The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 47, September, 1861

Below we give fac-similes of six E-s. No. I is from the margin of the first page of the Preface to Guazzo, mentioned above; No. 2 from the third, and No. 3 from the fifth page of the same Preface; No. 4 from fol. 27 b of the body of the work; No. 5 is the "monstrous letter" of the Bridgewater folio; and No. 6 the "impossible E" of the Ralegh signature.

Now how monstrous the last two letters are is a matter of taste,—how impossible, a matter of knowledge; but we submit that any man with a passable degree of either taste or knowledge is able to decide, and will decide that No. 6 is not more impossible than No. 1, or No. 4 more monstrous than No. 2; while in Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, there is exhibited a variation in the form of capital letters, instances of which Dr. Ingleby intimates it is impossible to find in genuine handwriting, and the existence of which in the Collier folio Mr. Hamilton sets forth as one reason for invalidating the good faith of its marginal readings.[25 - Inquiry, p. 23.]

But our copy of Guazzo is of further use to us in the examination of this subject. It exhibits, within less than one hundred folios of marginal annotations, almost all the characteristics (except, be it remembered, those of the pencil writing) which are relied upon as proofs of the forgery of the marginalia of Mr. Collier's folio. The writing varies from a cursive hand which might almost have been written at the present day to (in Mr. Duffus Hardy's phrase) "the cursive based on an Italian model,"—that is, the "sweet Roman hand" which the Countess Olivia wrote, as became a young woman of fashion when "Twelfth Night" was produced; and from this again to the modified chancery hand which was in such common use in the first half of the century 1600, and again to a cramped and contracted chirography almost illegible, which went out of general use in the last years of Elizabeth and the first of James I. All these varieties of handwriting, except the last, were in use from 1600 to the Restoration. They will be found in the second edition of Richard Gethinge's "Calligraphotechnia, or The Arte of Faire Writing, 1652." This, in spite of its sounding name, is nothing more than a writing-master's copper-plate copy-book; and its republication in 1652, with these various styles of chirography, is important accessory evidence in the present case.[26 - Lowndes mentions no other edition than that of 1652; and Mr. Bohn in his new edition of the Bibliographer has merely repeated the original in this respect. But if Lowndes had seen only the edition of 1652, he might have found in it evidence of the date of the publication of the book. It is dedicated to "Sir Francis Bacon Knight, his Ma'ties Attorney Generall"; and as Bacon was made Attorney General in 1613 and Lord Keeper in 1617, the book must have been published between those dates; and one of the plates, the 18th, is dated "Anno 1615," and another, the 24th, "1616."]

But to return to the margins of our Guazzo, from five pages of which we here give fac-similes.

The writer of the annotations began his work in that clear Italian hand which came into vogue in the reign of James I., (see, for instance, Gethinge, Plates 18 to 28,) of which fac-simile No. 1, "Experience of father" is an example. In the course of the first few pages, however, his chirography, on the one hand, shows traces of the old English chancery-hand, and, on the other, degenerates into a careless, cursive, modern-seeming style, of which fac-simile No. 2, "England," is a striking instance. But he soon corrects himself, and writes for twenty folios (to the recto of folio 27) with more or less care in his clear Roman hand. Thence he begins to return rapidly, but by perceptible degrees, to the old hand, until, on the recto of folio 31, and a page or two before it, he writes, illegibly to most modern eyes, as in fac-simile No. 3, "a proverbe." Thereafter, except upon certain rare and isolated occasions, he never returns to his Italian hand, but becomes more and more antique in his style, so that on folio 65, and for ten folios before and after, we have such writing as that of fac-simile No. 4, "strangers where they come change the speech there used." On folios 93 to 95 we find characters like those given in fac-simile No. 5, which it requires more experience than ours in record-reading entirely to decipher. On the reverse of folio 95 the annotator, apparently weary of his task, stayed his hand.

