making itself acknowledged, and arrived at by processes so rude, vulgar and precarious, so like the common course of mere secular judgments and resolutions, seemed to show too clearly that no infallible tribunal was lodged, after all, in the breasts of the episcopate. Whatever salve theologians might discover for the wound thus inflicted on their vanity, temporal potentates at least admitted the fact, and accepted its consequences. Men, it seemed, were again cast upon their old resources; opinion and argument must take once more the place of authority; but the subjects of debate would in fact lose none of their vital interest from being again thrown open to private judgments; and political rulers, anxious to quell the storms of polemical controversy, sought to guide theological decisions by exerting a direct influence on the theologians themselves. They firmly grasped and widely extended the powers already assigned them as temporal rulers of the Church. They governed through the governors, and directed the influence of the episcopate. They assumed, in the first instance, the right of removing from their posts the chief pastors of the establishment, whose zeal or fanaticism gave them offence. They subdivided their dioceses, turned them over from one metropolitan to another, or translated them for the furtherance of their own objects, from obscure to important bishoprics. Each of these innovations caused some scandal in its turn; but the evils of the existing system of election to sees, generally by the bishops of a province controlled by the clamour of the mob, were so apparent, that when the emperors at last exerted their prerogative in the direct appointment of the highest dignitaries, the Church seems to have made no stand against it. Such was the policy of the emperors from Constantine himself, in his later years, to Justinian. They introduced first the custom of investing elected bishops with the pallium, thereby assuming a sort of temporal authority over them in return for their temporal jurisdiction; they held out to them the splendid bait of the patriarchal thrones at Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome; entangled them in intrigues, or laid them under obligations to secular politicians. It could be objected, even to Chrysostom, that he owed his elevation to the favour of the eunuch Eutropius. Theodosius displaced the Arian Demophilus, and appointed Gregory to the see of the Eastern capital. Nestorius, Proclus, and others, were similarly nominated by his successors. Valentinian divided Cappadocia into two metropolitan dioceses, to break the spirit or the influence of Basil. Theodosius, again, divided Phoenicia to create a metropolitan see for Eustathius at Berytus. Once, and for a moment, this stretch of imperial prerogative was im

pugned by the council of Chalcedon; but it was reasserted by Justinian in favour of two cities which bore his own name in Moesia and Cyprus. On the recovery of Rome and Italy from the barbarians, this emperor enforced without hesitation his direct nominations to the see of Rome, and of the cities in immediate subjection to the Roman patriarch. It was in this reign, moreover, and by formal enactment, that the election to bishoprics in general was withdrawn from the mass of the laity and vested in the higher clergy and chiefs of the nobility only.

Gibbon indeed has asserted, and his opinion is endorsed by Hallam, in opposition to extreme Erastianisers and establishmentarians, that the Greek emperors, with remarkable moderation, allowed 1800 posts of influence and dignity throughout their dominions to be filled by the suffrages of their subjects, and that the alleged instances of political interference, except with regard to the great patriarchal sees, were no more than occasional acts of extra-legal violence. It may be true, that the imperial appointments were confined, as a rule, to the chief cities of the empire; but when we consider the vast influence of the patriarch in the election of metropolitans, and of metropolitans in the choice of inferior prelates; and again, the probability that the action of the emperor himself in his capitals would be copied with more or less effect by his prefects in the provinces; we may believe that the appointment of the hierarchy of the East, at least, was in fact very generally subjected to political influence. It was the primitive theory of the Church, that the whole body of the faithful should elect their pastors. It was the theory of the State, dating from an equal antiquity, that the powers of the emperor were delegated to him by the common voice of the people. When it was no longer possible to entrust the suffrage in ecclesiastical elections to the mob of the great cities, corrupt and vicious, heretical or infidel, the emperor might naturally step into its place, and assume, with logical precision, that its prerogative in ecclesiastical, as in secular matters, had devolved upon himself. The revolutions which followed in the East, the loss to Christendom of the fairest provinces of the empire, and the fears and weakness of the rest, bound both priests and people more closely to the military chief who protected them, and no reaction of spiritual pretensions arose to question, to check, and eventually to curtail the Regale at Constantinople. The Czar of Russia has succeeded to the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Byzantine emperors, which has lost none of its prerogatives in the transmission. The progress of opinion and usage in the West, though it long continued in the same direction, started from a different point.

