M.M. on my position that the great Shakespeare forger John Payne Collier wrote the Hand-D portion of the Elizabethan play, Sir Thomas More:

"I don't buy it because it's in the middle of authenticated text. How would Collier have put it in? It's just not possible. I also don't buy that computers make it so that Hand D matches Shaksper's signatures. It's too small a sample."

As for her point vis-a-vis computer analysis, she seems to have misunderstood me. My point was that Strats sometimes make ridiculous claims for computer analysis.

As for the forgery being “in the middle of authenticated text,” it would appear that she doesn't understand that the text is a manuscript. The play Sir Thomas Moore was acquired for the Harleian collection in 1727.¹

Jan. 17 (Wed.). On the I2th of Oct. last Mr. Murray lent me a thin folio Paper MS. done or sowed [sic] up in a Vellum Cover; on wch it is intitled, The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore. This I have read over. It is wrote in the nature of a Play or Interlude, soon after his death I believe. Tho' it appears from thence plainly, what a great, wise, good, and charitable man Sir Thomas was, yet there is no particular of History in it, but what we know already. It is the original, being in many places strangely scored & in others so altered that 'tis hard to make some things out.²

The Mr. Murray was Alexander Murray, book scout (as I recall) for Robert Harley, the Earl of Oxford. Murray would have lent the book, upon request, for the distinguished antiquarian to copy for one or more his subscribers.

The manuscript pages were sewn together, then, and that arrangement likely remained until the thread was no longer up to its task. It consisted of individual sheets of paper.

The next record was a mere listing in the 1759 manuscript catalogue.

7368 A Comedie of Sr Thomas More³

It follows “7367 The Humorous Lovers, a Comedy”. No indication is given how 7368 is bound — or if it is. We mention 7387 because it will show up in the 1808 Harleian Catalogue⁴ as bound together with 7368 and 5152.

7367.7368-

The Humorous Lovers, a Comedy. Signed in the Title, “ W. B."

A Tragedy on the History of Sr.Thomas More. These two are bound together, with No 5152.

5152 is described as 'An unpublished Play in Prose, mixed with Rhyme, entitled, “A new Comedye called the Whimsyes of Senor Hidalgo, or the Masculine Bride.”' Just why this combination was considered appropriate who can say?

But what we can say is that our 7368 is no longer bound by thread. The loose sheets have been unbound and rebound. What we can also say is that John Payne Collier did not mention that Sir Thomas More was bound together with any other manuscripts in his 1831 History of English Dramatic Poetry in which he announced he had discovered it. This is not necessarily indicative. He had no concern with the other works.

What is particularly interesting, however, is that none of the many quotations he took from the work came from Hand-D. Nor did he give notice that that section was dripping with markedly Shakespearean phrases. He said nothing about it at all. True, Collier was a forger, at every opportunity, but he was also a highly capable Shakespeare scholar. It was almost as if Hand-D didn't even exist when his text went to the printer.

Neither did Alexander Dyce indicate that the play was still bundled when he inspected it for his 1844 edition. The almost total absence of critical machinery is highly unusual for him. He had already distanced himself from Collier. The little he said in his preface vaguely hinted at problems with the text that Collier had introduced to the world.

Already there was murmuring behind closed doors. The official position at that point was that it was unfortunate that so many of Collier's discoveries were proving to be the work of forgers in the final analysis. Still, Elizabethan scholars did not publicly accuse their fellows until they finally went so far as he would, in the end, go.

Back to what we can say with certainty. By 1911, the towering scholar W. W. Greg issued a scholarly edition of Sir Thomas More in which he informed that world that the manuscript was not bound at all but kept loose in its vellum sleeve. He could not say with confidence when it ceased to be bundled or bound.

Greg was normally precise in his observations but drew no conclusions. There were considerable inconsistencies. He would say no more. The fellowship as a whole would take the position that the evidence was insufficient to declare Hand-D to be the work of Shakespeare.

So then, the manuscript play Sir Thomas More consists of individual sheets of paper. Because the sheets could not be expected, under the circumstance, to have consistent watermarks or quality they were a particular gift to a forger. Any period paper would serve and would be untraceable. John Payne Collier was acknowledged to be an exceptional penman in secretary hand. We know, in retrospect, that he was able to vary it to represent different purported authors but that his favorite was Shakespeare.

At some point between 1808 and 1911 (probably between 1808 and the first published edition in 1844), the manuscript of the play had been unbound. How often, by whom and for how long, we do not know. John Payne Collier had continuous access to it, without supervision, at least from 1830 to 1844 when Dyce's edition informs us that Hand-D was in place and read as it does now.

1 Gabrieli and Melchiori. Sir Thomas More: By Anthony Munday and Others (1990). 1.

2 Slater, H. E. Hearne's Remarks and Collections Vol. IX. (1914) 392-3.

3 A catalogue of the Harleian collection of manuscripts, purchased by authority of Parliament,... 1759: Vol 2. No page numbers. 832.

4 A catalogue of Harleian manuscripts in the British museum (1808). III.528.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
On Shakespeare's lameness and historical-fiction biography, etc. August 5, 2023. “Those who support Sogliardo of Stratford and other authorship candidates generally stop by from time to time to remark...”
Shakespeare CSI: Sir Thomas More, Hand-D. April 22, 2023. “What a glory to have an actual hand-written manuscript from the greatest English writer of all time!”
Robert Greene and the Construction Shakespeare Never Used. August 9, 2022. 'Our first foray “staring intently into” the texts of Robert Greene has noted that his work utilized far fewer feminine endings than Shakespeare’s.'
A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years. Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.