Now in these ninety-nine folios (including the Preface, which is not numbered) are not only all the five varieties of chirography fac-similed above, but others partaking the character of some two of these, and all manifestly written by the same hand; which is shown no less by the phraseology than by the chirographic traits common to all the notes. And besides, not a few of these notes, which fill the margins, are in Latin, and these Latin notes are always written in the Italian hand of fac-simile No. 1; so that we find that hand, in which all the notes, English and Latin, (with a few exceptions, like "England,") are written for the first twenty-seven folios, afterward in juxtaposition with each of the other hands. For instance, on folio 87, recto, we find "tolerare laborem propter virtutem quis vult si praemia desunt," written in the style of "Experience" No. 1 above, though not so carefully, and immediately beneath it, manifestly with the same pen, and it would seem with the same pen-full of ink, "the saying of Galen," in the style of No. 4, "strangers where they come," etc.

The ink, too, in which these notes are written illustrates the shifts to which our ancestors were put when writing-materials were not made and bought by the quantity, as they are now,—a fact which bears against a not yet well-established point made by Mr. Maskelyne of the British Museum against Mr. Collier's marginalia. This writing exhibits every possible variety of tint and of shade, and also of consistence and composition, that ink called black could show. As far as the recto of folio 12 it has the look of black ink slightly faded. On the reverse of that folio it suddenly assumes a pale gray tint, which it preserves to the recto of folio 20. There it becomes of a very dark rich brown, so smooth in surface as almost to have a lustre, but in the course of a few folios it changes to a pale tawny tint; again back to black, again to gray, again to a fine clear black that might have been written yesterday, and again to the pale tawny, with which it ends. It is also worthy of notice, that, where this ink has the dark rich brown hue, it also seems, in the words of Professor Maskelyne, in his letter to the London "Times," dated July 13, 1859, to be "on rather than in the paper"; and it also proved in this instance, to use the phraseology of the same letter, to be "removable, with the exception of a slight stain, by mere water." But who will draw hence the conclusion of the Professor with regard to the fluid used on the Collier folio, that it is "a water-color paint rather than ink,"—unless "ink" is used in a mere technical sense, to mean only a compound of nutgalls and sulphate of iron?[27 - The effect produced upon the brown ink on the margins of the Guazzo by the mere washing it for a few seconds with lint and warm water may be seen in the word "apollegy" on folio 25, reverse, of that volume, which, with the others noticed in this article, will be left for inspection at the Astor Library, in the care of Dr. Cogswell, for a fortnight after the publication of this number of the Atlantic. This slight ablution, hardly more effective than the rubbing of a child's wet finger, leaves only a pale yellow stain upon the paper.]

Now it should be observed, that, among all the fac-similes published of the marginal readings in Mr. Collier's folio, there are none either so modern or so antique in their character as the five fac-similes respectively given above; nor is there in the former a variation of style approaching that exhibited in the latter, which all surely represent the work of one hand. Neither do the fac-similes of the folio corrections exhibit any chirography more ancient, more "Gothic," than that of the account a specimen of which was published in our previous article upon this subject,[28 - See the Atlantic for October, 1859, p. 516.] and which could not have been written before 1656, and was quite surely not written until ten years later.

* * * * *

We have thus far left out of consideration the faint pencil-memorandums which play so important a part in the history of Mr. Collier's folio. We now examine one of their bearings upon the question at issue. Is it possible that they, or any considerable proportion of them, may be the traces of pencil-marks made in the century 1600? The very great importance of this question need not be pointed out. It was first indicated in this magazine in October, 1859. Mr. Collier has seen it, and, not speaking with certainty as to the use of plumbago pencils at that period, he says,—"But if it be true that pencils of plumbago were at that time in common use, as I believe they were, the old corrector may himself have now and then adopted this mode of recording on the spot changes which, in his judgment, ought hereafter [thereafter?] permanently to be made in Shakespeare's text."[29 - Reply, p. 20.]

