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seems to be a gap in the "body of the letter "; (2) that the long descending stroke is not an unusual feature in Elizabethan MSS.,— even longer p-descenders occur, e. g., in William Honynge's " Audit Office Enrollments" (A. O. 15/1); (3) that this descender was made not hesitatingly but so rapidly that the pen barely touched the paper as it skimmed its surface (as in the end of the tail of the h, the shaft of the s, and the upstroke in the p of " Guildhall"!); (4) that a rounded turn at the lowermost point of the p is not at all uncommon and is a perfectly "normal" occurrence in Elizabethan and Jacobean MSS. And, furthermore, Sir Edward would surely not reject as spurious a signature or other writing for containing a unique feature: he raised no objections to the "Deposition” signature for its horizontal a-spur or the unique pere (or spere) symbol. And what writer does not know that all of us sometimes make long descenders and sometimes short ones, that sometimes we make an angular return from below the line and sometimes a round one? And, furthermore, how can this letter be an "imitation " if it differs from its models so much as to be "altogether abnormal"?

The next letter is a large and heavily shaded English e in which the ascending stroke and the connecting stroke between the e and ther failed to register.

Ther is the same letter we have in "T2" and in "T3" and looks very much like a Greek e. The final English e with the reversed loop is represented only by the outlines of the two horizontal curves, the rest having failed to register.

It has been objected to this signature that, like most imitations of Shakspere's signature (cf. facs. 13),18 it is an imitation of "T3" with intentional variations. The objection is not valid. As a matter of fact, this signature resembles "T3" less than it does any of the others. It differs from that signature in so many important details that imitation is utterly out of the question. We shall mention here only the differences in the W, the E-like flourish

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18 Facsimile 9 is a half-tone reproduction of an autograph" occurring on a page of the British Museum's copy of Bertholomeus de Proprietatibus Rerum (1597); that it is a clumsy, bare-faced imitation of "T3" is fairly obvious. Other alleged Shakspere autographs are shown in facsimiles 16-22.

over the m, the abbreviation of the baptismal name (the same as in "T2"), the different kind of l's, the shorter distance between the first and the last names, the more beautifully curved and incomplete S, the almost unique h (terminating in a horizontal stroke and lacking the return loop), the almost perfect k, the separate long s (terminating in a heavy pressure of the pen instead of in a zigzag stroke), the long, fine, dashing, small-headed p, and the simple, legible, almost printed final letters.19 A literary forger, and probably even the most expert and ingenious criminal forger, would never dare to introduce such extensive variations in something he was imitating or tracing,-such innovations would seriously imperil his success.

The more carefully and impartially one studies the "Montaigne" signature, the greater becomes the conviction that it has all the characteristics of genuineness, has none of the earmarks of forgery, and tallies with every one of the unquestionable handwriting peculiarities of its putative writer. There is therefore no escaping the conclusion that here we have a very fine and genuine autograph of William Shakspere in a book which must at one time-in all probability, shortly after its publication-have found an honored place in his library.

New York City.

19 In connection with this subject it must be borne in mind that "British Museum," though it was discovered in 1768, was not published till 1790, and that "Guildhall "—which "Montaigne" most resembles-was not discovered and facsimiled till 1796 (cf. Malone, An Inquiry, pp. 118 and 120), eighteen years after "Montaigne" was known to be in existence. Montaigne it may be added, bears not the slightest resemblance to the output of any of the known Shakspere forgers.

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A NOTE ON SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S KNOWLEDGE OF

LANGUAGES

BY ALMONTE C. HOWELL.

Sir Thomas Browne's treatise in the Miscellany Tracts on the subject," Of Languages, and Particularly of the Saxon Tongue," shows no small insight into the etymological aspects of the origin of languages. For the most part his comments are sane. They show his wide-spread intellectual interest and the range of his learning, though in the light of twentieth century standards they are far from accurate. They give evidence that he did not boast in vain in the Religio Medici1 when he said,

For my own part, besides the jargon and patois of several provinces, I understand no less than six languages.

....

Dr. Johnson, upon reading this tract, was inclined to doubt the accuracy of some of Browne's statements in regard to languages, and disparages Browne's learning more than once in his biography of Sir Thomas. On the authority of James Howell, the author of numerous treatises but best known for his Letters, Dr. Johnson pointed out that Browne was wrong in his statement that Spanish and Latin are so nearly alike that a sentence in one could be understood in the other. The whole question is a mere quibble, but it is interesting because Dr. Johnson proved to be wrong and Browne right. Browne wrote: 2

The Spaniards in their corruptive traduction and romance, have so happily retained their terminations from the Latin, that, notwithstanding the Gothick and Moorish intrusion of words, they are able to make a discourse completely consisting of grammatical Latin and Spanish, wherein the Italians and French will be very much to seek.