The chiefs of the Franks, the Visigoths, and the Saxons were not, like the Roman emperors, sovereigns by the Vox Populi. If they claimed the appointment of bishops even more decidedly than their fellow potentates in the East, they could not plead for it a delegation of prerogative from the mass of the laity. But they were the feudal lords of the countries conquered by their swords. From them prelates received their temporal fiefs, and were admitted by them to many temporal privileges. Further, they established Christianity, by their own regal acts, among their heathen subjects converted at the same time as themselves. The claim to appoint the chief pastors of the Church was in their case a legitimate deduction from the principles of feudal tenure. It was supported in popular opinion by the simultaneous development of the rights of lay-patronage in parishes. The layman who charged his estate with tithes, received in return authority to select the persona ecclesiæ,' the spiritual representative of the church upon it. And popular opinion, among the bold, self-asserting children of the North, revolted against the notion of the clerical body having a strict corporate right to nominate to cures and offices affecting the 'common interests of the whole nation. Hence the patronage, more or less direct, of episcopal dignities, cheerfully conceded by the people, was firmly grasped by the sovereigns of France, Spain, and England. It was conceded to them, one and all, with definite and moderate limitations, by the laws and constitutions of their respective realms. The Church, thus held in hand, became a strong and loyal supporter of the throne, and was enabled to act on all internal questions with vigour and unanimity. Both powers worked together in substantial harmony, till the ambition of the Papacy interfered to mar and dissolve their intimacy, and launched Christendom on the long war of priests and princes, in which so many independent polities have successively succumbed, though some of them have risen again and hurled back their importunate assailant. France and Spain indeed, with other western states, were early induced, under the pressure of political exigencies, to make an unworthy surrender of their ancient prerogatives; and more than once, in our own country, were the rights we prize so highly imperilled and even for a moment bartered; but England, thanks to the gallant spirit of her Plantagenets and Tudors, to the 'Statute of Provisors,' and the Institution of a Christian 'Man,' still retained, through the great crisis of theological controversy, the palladium of religious liberty in the Royal Supremacy, and the designation of her spiritual rulers by temporal authority.

ART. VII.—1. An Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr. J. Payne Collier's Annotated Shakspere, folic, 1632-5; and of certain Shaksperian Documents likewise published by Mr. Collier. By N. E. S. A. HAMILTON.

1860.

2. The Shakspeare Fabrications; or, the MS. Notes of the Perkins Folio shown to be of recent Origin. By C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY, Esq., LL.D. 1859.

3. Mr. J. Payne Collier's Reply to Mr. N. E. S. A. Hamilton's Inquiry. 1860.

It

THE controversy respecting the authenticity and value of the celebrated manuscript corrections of the text of Shakspeare, which Mr. Collier professes to have discovered in his copy of the Second Folio, has now assumed a shape which almost removes it from the tribunal of literary criticism. Charges involving dishonour of the most serious character, long hinted, are now freely advanced by some and supported by others, with all the force which official position and special experience in manuscript learning can give to their testimony. would be, in many respects, more satisfactory to leave this painful dispute to that decision of Time which we may hope will be ultimately given with general acquiescence. But this prospect seems as yet distant. The violent partisanship which for the present has taken possession of the minds of those principally engaged in the quarrel renders cool examination unattainable by them. And the charges themselves are of such a nature as scarcely to admit either of absolute proof or of absolute refutation. Were we certain that they would come under the investigation, either of a court of justice, or of some body of competent and impartial literary inquirers whose verdict would be generally accepted, we should feel that we were performing our duty best by abstaining from any interlocutory notice. But as it is, much more discussion impends, and many more discoveries have to be made before final judgment is given, if it ever be. In the mean time our readers may not unnaturally expect some information as to the present state of the question, occupying as it does the minds of literary men to a far greater extent, and involving much deeper researches, than the forgeries of Ireland or of Chatterton, or any other cognate subject which has ever obtained a prominent place in literary discussion. We shall attempt little at present beyond this office of simple exposition.

The subject of these marginal corrections, found in what Dr. Ingleby calls the Perkins Folio,' was brought before the readers of this Review in the year 1856.* At that time the only question which we discussed was that of their value, and their probable authority: did the Corrector work simply by conjecture, or had he the assistance, to some extent, of some other text which we do not possess? It was taken for granted, for, our then purpose, that the handwriting was of the seventeenth century, as it appears to be. For our own part,' we said, after adverting to the suspicions of Mr. Singer and others on this point, we ask our readers to assume throughout the genuineness of Mr. Collier's discovery, and to confine themselves to ⚫ estimating its value.'

Not that the question of genuineness was, even at that time, quite an undisputed one. Guided by the precedent of the famous Ireland forgeries, some adverse critics already suspected fabrication. Some, like Mr. Singer, had openly avowed their doubts. At the very time when the sheets of our own article were passing through the press, Mr. Collier was drawn into court by the charges made in a pamphlet signed 'Detector,' to justify himself against the charge of forgery in this and another case. He applied for a criminal information, which was refused by Lord Chief Justice Campbell only on the ground that his honour was sufficiently vindicated; and he rested his application on an affidavit relating, over again, the circumstances of his famous discovery of the Folio. For reasons, however, which then appeared to us sufficient, we declined entering on this painful portion of the controversy. The conclusions at which we then arrived, not dogmatically, but as the better opinion, were-That the emendations were, on the whole, of much value. That it was very improbable they could be all conjectural. That the writer was probably the same person throughout; but that he had gone over his work at different times and with different purposes. That he had carefully 'rectified' the text. That in so doing he had possessed the help of some independent authority but partially only. That this authority was probably written, not oral. But that the Corrector had also dealt with the text (as Mr. Collier himself had first pointed out) for a totally different purpose; apparently that of adapting it for the stage, sometimes merely erasing difficult words or lines; sometimes slightly modernising oldfashioned ones; sometimes striking out whole passages; sometimes introducing rhyming couplets, which have no resemblance

* Ed. Review, vol. ciii. p. 358.

VOL. CXI. NO. CCXXVI.

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