Another volume in the possession of the present writer affords satisfactory evidence that these pencil-marks may be memorandums made in the latter half of the century 1600. It is a copy of "The Historie of the Life and Death of Mary Stuart Queene of Scotland," London, 1636,—a small, narrow duodecimo, in the original binding. Upon the first one hundred and sixty-nine pages of this volume, within the ruled margin so common in old books, are annotations, very brief and sparse, rarely more than two upon a page, and often not more than one, and consisting sometimes of only two or three abbreviated words,—all evidently written in haste, and all entirely without interest. These annotations, or, rather, memorandums, like those in the Guazzo, explain or illustrate the text. At the top of the page, within the margin-rules, the annotator has written the year during which the events there related took place; and he has also paged the Preface. Now of these annotations about one half are in pencil, the numbering entirely so, with a single exception. This pencil-writing is manifestly the product of a period within twenty-five or thirty years of the date of the printing of the book, and yet it presents apparent variations in style which are especially noteworthy in connection with our present subject. Some of this pencil-writing is as clear as if it were freshly written; but the greater part is much rubbed, apparently by the mere service that the volume has seen; and some of it is so faint as to be legible only in a high, reflected light, in which, however, to sharp eyes it becomes distinctly visible.[30 - Some of our readers may be glad to know that writing so faint as to be indistinguishable even in a bright open light may be often read in the shadow with that very light reflected upon it, as, for instance, from the opposite page of a book.] That ordinary black pencil-marks will endure on paper for two centuries may very likely be doubted by many readers, but without reason. Plumbago-marks, if not removed by rubbing, are even more durable than ink; because plumbago is an organic, insoluble substance, not subject to the chemical changes which moisture, the atmosphere, and fluids accidentally spilled, and solvents purposely applied, make in the various kinds of ink which are known to us. The writer discovered this in the course of many amateur print- and book-cleaning experiments, and has since found his experience confirmed by the high authority of M. Bonnardot, in his "Essai sur l'Art de Restaurer les Estampes et les Livres." Paris, 1858.[31 - Mr. Bonnardot says:—"Taches des crayons. (Plombagine, sanguine, crayon noir, etc.) Les traces récentes que laissent sur le papier ces divers crayons s'effacent au contact du caoutchouc, ou de la mie de pain; mais, quand elles sont trop anciennes, elles résistent à ces moyens; on a recours alors à l'application du savon, etc., etc. On frotte, etc., etc. S'il restait, après cette opération, des traces opiniâtres sur le papier, il faudrait désespérer les enlever." p. 81.] Of the annotations in the "History of Queen Mary," many are in a strange short-hand, in which various combinations of simple angles, triangles, circles, semicircles, and straight lines play a conspicuous part, which we find, upon examination, is not written according to any system promulgated since the middle of the last century. Our present concern is, however, only with the writing which is in the ordinary letter, and in pencil. Of this there follow three specimen fac-similes, including the figures indicating the Anno Domini at the top of the page from which the words are taken. Three of the figures (4, 7, 8) by which the Preface is paged are also added.[32 - By a common mistake, easily understood, the fac-similes have been put upon the block in reverse order. The lines between the words represent the coarse column-rules of the margins. (Illustration)]

