John Payne Collier (11 January 178917 September 1883)G.F. Warner, 'Collier, John Payne (1789–1883)', Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900), Vol. 11.A. Freeman and J.I. Freeman, 'Collier, John Payne (1789–1883)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP 2004). was an English writer and scholar. He was well known for publishing many books on Shakespeare. However, his reputation has declined as a result of the Perkins Folio forgery.H.B. Wheatley, 'Notes on the Life of John Payne Collier', The Bibliographer, IV (1883), pp. 153–57; V (1884), pp. 13–17, 39–45 and 108–13 (Internet Archive).
Reporter and barrister His father, John Dyer Collier (1762–1825), was a successful journalist, and his connection with the press obtained for his son a position on The Morning Chronicle as leader writer, dramatic critic and reporter, which continued until 1847; he was also for some time a reporter for The Times. He was summoned before the House of Commons in 1819 for giving an incorrect report of a speech by Joseph Hume. He entered the Middle Temple in 1811, but was not called to the bar until 1829. The delay was partly due to his indiscretion in publishing the Criticisms on the Bar (1819) by "Amicus Curiae".
Controversial Shakespearean scholar Collier's leisure was given to the study of Shakespeare and the early English drama. After some minor publications, he produced in 1825–1827 a new edition of Dodsley's Old Plays and in 1833 a supplementary volume entitled Five Old Plays. In 1831 appeared his 3-volume History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration,J.P. Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare; and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration, 3 vols (John Murray, London 1831), Volume 1; Volume 2; Volume 3 (Google)]. a badly arranged but valuable work. It obtained for him the post of librarian to the 6th Duke of Devonshire, and, subsequently, access to the chief collections of early English literature throughout the kingdom, especially to the treasures of Lord Ellesmere at Bridgewater House. Other publications included a script in 1828 under the title The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch and Judy.The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch and Judy, p.65, John Payne Collier with illustrations by George Cruikshank, Internet Archive
He produced the Memoirs of Edward Alleyn for the Shakespeare Society in 1841.J.P. Collier, Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College including some new particulars respecting Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Massinger, Marston, Dekker, &c. (Shakespeare Society, London 1841), (Internet Archive). He followed up this volume with the Alleyn Papers (1843)J.P. Collier, The Alleyn Papers (Shakespeare Society, London 1843), (Internet Archive). and the Diary of Philip Henslowe (1845).J.P. Collier, The Diary of Philip Henslowe: from 1591 to 1609; printed from the original manuscript preserved at Dulwich College (Shoberl, London 1845), (Internet Archive). Collier used these opportunities to commence a series of literary fabrications, as the debates of the following decades revealed. His 8-volume edition of the Works of Shakespeare began to appear in 1842.J.P. Collier (ed.), The Works of William Shakespeare. The Text Formed from an Entirely New Collation of the Old Editions: with the Various Readings, Notes, a Life of the Poet, and a History of the Early English Stage, 8 vols (Whittaker and Co., London 1842–1844): Vol. 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8 (Google). His edition attracted criticism from his long-time friend, the literary historian Revd. Alexander Dyce, who nonetheless also found much to commend in it, including Collier's biographical essay.A. Dyce, Remarks on Mr. J.P. Collier's and Mr. C. Knight's editions of Shakespeare (Edward Moxon, London 1844), (Internet Archive). In 1847 he was appointed secretary to the Royal Commission on the British Museum.L.A. Fagan, The Life of Sir Anthony Panizzi, K.C.B., 2nd Edition (2 vols), (Remington and Co., London 1880), I, p. 257 (HathiTrust).
The Perkins Folio Over the next several years he claimed to find a number of new documents relating to Shakespeare's life and business. After New Facts, New Particulars and Further Particulars respecting Shakespeare had appeared and passed muster, Collier produced (1852) the famous Perkins Folio, a copy of the Second Folio (1632), so called from a name written on the title-page. In this book were numerous manuscript emendations of Shakespeare, said by Collier to be from the hand of an "old corrector". He published these alterations as Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare (1853) as a supplementary volume to his edition of Shakespeare's works, bringing out a revised edition of this volume within months of the first.J.P. Collier (ed.), Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare's Plays, from Early Manuscript Corrections in a Copy of the Folio, 1632, in the possession of J.P. Collier... Forming a Supplemental Volume (Whittaker and Co., London 1853); First Edition, (Internet Archive); Second, Revised and Enlarged Edition, (Internet Archive). At the same time he published an edition of the plays in a single volume (the "Monovolume" edition), incorporating the Perkins Folio amendments without any detailed commentary.J.P. Collier, The Plays of Shakespeare: The Text Regulated by the Old Copies, and by the Recently Discovered Folio of 1632 (Whittaker and Co., London 1853), (Internet Archive).