On this Dr. Johnson remarked: 3

this will appear very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and Howel, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages, declared, that after many essays, he never could effect it.

1 Religio Medici, II, viii.

Miscellany Tract vш.

Bohn Library edition of Sir Thomas Browne's works, Vol. 1, p. xxii.

But Howell, from whom Browne doubtless took his hint, did not say that at all. What he really did say, in his Instructions for Forreine Travell was: 4

... for Spanish is nought else but mere Latine, take a few Morisco words away, which are easily distinguishable by their guttural pronunciation, and these excepted, it approacheth nearer and resembleth the Latine more than Italian, her eldest daughter, for I have beaten my braines to make one Sentence good Italian and congruous Latin, but could never do it, but in Spanish it is very feasible, as for Example, in this Stanza,

Insausta Grecia tu paris Gentes,

Lubricas, sodomiticas, dolosas,
Machinando fraudes cautelosas,

Ruinando animas innocentes, etc.

which is Latin good enough, and yet is it vulgar Spanish, intelligible to every Plebeian.

The Doctor's memory seems to have failed him here, for Howell is in agreement with Browne and even quotes the bilingual sentence.

But the great lexicographer was nearer the truth in his judgment on Browne's knowledge and use of Anglo-Saxon. No one doubts Sir Thomas's acquaintance with the ancestor of modern English, which he calls the "Saxon tongue," since the passages which he quotes are made up for the most part of Old English words which may be found in the Psalterium Davidis Latino-Saxicum vetus," a work to which he refers in his Tract on Observations upon Several Plants Mentioned in Scripture," and in the works of other antiquaries named in his tract on the Saxon language.

It is worth while to enumerate the works and writers to which he refers in this tract because these references plainly show that he made an attempt to keep up to date on matters of linguistic scholarship. He mentions Richard Verstegen as an authority on the Saxon language, undoubtedly having in mind Verstegen's Restitution of Decayed Intellegence (1605 and reprinted several times in the seventeenth century). According to Dr. Eleanor N. Adams,

Arber Reprint of the 1642 edition collated with the 1650 edition of Howell's Instructions for Forreine Travell, Westminster, 1903, page 39. This work was edited by John Spelman, son of the Antiquary and church historian, Sir Henry Spelman.

Eleanor N. Adams, Old English Scholarship in England from 15661800, Yale Studies in English, p. 44.

...

Verstegen's work "marks an important advance in the work of Old English scholarship." Browne mentions definitely Sir Henry Spelman's Concilia, Decreta, Leges . . . (London, 1639, and complete edition in 1664, edited by Dugdale). Sir Henry Spelman was eminently interested in Saxon studies and founded a lectureship in Saxon at Cambridge.' Browne was undoubtedly familiar with his law-encyclopedia, Archeologus (London, 1626), which contained many Old English words. It is evident that he also made use of the treatise De Quatuor Linguis by Meric Casaubon, whose name appears in the tract "Of Languages. . . Browne notes that 8

The learned Casaubon conceiveth that a dialogue might be composed in Saxon only of such words as are derivable from the Greek, which surely might be effected, and so as the learned might not uneasily find it out. (The reference to Verstegen follows and is of a similar nature.)

The Tract on the Saxon Language also contains an undoubted reference to Abraham Wheloc's edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History and portions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Cambridge, 1643), when it speaks of the use of "the expression of the year of our Lord in the Decretal Epistle of Pope Agatho unto Athelred King of the Mercians, anno 680." This epistle is quoted at length in the Chronicle. One other scholar and antiquary whom Browne knew well and mentioned several times in his works is William Dugdale, the author of the Monasticon (London, 1655). To him a tract and several letters are addressed, and it is possible that the tract under consideration may have been written in response to his inquiry. However, Wilkin thinks that the most of the tracts were addressed to Sir Nicholas Bacon.

Johnson maintained, and justly too, that the passages in "Saxon" which Browne quotes are not really Old English at all. In his biography of Sir Thomas, he notes in commenting on this tract:

9

The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede and Aelfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however, sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its parental language, more than any modern European dialect.

Adams, 51-2.

Miscellany Tract VIII.

9

Ed. cit., p. xxii.

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