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.
[Footnote 40: William Young's _History of Dulwich College_, 1889, II.,
41-2.]
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 "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[41]
[Footnote 41: This paper was first printed in _The Nineteenth
Century_, June 1899.
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