Unfavourable reception Collier's friend Dyce was among the first to reject many of the alterations by the "Old Corrector" as "ignorant, tasteless and wanton", while recognizing that others required no more authority than common sense to be accepted as correct, many having been proposed already by other scholars.A. Dyce, A Few Notes on Shakespeare: with Occasional Remarks on the Emendations of the Manuscript-Corrector in Mr Collier's Copy of the Folio 1632 (John Russell Smith, London 1853), (Internet Archive). The authenticity of the whole, however, was roundly rejected, on internal evidence, by S. W. Singer in The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated (1853).S.W. Singer, The Text of Shakespeare Vindicated from the Interpolations and Corruptions Advocated by John Payne Collier in his Notes and Emendations (Pickering, London 1853), (Internet Archive). In 1853 J.O. Halliwell showed the Dulwich letter to have been (at best) misinterpreted by Collier, and stated (with the owner's permission) his misgivings that Lord Ellesmere's Shakespearean manuscripts were all modern forgeries.J.O. Halliwell, Curiosities of Modern Shaksperian Criticism (John Russell Smith, London 1853), (Internet Archive).
In 1855, in Notes and Queries, Volume X, Collier reported a new "find" in the re-discovery of his own shorthand notes from lectures given by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1811 or 1812, which he published as a volume in 1856 together with a list of the emendations in the Perkins Folio.J.P. Collier, Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton(Chapman and Hall, London 1856), (Internet Archive). In a public letter soon extended into a short tract of 1855, A.E. Brae (anonymously) brought evidence challenging the authenticity of Collier's lecture notes, and in effect accusing Collier of having perpetrated the Shakespeare alterations as a fraud.A.E. Brae, Literary Cookery: with Reference to Matter Attributed to Coleridge and Shakespeare. A letter addressed to "The Athenæum." With a postscript containing some remarks upon the refusal of that journal to print it (John Russell Smith, London 1855), (Internet Archive). In response to these challenges, in January 1856 Collier made a legal affidavit swearing to the truth of his statements regarding the Coleridge lectures and the Perkins folio, and sought to move the Court of Queen's Bench for a criminal action for libel against the publisher John Russell Smith. While Lord Campbell, presiding, refused to proceed, he commended the character of the applicant and pronounced him to be vindicated by his affidavit, and afterwards gave Collier other tokens of his friendship and esteem.Warner, 'Collier, John Payne', Dictionary of National Biography.
Controversy and exposure Collier's second edition of the Works of Shakespeare appeared in 6 volumes in 1858, and bore both in its Preface and in the notes to the text a scathing attack on (among others) Alexander Dyce, accusing him of selective appropriation of Collier's emendations without acknowledgement, motivated by an intention to disparage.J.P. Collier (ed.), Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, Tragedies and Poems, 2nd Edition, 6 volumes (Whittaker and Co., London 1858), Vol. 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6 (Internet Archive). Their friendship irrecoverably broken, Dyce responded in a full volume by rejecting Collier's charges against him as artful and deliberate misrepresentations.A. Dyce, Strictures on Collier's New Edition of Shakespeare, 1858 (John Russell Smith, London 1859), (Google).
In 1853 Collier had made a gift of the Perkins Folio to his patron, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, who remained supportive towards him but died in 1858. In 1859, his cousin and successor the 7th Duke submitted the Folio to the scrutiny of Sir Frederic Madden, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, and Nicholas Hamilton, of that department, who pronounced that the emendations were incontestably forgeries of modern date. These findings were further confirmed by a microscopic physical analysis by N.S. Maskelyne, Keeper of the Mineral Department, showing that the supposed archaic handwriting of the emendations was made using not ink but a sepia paint, which overlay erased pencil annotations in modern handwriting closely resembling that of John Payne Collier. The facts were presented by C.M. Ingleby in collected form in 1859, with a full-page dedication naming Andrew Edmund Brae as the first to protest against the specious readings of the Perkins Folio, and, by the use of philological methods, the first to prove that they were modern fabrications.C.M. Ingleby, The Shakspeare Fabrications; or, the MS. Notes of the Perkins Folio Shown to be of Recent Origin. With an Appendix on the Authorship of the Ireland Forgeries (John Russell Smith, London 1859), (Internet Archive).
Ingleby showed that the annotations incorporated ideas drawn from very recent scholarship, knowledge or usage. Hamilton's findings were more fully expressed in his Inquiry (1860).N.E.S.A. Hamilton, An Inquiry into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr. J. Payne Collier's Annotated Shakspere Folio, 1632 (Richard Bentley, London 1860), (Internet Archive). A.E. Brae, now in his own name, reviewed the matter more at length in 1860,A.E. Brae, Collier, Coleridge and Shakespeare. A Review (Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, London 1860), (Internet Archive). and Ingleby gave a fuller account of the discussion raised by Collier's emendations in his Complete View of the Shakespeare Controversy (1861).C.M. Ingleby, A Complete View of the Shakspere Controversy, concerning the Authenticity and Genuineness of Manuscript Matter affecting the Works and Biography of Shakspere, published by Mr. J. Payne Collier as the fruits of his researches (Nattali and Bond, London 1861), (Internet Archive).
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