Of these, No. 1 ("ffer Ph: 2") explains that "the Emperour & the King of Spaine" of the text are Ferdinand and Philip II.; No. 2 ("ffr: 2 death") directs attention to the mention of the decease of Francis II. of France; and No. 3 ("Dudley Q Eliz great favorite") is apropos of a supposition by the author of the History that the Virgin Queen "had assigned Dudley for her own husband." Of the pencil-writing fac-similed above, the "1559" and the "e" in No. 1 and the "Dudley" in No. 8 are so faint as to be almost indistinguishable; the rest of it, though very much rubbed, is plain enough to those who have good eyes. As to the period when these annotations were written, there can be no doubt that it was between 1636 and the end of the third quarter of that century; yet the difference between Nos. 1 and 2 and the last line of No. 8 is very noticeable. There are many other words in pencil in the same volume quite as modern-looking as "favorite" in No. 3. Does not this make it clear that the pencil-writing on the margins of Mr. Collier's folio, the greater part of which is so indistinct that to most eyes it is illegible without the aid of a magnifying-glass, and of which not a few of the most legible words are incomplete, may be the pencil-memorandums of a man who entered these marginal readings in the century 1600? Who shall undertake to say that pencil-writing so faint as to have its very existence disputed, and which is written over so as to be partially concealed, possesses a decided modern character, when such writing as that of "favorite" above exists, both in pencil and in ink, the production of which between 1636 and 1675 it would be the merest folly to question? The possibility of the readings having been first entered in pencil need not be discussed. It is not only probable that they would be so entered, but that would be the method naturally adopted by a corrector of any prudence, who had not an authoritative copy before him; and that this corrector had such aid not one now pretends to believe. We shall also find, farther on, that pencil-memorandums or guides, the good faith of which no one pretends to gainsay, were used upon this volume. A similar use of pencil is common enough nowadays. We know some writers, who, when correcting their own proofs, always go over them with pencil first, and on a second reading make the corrections, often with material changes, in ink over the pencil-marks. Even letters are, or rather were, written in this manner by young people in remote rural districts, where an equal scarcity of money and paper made an economy of the latter necessary,—a fact which would have a bearing upon the pencilled Marston letter, but for one circumstance to be noticed hereafter.

But one point, and that apparently the strongest, made against another of Mr. Collier's MSS., we are able to set aside entirely. It is that alleged identity of origin between the List of Players appended to the letter from the Council to the Lord Mayor of London and the well-known "Southampton" letter signed H.S., which is based upon an imagined general similarity of hand and a positive identity of form in a certain "very remarkable g" which is found in both.[33 - See above, p. 266.] The general similarity seems to us sheerly imaginary; but the g common to the two documents is undoubtedly somewhat unusual in form. That it is not peculiar to the documents in question, however, whether they were written by one hand or two, we happen to be in a position to show. Ecce signum!

No. 1 of the above fac-similes is the g of the H.S. letter, No. 2 the g of the List of Players, and in the name below is a g of exactly the same model. This name is written upon the last page of "The Table" of a copy of Guevara's "Chronicle conteyning the lives of tenne Emperours of Rome," translated by Edward Hellowes, London, 1577. This book is bound up in ancient binding with copies of the "Familiar Epistles" of the same writer, Englished by the same translator, 1582, and of his "Familiar Epistles," translated by Geffrey Fenton, 1582. The volume is defaced by little writing besides the names of three possessors whose hands it passed through piecemeal or as a whole; but it is remarkable, that, while one possessor has written on the first title in ink the price which he paid for it, "pr. 2s. 6d.," in a handwriting like that of "proverbe" in the third fac-simile from Guazzo, on p. 268 above, another has recorded in pencil on the next leaf the amount it cost him, "pr: 5s.," in a hand of perhaps somewhat later date, more in the style of the fac-similes from the "Life of Queen Mary," on p. 271. This pencil memorandum is very plain.[34 - It probably records the price paid by the buyer of the whole volume at second-hand in the first part of the century 1600. The first memorandum is quite surely the price paid for the Familiar Epistles alone; for on the binding of the three books into one volume, which took place at an early date, the tops of the capital letters of this possessor's name were slightly cut down.] It is worthy of special note also, that one of the owners of this volume, a Simon Holdip, writes on the last page of the "Lives of the Ten Emperors," the last in order of binding, "per me Simone Holdip in te domine speravi" in the old so-called chancery-hand, while on the first page of the Dedication of the "Familiar Epistles," the first in order of binding, he writes "Simon Holdip est verus possessor hujus libri," in as fair an Italian hand as Richard Gethinge or the Countess Olivia herself could show. This evidence of property a subsequent owner has stricken through many times with his pen. In this volume we not only find the "remarkable g," the tail of which is relied upon as a link in the chain of evidence to prove the forgery of two documents, but yet another instance of the use of dissimilar styles of writing by the same individual two hundred or two hundred and fifty years ago, and also a well-preserved pencil memorandum of the same period.[35 - Similar evidence must abound; and perhaps there is more even within the reach of the writer of this article. For he has made no particular search for it; but merely, after reading Dr. Ingleby's Complete View, looked somewhat hastily through those of his old books which, according to his recollection, contained old writing,—which, by the way, has always recommended an antique volume to his attention.] But we have by no means disposed of all of this question as to the pencil-writing, and we shall revert to it.

