Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 47, September, 1861 | Page 3

is equally incredible, that if the textual changes were then upon the margins in the profusion in which they now exist, he could have looked for the two leaves which he needed without noticing and examining such a striking peculiarity. Clearly those marginal readings must have been seen by Mr. Collier in his search for the two leaves he needed, or they have been written since. Either case is fatal to his reputation. His various accounts of his interviews with Mr. Parry, who, it was thought, once owned the book, are inconsistent with each other, and at variance with Mr. Parry's own testimony, and the probabilities, not to say the possibilities, of the case. He says, for instance, that he showed the folio to Mr. Parry; and that Mr. Parry took it into his hand, examined it, and pronounced it the volume he had once owned. But, on the contrary, Mr. Parry says that Mr. Collier showed him no book; that he exhibited only fac-similes; that he (Mr. Parry) was, on the occasion in question, unable to hold a book, as his hands were occupied with two sticks, by the assistance of which he was limping along the road. And on being shown Mr. Collier's folio at the British Museum, Mr. Parry said that he never saw that volume before, although he distinctly remembered the size and appearance of his own folio; and the accuracy of his memory has been since entirely confirmed by the discovery of a fly-leaf lost from his folio which conforms to his description, and is of a notably different size and shape from the leaves of the Collier folio.[D]--Mr. Collier has declared, in the most positive and explicit manner, that he has "often gone over the thousands of marks of all kinds" on the margins of his folio; and again, that he has "re?xamined every fine and letter"; and finally, that, to enable "those interested in such matters" to "see _the entire body _in the shortest form," he "appended them to the present volume [_Seven Lectures_, etc.] in one column," etc. This column he calls, too, "A List of Every Manuscript Note and Emendation in Mr. Collier's Copy of Shakespeare's Works, folio, 1632." Now Mr. Hamilton, having gone over the margins of "Hamlet" in the folio, finds that Mr. Collier's published list "_does not contain one-half_ of the corrections, many of the most significant being among those omitted." He sustains his allegation by publishing the results of the collation of "Hamlet," to which we shall hereafter refer more particularly, when we shall see that the reason of Mr. Collier's suppression of so large a portion of these alterations and additions was, that their publication would have made the condemnation of his folio swift and certain. We have here a distinct statement of the thing that is not, and a manifest and sufficient motive for the deception.
[Footnote C: Notes and Emendations, p. vii.]
[Footnote D: This volume is universally spoken of as the Perkins folio by the British critics. But we preserve the designation under which it is so widely known in America.]
It has also been discovered that Mr. Collier has misrepresented the contents of the postscript of a letter from Mistress Alleyn to her husband, Edward Alleyn, the eminent actor of Shakespeare's day. This letter was first published by Mr. Collier in his "Memoirs of Edward Alleyn" in 1841, where he represents the following broken passage as part of it:--
"Aboute a weeke a goe there came a youthe who said he was Mr Frauncis Chaloner who would have borrowed X'li. to have bought things for ... and _said he was known unto you and Mr Shakespeare of the globe, who came ... said he knewe hym not, onely he herde of hym that he was a roge... so he was glade we did not lend him the monney ... Richard Johnes [went] to seeke_ and inquire after the fellow," etc.
The paper on which this postscript is written is very much decayed, and has been broken and torn away by the accidents of time; but enough remains to show that the passage in question stands thus,--the letters in brackets being obliterated:--
"Aboute a weeke agoe ther[e] [cam]e a youthe who said he was || Mr. Frauncis Chalo[ner]s man [& wou]ld have borrow[e]d x's.--to || have bought things for [hi]s Mri[s]..... [tru]st hym || Cominge wthout... token.... d ||I would have.... || [i]f I bene sue[r] ..... || and inquire after the fellow," etc.
The parallels || in the above paragraph indicate the divisions of the lines in the original manuscript; and a moment's examination will convince the reader that the existence of those words of Mr. Collier's version which we have printed in Italic letter in the place to which he assigns them is a physical impossibility, as Mr.