A Writer's Recollections — Volume 2 by Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920

He continued his journey to England, and presently mentioned the incident to Sir Thomas Phillipps, and Sir Thomas's future son-in-law, Mr. Halliwell--afterward Halliwell-Phillipps. The excitement of both knew no bounds. A First Folio--which had belonged to Count Gondomar, Spanish Ambassador to England up to 1622--and covered with contemporary marginal notes! No doubt a copy which had been sent out to Gondomar from England; for he was well acquainted with English life and letters and had collected much of his library in London. The very thought of such a treasure perishing barbarously in a bonfire of waste paper was enough to drive a bibliophile out of his wits. Gayangos was sent back to Spain posthaste. But, alack! he found a library swept and garnished; no trace of the volume he had once held there in his hand, and on the face of his friend the librarian only a frank and peevish wonder that anybody should tease him with questions about such a trifle.

But just dream a little! Who sent the volume? Who wrote the thick marginal notes? An English correspondent of Gondomar's? Or Gondomar himself, who arrived in England three years before Shakespeare's death, was himself a man of letters, and had probably seen most of the plays?

In the few years which intervened between his withdrawal from England and his own death (1626), did he annotate the copy, storing there what he could remember of the English stage, and of "pleasant Willy" himself, perhaps, during his two sojourns in London? And was the book overlooked as English and of no importance in the transfer of Gondomar's own library, a hundred and sixty years after his death, to Charles III of Spain? And had it been sold, perhaps, for an old song, and with other remnants of Gondomar's books, just for their local interest, to some Valladolid grandee?

Above all, did those marginal notes which Gayangos had once idly looked through contain, perhaps--though the First Folio does not, of course, include the Poems--some faint key to the perennial Shakespeare mysteries--to Mr. W.H., and the "dark lady," and all the impenetrable story of the Sonnets?

If so, the gods themselves took care that the veil should not be rent. The secret remains.

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