That the writing of the "Certificate of the Blackfriars Players," the "Blackfriars Petition," and the marginal readings in Mr. Collier's folio shows that they are by the same hand we cannot see. Their chirography is alike, it is true, but it is not the same. Such likeness is often to be seen. The capital letters are formed on different models; and the variation in the f-s, s-s, d-s, and y-s is very noticeable.

* * * * *

We now turn to another, and, to say the least, not inferior department of the evidence in this complicated case. Mr. Hamilton has done yeoman's service by his collation and publication of all the manuscript readings found on the margins of "Hamlet" in Mr. Collier's folio. It is by far the most important part of his "Inquiry." It fixes indelibly the stigma of entire untrustworthiness upon Mr. Collier, by showing, that, when he professed, after many examinations, to give a list of all the marginal readings in that folio, he did not, in this play at least, give much more than one-third of them, and that some of those which he omitted were even more striking than those which he published. We must be as brief as possible; and we shall therefore bring forward but one example of these multitudinous sins against truth; and one is as fatal as a dozen. In the last scene of the play, Horatio's last speech (spoken, it will be remembered, after the death of the principal characters and the entrance of Fortinbras) is correctly as follows, according to the text both of the folios and the quartos:—

"Of that I shall have also cause to speak;
And from his mouth, whose voice will draw on more:
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mischance,
On plots and errors, happen."

But in Mr. Collier's folio it is "corrected" after this astounding fashion:—

"Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth, whose voice shall draw on more.
But let this scene be presently perform'd,
While I remaine behind to tell a tale
That shall hereafter turn the hearers pale."

Now, while Mr. Collier publishes the specious change of "this same" to "this scene" he entirely passes over the substitution of two whole lines immediately below. And who needs to be told why? Mr. Collier could have the face and the folly to bring forward other priceless additions of whole lines, even, in "Henry VI,"—

"My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff: To think I fain would keep it makes me laugh,"—

but he had judgment enough to see, that, if it were known that his corrector had foisted the two lines in Italic letter above into the most solemn scene in "Hamlet," the whole round world would ring with scornful laughter. This collation of "Hamlet" has not only extinguished Mr. Collier as a man of veracity, but it has given the coup de grace to any pretence of deference due to these marginal readings on any score. But it has done something else. It has brought facts to light which in themselves are inconsistent with the supposition that Mr. Collier or any other man forged all these marginal readings,—that is, wrote them in a pretended antique character,—and which, taken in connection with the evidence that we have already examined, settles this part of the question forever.

The number of marginal alterations in this play, according to Dr. Ingleby's count, which we believe is correct, is four hundred and twenty-six. Now for how many of this number does the reader suppose that the sharp eyes and the microscopes of the British Museum and its unofficial aids have discovered the relics of pencil memorandums? Exactly ten,—as any one may see by examining Mr. Hamilton's collation. Of these ten, three are for punctuation,—the substitution of a period for a semicolon, the introduction of three commas, and the substitution of an interrogation point for a comma; the punctuation being of not the slightest service in either case, as the sense is as clear as noonday in all. Two are for the introduction of stage-directions in Act I., Sc. 3,—"Chambers," and, on the entrance of the Ghost, "armed as before"; neither of which, again, added anything to the knowledge of the modern reader. This leaves but five pencil memorandums of changes in the text; and they, with two exceptions, are the mere adding of letters not necessary to the sense.

