THE STORY OF A GREAT BIOGRAPHY.

In the year 1881 Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps issued a small octavo volume of not quite two hundred pages entitled, Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare.* But a limited number of copies was printed, and these were designed "for presents only." Its object-to use the words of the author-was "to construct in plain and unobtrusive language, a sketch of Shakespeare's personal history strictly out of evidences," and in order that the book might be a pure recital of fact—and it was this that distinguished it from all previous attempts on the subject—"all gratuitous assumptions will be rigidly excluded, and no conjectures admitted that are not practically removed out of that category by being in themselves reasonable explanations of concurrent facts." On this basis, and there is nothing stranger than that such a plan had not been carried into execution long before, Mr. HalliwellPhillipps sketched the life of William Shakespeare in the briefest and exactest manner, with the hope of eliciting the opinions of his literary friends and correspondents on his novel treatment of the subject before expanding it into a larger volume.

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A life-time of study rendered the author peculiarly fitted to his task. As early as 1848 he had issued a Life of William Shakespeare,* which he based upon a number of documents not before printed, and which was the first Life of Shakespeare based exclusively upon positive data. All previous Lives-and not a few subsequent ones. more or less fanciful and picturesque, but Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps introduced a new method into this particular branch of Shakespeare research, and to-day no biography of Shakespeare is to be commended that does not follow, more or less closely, the lines laid down by him nearly forty years ago. This Life was afterwards reproduced by him in his monumental Folio edition of 1853.

Twenty-one years later, in 1874, he published another work on Shakespeare's biography entitled Illustrations of the Life of Shakespeare.t

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The book was, in many respects, a very remarkable one. thor had hoped to begin printing it as early as the autumn of 1872,

The Life of William Shakespeare. Including many particulars respecting the poet and his family never before published. By James Orchard Halliwell. London: John Russell Smith, 1848.

Illustrations of the Life of Shakespeare. Part the First. London; Longmans, Green & Co., 1874.

but in October of that year he had not begun work on it. In the following spring it was under way, and in July, the paper, which would require three months for manufacture, was ordered, but it was not until January, 1874, that it really began to go to press. Finally, it appeared late in the year. It was published by Longmans, Green & Co. in the usual way, not by subscription, the author feeling "too old to encounter the fatigue attending another large subscription work.” His subsequent labors, however, showed how completely he underestimated his own powers of activity. The First Part only was issued, and it will never be continued. Two hundred and fifty copies were printed, and of these only about one hundred and fifty were offered for sale, the remainder being reserved as presents for friends and for libraries. The price was fixed at two pounds and two shillings, which did not, as Mr. Halliwell-Phillips himself remarks, barely cover onetwentieth the expenses.

The distinctive aim of the book was "a critical investigation into the truth or purport of every recorded incident in the personal and literary history of Shakespeare; but it is proposed to add notices of his surroundings; . of the members of his family; the persons with whom he associated; the books he used; the stage on which he acted; the estates he purchased; the houses and towns in which he resided and the country through which he travelled." Much of the material included in it was afterwards worked up in the later editions of the Outlines which comprised a number of important documents never before printed. Some of the matter here placed in the body of the work was transferred to the Appendix in the Outlines. This was noticeably the case with the history of the Theatre and the Curtain, the Mulberry Tree, and New Place. The Preface is reproduced almost entire in each of the five editions of the Outlines, and the Appendix also, in most part.

But the studies involved in the preparation of these volumes were not deemed by their author sufficient for his new work. In fact, since Mr. Hallowell-Phillipps first gave his attention to Shakespearian history, upwards of forty years ago, he has scarcely for a moment suspended his researches in Shakespeare's biography. Yet the investigations made in the interval elapsing between the appearance of the Life and the Outlines were wonderfully complete, and exhibited an attention to the minutest observable details never before attained by any biographer. One of the most remarkable illustrations of Mr. HalliwellPhillipps's untiring energy in the search for Shakespearian information is to be found in his personal exhaustive examination of the records of the towns that might have been visited by Shakespeare in his provincial tours. No less than thirty-three are enumerated in the first

* These facts are derived from a series of letters from Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps to a well-known Shakespeare scholar of Philadelphia, between the dates April 30th, 1872, and October 10th, 1874.

edition of the Outlines:-Warwick, Bewdley, Dover, Banbury, Shrewsbury, Maidstone, Faversham, Southampton, Newport, Bridport, Weymouth, Lewes, Coventry, Bristol, Kingston-on-Thames, Lyme Regis, Dorchester, Canterbury, Sandwich, Queenborough, Ludlow, Stratford-on-Avon, Leominster, Folkestone, Winchelsea, New Romney, Barnstaple, Rye, York, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Leicester, Hythe and Cambridge. Thirteen additional ones-Oxford, Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Rochester, Guildford, Hast ings, Gravesend, Eversham, Droitwich, Kidderminster and Campden - were examined between the appearance of the first edition, in April, 1881, and of the second, in April, 1882.

It is not necessary to enlarge upon the excellence of Mr. HalliwellPhillipps's invaluable collections of Shakespeariana beyond the bare reminder of their extent. No collection in England can compare with the multitude of books, papers, maps, drawings, manuscripts, relics of all kinds that would in the slightest manner illustrate any phase of Shakespeare's life, works and times, which he has gathered at the quaint wigwam on the Sussex Downs." With such vast material at his command, and with his ability to reduce such a seemingly inchoate mass to order, it is not strange that Mr. Halliwell-Phillips's Outlines is to-day the most satisfactory and complete biography of Shakespeare in existence.

The first edition, as has been said, fell a few pages short of two hundred. Of these, less than half were devoted to the biography proper, the remaining pages - one hundred and fifteen in number being devoted to the Preface and the Illustrative Notes. The latter comprised much valuable matter, illustrative and conjectural, which, while aiding the student to a fuller comprehension of the subject, was not immediately necessary in a personal sketch of the poet.

The second edition was printed within a year from the issuance of the first. Its appearance was very different from the earlier one. The one hundred and ninety-two pages were extended to no less than seven hundred and three; the sketch of the poet occupied nearly a hundred pages more than it had done before. The Illustrative Notes were not increased, but, in addition, a quantity of new matter was added that rendered the book the most complete and valuable one on the subject that had appeared up to that time.

In the text in the Outlines proper- the new matter introduced is so great, and treats of such a variety of subjects, both general and in detail, as to forbid an enumeration of even its chief points. Nor is it necessary, for the second edition was the first one placed before the general public and the first, having had but a limited circulation, is never referred to in print. The later editions however, are constantly referred to, and a brief summary of their differences will not be without value.