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.[gg] 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!

[Footnote gg: See above, p. 266.]

[Illustration]

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.[hh] 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.[ii] But we have by no means disposed of all of this question as to the pencil-writing, and we shall revert to it.

[Footnote hh: 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.]

[Footnote ii: 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.]

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:—