Of these four hundred and twenty-six marginal changes, a very large proportion, quite one-half, and we should think more, are mere insignificant literal changes or additions, such as an editor in supervising manuscript, or an author in reading proof, passes over, and leaves to the proof-readers of the printing-office, by whom they are called "literals," we believe. Such are the change of "Whon yond same starre" to "When yond," etc.; "Looke it not like the king" to "Lookes it," etc.; "He smot the sledded Polax" to "He smote," etc.; "Heaven will direct it" to "Heavens will," etc.; "list, Hamle, list," to "list, Hamlet, list"; "the Mornings Ayre" to "the Morning Ayre"; "My Liege and Madrm" to "My Liege and Madam"; "locke of Wit" to "lacke of Wit"; "both our judgement joyne" to "both our judgements joyne"; "my convseration" to "my conversation"; "the strucken Deere" to "the stricken Deere"; "Requit him for your Father" to "Requite him," etc.; "I'll anoiot my sword" to "I'll anoint" etc.; "the gringding of the Axe" to "the grinding" etc. To corrections like these the alleged forger must have devoted more than half his time; and if the thirty-one pages that "Hamlet" fills in the folio furnish us a fair sample of the whole of the forger's labors,[36 - Dr. Ingleby says,—"The collations of that single play are a perfect picture of the contents of the original, and a just sample of the other plays in that volume."—Complete View, p. 131.] we have the enormous sum of six thousand four hundred, and over, of such utterly useless changes upon the nine hundred pages of that volume. Such another laborious scoundrel, who labored for the labor's sake, the world surely never saw!

But among these marginal changes in "Hamlet," a large number present a very striking and significant peculiarity,—a peculiarity which was noticed in our previous article as characterizing other marginal changes in the same volume, and which it is impossible to reconcile with the purpose of a forger who knew enough to make the body of the corrections on these margins, and who meant to obtain authority for them as being, in the words of Mr. Collier, "Early Manuscript Corrections in the Folio of 1632." That peculiarity is a modernization of the text absolutely fatal to the "early" pretensions of the readings; and it appears in the regulation of the loose spelling prevalent at the publication of this folio, and for many years after, by the standard of the more regular and approximately analogous fashion of a later period, and also in the establishment of grammatical concords, which, entirely disregarded in the former period, were observed by well-educated people in the latter.

Thus we find "He smot" changed to "He smote"; "Some sayes" to "Some say"; "veyled lids" to "vayled lids"; "Seemes to me all the uses" to "Seem to me all the uses"; "It lifted up it head" to "It lifted up its head"; "dreins his draughts" to "drains his draughts"; "fast in fiers" to "fast in fires"; "a vild phrase, beautified is a vild phrase," to "a vile phrase, beautified is a vile phrase"; "How in my words somever she be shent" to "How in my words soever," etc.; "currants of this world" to "currents," etc.; "theres matters" to "theres matter"; "like some oare" to "like some ore"; "this vilde deed" to "this vile deed"; "a sword unbaited" to "a sword unbated"; "a stoape liquor" to "a stoop liquor"; and "the stopes of wine" to "the stoopes of wine." Of corrections like these we have discovered twenty-eight among the collations of "Hamlet" alone, and there are probably more. We may safely assume that in this respect "Hamlet" fairly represents the other plays in Mr. Collier's folio; for we have not only Dr. Ingleby's assurance that it is a "just sample" of the volume, but in the four octavo sheets of fac-similes privately printed by Mr. Collier we find these instances of like corrections: "Betide to any creature" to "Betid," etc.; "Wreaking as little" to "Wrecking as little"; "painted cloathes" to "painted clothes"; "words that shakes" to "words that shake." Twenty-eight such corrections for the thirty-one pages of "Hamlet" give us about eight hundred and fifty for the nine hundred pages of the whole volume,—eight hundred and fifty instances in which the alleged forger, who wished to obtain for his supposed fabrication the consideration due to antiquity, modernized the text, though he obtained thereby only a change of form, and not a single new reading, in any sense of the term!

