AUTOGRAPHS. Autograph is a term applied by common usage either to a document signed by the person from whom it emanates, or to one written entirely by the hand of such person (which, however, is also more technically described as holograph), or simply to an independent signature. The object of the present article is to differentiate between collections of original manuscript material, the values and interest of which may be, on the one hand, literary and historical, and on the other, mainly personal.
The series of original documents which were gathered in such a library as that of Sir Robert Cotton, now in the British Museum, found their way thither on account of their literary or historic interest, and not merely as specimens of the handwriting of dis tinguished men. Such a series also as that formed by Philippe de Bethune, Comte de Selles et Charost, and his son, in the reign of Louis XIV., consisting for the most part of original letters and papers, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, might have been re garded as the result of autograph collecting did we not know that it was brought together for historical purposes. Such collections are necessarily of the greatest importance and carry back their origin to the early years of national history, ever adding to their numbers as auxiliary to the public records.
To turn to the other extreme and seek the origin of personal autograph collecting, we find, perhaps to our surprise, that that pursuit also has its claim to antiquity. We read that it was in Germany and the Low Countries that the practice appears to have originated, chiefly among students and other members of the universities, of collecting autograph inscriptions and signatures of friends in albums, alba amicorum, little oblong pocket volumes of which a considerable number has survived from the latter half of the i6th century. A fair collection is in the British Museum. In one of these little alba we discover an entry by the poet, John Milton, who doubtless fell a victim to an importunate member of a university.
The fate of the original manuscripts of the works of great authors is an interesting subject of study and there is none of greater interest than that of Shakespeare. We deplore the loss of all the original manuscripts of his plays and poems; and even of his authentic signatures there are only six that can be accounted for. It is no doubt a fact that he set no great store by his draft manuscripts, and there is sufficient literary evidence that in some instances at least he entrusted them to the "stationers" whom he employed to publish them. Of the signatures only five were known down to a quite recent date, two being subscribed to the purchase and mortgage deeds of a house in Blackfriars, London, in 1613, and three being attached to the three separate sheets of his will, in 1616. The sixth signature was discovered as recently as 1910 in the Public Record Office. It is attached to a deposition in a lawsuit in 1612. The literary importance of the signatures is that they are written in the Old English hand which Shakespeare was taught when a boy at school in Stratford, and that he employed the English hand down to the end of his life, having never learned to use the new Italian script which was coming into general use among the better educated classes in England. The most cele brated collection formed in England in recent years is that of the late Mr. Alfred Morrison, which still remains intact, and which is well known by means of the sumptuous catalogue, with its many facsimiles, compiled by the owner.
There are many published collections of facsimiles of autographs of different nations. Among those published in England the following may be named:—British Autography, by J. Thane (1788-1793, with supplement by Daniell, 1854) ; Autographs of Royal, Noble, Learned and Remarkable Personages in English History, by J. G. Nichols (1829) ; Autographs of the Kings and Queens and Eminent Men of Great Britain, by J. Netherclift (1835) ; One Hundred Characteristic Autograph Letters, by J. Netherclift and Son 0849) ; Facsimiles of Original Documents of Eminent Literary Characters, by C. J. Smith (1852) ; The Autograph Miscellany, by F. Netherclift (1855) ; The Handbook of Autographs, by F. G. Netherclift (1862) ; The Autograph Souvenir, by F. G. Netherclift and R. Sims (1865) ; The Autographic Mirror (1864-66) ; The Autograph Album by L. B. Phillips (1866) . Facsimiles of autographs also at last appear in official publications, Facsimiles of National mss. from William the Conqueror to Queen Anne (Master of the Rolls) (1865-68) ; Facsimiles of National mss. of Scotland (Lord Clerk Register) (1867-71) ; Facsimiles of National mss. of Ireland (Public Record Office, Ireland) (1874-84) ; and Fac similes of Autographs (British Museum publication), five series (1896-19oo) . (E. M. T.)