities.' To which Sogliardo replies, 'Nay, he has left all now, and is able to live like a gentleman by his qualities.'

VOL. LXV-No. 388

4 A

pose of a Shakespearean scholar, should have been aware of the very elementary fact that there was no 1640 edition of the Folio'! The work to which Digges's ridiculous lines are prefixed was a small volume,24 which professed to be the first collected edition of Shakespeare's Poems, and which included the twenty poems of the Passionate Pilgrim and other pieces which were falsely ascribed to Shakespeare, such as extracts from Heywood's General History of Women, no hint being given that they are not Shakespeare's work! It is to this fraudulent volume that poor Leonard Digges is made to stand sponsor. And Sir Edward Sullivan, forsooth,' imagines that it is an edition of the Shakespeare Folio !

And what of the affidavit' made several years afterwards'? Sir Edward Sullivan should really get up his brief a little better. If he had given any close study to the subject he would have read the following in Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines (vol. ii. p. 88 of the 6th edition) with reference to this wondrous effusion of Leonard Digges: The following poem was evidently written soon after the opening of the second Fortune Theatre in 1623, and it bears every appearance of having been intended for one of the Commendatory Verses prefixed to the first folio, perhaps that for which his shorter piece in that volume may have been substituted.' The allusions to Jonson amply account for the fact that it was not allowed a place in the 1623 Folio.25 The fact is that Digges, who no doubt composed the lines in 1623, as Halliwell-Phillipps points out, died five years before the 1640 volume was published. So much for Sir Edward Sullivan's second so-called 'affidavit'! And what does it all come to so far as Digges is concerned? It comes to this, that Digges wrote lines commending Shakespeare for exactly those qualities which he did not possess, and Sir Edward Sullivan imagines this to be proof positive that Shakespeare is identical with the player who had died seven years before! But we do not know that Digges had ever seen player Shakspere in the flesh, and upon the question of authorship his commendatory verses appear to me to have really no evidentiary value at all.

Without making undue capital out of the curious slip made by Sir Edward Sullivan in substituting A Midsummer Night's Dream for The Taming of the Shrew, I now come to his statement that 'In the Induction to A Midsummer Night's Dream, the chief characters are all from Stratford. A family of the name of Sly resided there in the poet's time. Christopher himself is "old Sly's son of Burton Heath," and Barton on the Heath is a few miles from Stratford.'

Now what are we to say as to this criticism? A family of the name of Sly resided there [Stratford to wit] in the poet's time!' Is

24 A small octavo volume,' says Halliwell-Phillipps. Dr. Ingleby says '12mo.' 25 Thus supplying, incidentally, a further proof of what I believe to be the fact. viz. that Jonson was the editor of the 1623 Folio, and wrote both the preface thereto and the epistle dedicatory.

Sir Edward really ignorant of the fact that 'Sly' appears in the Induction to the old play, The Taming of a Shrew? How, then, can the occurrence of this name have the slightest evidentiary value on the question of authorship, unless, indeed, Sir Edward Sullivan thinks that the old play also was written by Shakspere of Stratford? Is he of that opinion? It would be interesting to know.

Curiously enough Sir Edward says nothing of 'Marion Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot,' though he proceeds to mention Henry the Fourth, Part II. act v. sc. 1, where he tells us that Davy begs his master, Shallow, 'to countenance William Visor of Wincot against Clement Perkes of the Hill,' whereupon he tells us, further, that 'Wincot was the local pronunciation of Wilnecot, a Warwickshire town.'

On these points, and especially with regard to 'Wincot,' I would recommend Sir Edward to read Mr. George Hookham's article on 'The Shakespearean Problem,' in The National Review for January last. The fact is that all these fancied 'Stratford' names have about as much relevancy to the question of authorship as has the fact that Speed, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, pronounces sheep' in the same manner as ship.' This, forsooth, is said to be Warwickshire' pronunciation. Just as if the Hampshire rustics did not, and do not to this day, pronounce sheep' in exactly the same way! But it is remarkable indeed that Sir Edward Sullivan, while omitting all reference to the mention of Wincot in The Taming of the Shrew, cites William Visor of Wincot in Henry the Fourth, Part II., apparently in total ignorance of the fact that all the Folios in that place read Woncot,' while the quarto of 1600 reads 'Woncote'; 'Wincot being an altogether unwarranted conjecture of Malone's! These errors are not a little suggestive.

6

I here leave Sir Edward Sullivan. I have much more to say in reply to him, but it must be reserved for another occasion, which, I hope, is not far distant. He has lectured me, as a valued correspondent in the United States puts it, in somewhat of a 'Tittlebat Toplofty' manner, and with an undisguised assumption of superior wisdom and authority. I am well content to leave it to the reader to say how far he is justified in so doing. Possibly he has some title to the use of the didactic style of which, so far, I have not become

aware.

G. G. GREENWOOD.

COPYRIGHT AT HOME AND ABROAD

' VRAISEMBLABLEMENT fort complexe' is the phrase in which M. Henri Morel, the Director of the International Copyright Bureau, has aptly characterised the Berlin Convention, 1908. Before the ratifications are exchanged in July 1910 and the exceptions have been fully defined, the verdict will be undoubtedly echoed throughout the world.

The Convention is not by any means a wholly new departure. It follows in its main lines the settled policy of International Copyright Law Reform. Its salient principles are that copyright should be made as wide as possible in sphere, area, and duration; that it should be simple in form, and theoretically uniform in action. Such noble ideals seem to beggar criticism. It is much in a peddling age for the Powers in conference to strike boldly at making intellectual property more and more valuable, and surrounding it with a ring fence which shall ensure its full and free enjoyment to its rightful owners. It might be wished that so enlightened and so statesmanlike a view prevailed in our own country.

The new Convention is, however, unhappy in its method. It attempts too much. It is framed with too lofty a disregard for the difficulty of working it in the several countries. Instead of preserv ing and strengthening, it throws the whole Unionist system into the melting pot, and complicates it by introducing new and dangerous issues. The form in which it has been drafted has, indeed, a distinctly humorous side. To choose the present moment for reopening the whole question. of International Copyright, in all its aspects and in all its bearings, must be regarded as a somewhat hazardous practical joke upon Parliamentary draftsmen in particular and the intellectual world in general.

The position may be briefly stated. The Berne Convention of 1886, with the Additional Act of Paris, 1896, and the Declaration of Paris, 1896, with all their imperfections, established a working international body of law. Round this in all the signatory countries a formidable weight of statutory and judicial authority has grown up until we have arrived at some sort of certainty as to the rights of copyright owners, in the main, throughout the Union and, in part, throughout the civilised world. A network of protection has been