We turn to kindred evidence in the stage-directions. In "Love's Labor's Lost," Act IV., Sc. 3, when Birone conceals himself from the King, the stage-direction in the folio of 1632, as well as in that of 1623, is "He stands aside." But in Mr. Collier's folio of 1632 this is changed to "He climbs a tree," and he is afterward directed to speak "in the tree." So again in "Much Ado about Nothing," Act II., Sc. 3, there is a MS. stage-direction to the effect that Benedick, when he hides "in the arbour," "Retires behind the trees." Now as this use of scenery did not obtain until after the Restoration, these stage-directions manifestly could not have been written until after that period. Upon this point—which was first made in "Putnam's Magazine" for October, 1853, in the article "The Text of Shakespeare: Mr. Collier's Corrected Folio of 1632,"—Mr. Halliwell says (fol. Shak. Vol. IV. p. 340) that the writer of that article "fairly adduces these MS. directions as incontestable evidences of the late period of the writing in that volume, 'practicable' trees certainly not having been introduced on the English stage until after the Restoration." See, too, in the following passage from "The Noble Stranger," by Lewis Sharpe, London, 1640, direct evidence as to the stage customs in London, eight years after the publication of Mr. Collier's folio, in situations like those of Birone and Benedick:—

"I am resolv'd, I over-
Heard them in the presence appoynt to walke
Here in the garden: now in yon thicket
I'll stay," etc.

    "Exit behind the Arras."
But no man in the world knows the ancient customs of the English stage better than Mr. Collier,—we may even say, so well, and pay no undue compliment to the historian of that stage;[37 - The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare: and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration. By J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1831.] and though he might easily, in the eagerness of discovery, overlook the bearing of such stage-directions as those in question, will it be believed, by any one not brimful of blinding prejudice, that, in attempting the imposition with which he is charged, and in forging in a copy of the folio of 1632 notes and emendations for which he claimed deference because they were, in his own words, "in a handwriting not much later than the time when it came from the press," he deliberately wrote in these stage-directions, which in any case added nothing to the reader's information, and which he, of all men, knew would prove that his volume was not entitled to the credit he was laboring to obtain for it?

Again, Mr. Hamilton's collations of "Hamlet" show that no less than thirty-six passages have been erased from that play in this folio. These erased passages are from a few insignificant words to fifty lines in extent They include lines like these in Act I., Sc. 2:—

"With one auspicious and one dropping eye, With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,"—

and these from the same scene:—

"It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, or mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 't is a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse, till he that died to-day,
This must be so."

In the last scene, all after Horatio's speech; "Now cracks a noble heart," etc., is struck out. Who will believe that any man in his senses, making corrections for which he meant to claim the deference due to a higher authority than the printed test, would make such and so numerous erasures? In fact, no one does so believe.

But the collations of "Hamlet" furnish in these erasures one other very important piece of evidence. In Act II., Sc. 1, the passage from and including Reynaldo's speech, "As gaming, my Lord," to his other speech, "Ay, my Lord, I would know that," is crossed out. But the lines are not only crossed through in ink, they are "also marked in pencil." Now it is confessed by the accusers of Mr. Collier that these erasures are the marks of an ancient adaptation of the text to stage purposes, which were made before the marginal corrections of the text; otherwise they must needs have maintained the preposterous position just above set forth. And besides, it is admitted, that, in the numerous passages which are both erased and corrected, the work itself shows that the corrections were made upon the erasures, and not the erasures upon the corrections. We have, therefore, here, upon the very pages of this folio, evidence that alterations in pencil not only might have been, but were, made upon it at an early period, even in regard to so very slight a matter as the crossing out of fourteen lines; and that these pencilled lines served as a guide for the subsequent permanent erasure in ink.

And this collation of "Hamlet" also enables us to decide with approximate certainty upon the period when these manuscript readings were entered upon the margins of the folio. Not more surely did the lacking aspirate betray the Ephraimite at Jordan than the spelling of this manuscript corrector reveals the period at which he performed his labors. Take, for instance, the word "vile." Any man who could make the body of these corrections knows that the most common spelling of "vile" down to the middle of the century 1600 was vild or vilde. This spelling has even been retained in the text by some editors, and with at least a semblance of reason, as being not a mere variation in spelling, but as representing a different form of the word. No man knows all this better than Mr. Collier; and yet we are called upon to believe that he, meaning to obtain authoritative position for the marginal readings in this folio, by making them appear to have been written by a contemporary of Shakespeare's later years, altered vild to vile in three passages of a single play, though he thereby made not the slightest shade of difference in the meaning of the passage! And the same demand is made upon our credulity in regard to the eight hundred and fifty similar instances! Sir Frederic Madden, Mr. Duffus Hardy, Mr. Hamilton, Dr. Ingleby, accomplished palaeographers, keen-eyed, remorseless investigators, learned doctors though you be, you cannot make men who have common sense believe this. Your tests, your sharp eyes, and your optical aids, even that dreadful "microscope bearing the imposing and scientific name of the Simonides Uranius," which carried such terror to the heart of Mr. Collier, will fail to convince the world that he spent hour after hour and day after day in labors the only purpose of which was directly at war with that which you attribute to him, and which, if he made these manuscript corrections, must have been the motive of his labors.

But if Mr. Collier, or some other man of this century, did not make these orthographical changes, when were they made? Let us trace the fortunes of vile, which is a good test word, as being characteristic, and as it occurs several times in "Hamlet," and is there thrice modernized by the manuscript corrector. It occurs five times in that play, as the reader may see by referring to Mrs. Clarke's "Concordance." In the folio of 1623, in all these cases, except the first, it is spelled vild; in the folio of 1632, with the same exception, we also find vild; even in the folio of 1664[38 - Or 1663, according to the title-pages of some copies that we have seen.] the spelling in all these instances remains unchanged; but in the folio of 1685, vild gives place to vile in every case. As with "vild," so with the other words subjected to like changes. To make a long story short, the spelling throughout the marginal readings of this folio, judged by the numerous fac-similes and collations that have been published, indicates the close of the last quarter of the century 1600 as the period about which the volume in which they appear was subjected to correction. The careful removal (though with some oversights) of those irregularities and anomalies of spelling which were common before the Restoration, and the harmonizing of grammatical discords which were disregarded before that period, and, on the other hand, the retention of the superfluous final e, (once the e of prolongation,) and of the l in the contractions of "would," in accordance with a pronunciation which prevailed in England until 1700 and later, all point to this date, which is also indicated by various other internal proofs to which attention has been heretofore sufficiently directed.[39 - See Shakespeare's Scholar, pp. 56-62. And to the passages noticed there, add this: In King Henry VI., Part II., Act IV., Sc. 5, is this couplet:—"Fight for your King, your country, and your lives.And so farewell; for I must hence again."The last line of which in Mr. Collier's folio is changed to"And so farewell; Rebellion never thrives."Plainly this was written when Charlie was no longer over the water.] The punctuation, too, which, as Mr. Collier announced in "Notes and Emendations," etc., 1853, is corrected "with nicety and patience," is that of the books printed after the Restoration, as may be seen by a comparison of Mr. Collier's private fac-similes and the collations of "Hamlet" in Mr. Hamilton's book with the original editions of poems and plays printed between 1660 and 1675.