correction. I again say, 'seem to be,' for this number must inevitably be much reduced upon the discussion of the merits of the readings among the best Shakesperian critics. We have, then, in Mr. Collier's book:

We reach, then, this conclusion, that Mr. Collier has put forth under the sanction of his name, a volume, as the "Plays of William Shakespeare," which contains at least one thousand and thirteen inadmissible alterations from the original text!!! Is it not dealing gently with the editor, to speak of such a proceeding, only as insufferable and inexcusable presumption ?-presumption which is not in the least atoned for, not even palliated, by the fact that the same volume contains a few corrections which present claims, yet to be discussed, to a place in the received text.

If it be asked why these few are to be (possibly) received, while more than one thousand and thirteen are to be positively rejected, and how those few which may be admissible, were made by the man who made the one thousand and thirteen which are inadmissible,-I reply, that such of the few as are to be received, will be received entirely upon their own merits, as arbitrary conjectural emen

dations of passages which are evidently misprinted in the original, and also that they were made by the happy conjectures of several correctors. For we have seen that at least

two hundred and forty-nine of the MS. corrector's changes are not derived from any source peculiarly his own, and that a large number of these have been made by Shakespeare's various editors and commentators,-some of them even more wrongheaded than the folio guesser himself; which incontestably proves that no authority was necessary to the making of these corrections, and, as a corollary to that conclusion, not to the making of the others.

That the emendations were the work of more than one hand, will, I think, be plain to any one accustomed to read old manuscript, or any manuscript in fact, upon an examination of the very fac-simile page, which Mr. Collier, with the openness which has marked his conduct of the whole of this matter, published with his "Notes and Emendations." Upon a comparison of the manuscript line,

"So, rushing in the bowels of the French,"

about one-third down the page, with "briefly," "e," and "now," about two-thirds down, and "same" at the top of the page, it will be seen that the former is of an older date. than the four latter, which are not only more modern, but bear the marks of a bolder, heavier hand. In the former, the formation of the letters is plainly upon a different, and as plainly, more ancient model, than that traceable in the latter; and the one has a painstaking, though uncertain air, while the other shows a rapid and bold, though clear and decided hand. The oldest of these hands is not more antique in appearance than much manuscript which I have seen, dated during the third and last quarters of the seventeenth century and the most modern seems not too old to have been written in the second quarter of the eighteenth.

The conclusion that the MS. corrections are the work of more than one hand, is strongly fortified by the fact, which has an important bearing on the whole question, that during the latter half of the seventeenth century and the first years of the eighteenth, the manuscript correction of folios seems not to have been uncommon. This was natural enough; for readers of Shakespeare could not but see the numberless typographical errors which deformed the early editions; and some would naturally be tempted to correct them, and to make the text conform to the representations upon the stage of their own day, by cutting it down, adding stage directions, &c. Accordingly we find it recorded in Wilson's Shaksperiana, published in 1827, that at the sale of the library of a Mr. Dent, who was a devoted collector of books upon our early literature, and which took place in the early part of this century, a corrected folio of this kind was sold for a large price. It is thus described:

"THIRD EDITION, folio, 1663.

"Mr. Dent's copy sold for 651. 28. It contained many manuscript emendations, chiefly in an ancient hand, coeval with the date of the edition. The annotations in question were, in many respects, curious and important, consisting of stage directions, alterations in the punctuation, &c."-WILSox's Shakesperiana, p. 63.

The description of this folio, which, in its MS. "stage directions, alterations in the punctuation, &c.," so much resembles Mr. Collier's, might have applied to that identical volume, except that Mr. Dent's copy was not the second but the third folio. But it should be remarked that the emendations in this had certainly been made by men of different generations, for they were not altogether, but " chiefly, in an ancient hand." Where is Mr. Dent's copy ? + It may contain a few valuable hints; and it

Mr. Dent's folio is in the possession of Mr. Halliwell, as I have learned by a note from that gentleman, received while this volume is going through

certainly has equal claims to attention with Mr. Collier's. Mr. Singer, the editor of the Chiswick edition, has also one of these corrected folios, and knows of others. As the second, third and fourth folios, and even the first, became so worthless for ordinary use after the labors of Rowe and Theobald, it is a wonder that so many which contained MS. corrections, survived to the beginning of this century, when the rage for Shaksperiana came in to preserve them.

I must be permitted to expresss my regret at the incessant insinuations made by Mr. Singer in his "Text of Shakespeare Vindicated," &c., that Mr. Collier's folio is a fabrication in which the possessor is implicated. Mr. Collier's previous service in the cause of Shakesperian literature should have protected him against so needless, and therefore unjustifiable, an accusation. Without a doubt Mr. Collier believes in the antiquity as well as the value of the emendations in his folio; and that some of them are about a hundred and seventy-five years old, there can be no question. The many coincidences with the conjectures of editors of the seventeenth century, are, doubtless, the result of the fortunes of the volume, which threw it into the hands of two or three emenders of that period, as we have seen was the case with Mr. Dent's.

My course in treating this important question,-the most important which has arisen in the history of Shakesperian literature, has been, not to examine the proposed emendations in detail, but to classify the changes in Mr. Collier's folio, and draw conclusions from the number and diverse character of those classes. The former course,the easier, would merely have made public the coincidence

the press, and written in answer to the above query, which was put in the paper on the Text of Shakespeare in Putnam's Magazine for October, 1853. Mr. Halliwell is collating Mr. Dent's copy and some others, containing similar annotations, for his superb folio edition; but, he says that he finds them to be of little critical value.

or difference of opinion between individuals: the latter, starting from recorded facts, and attaining its end by deductions inevitable from those facts, decides the question with the powers of both authority and reason.

Let us now briefly recapitulate the conclusions to which we (reader and author) have, I trust, arrived.

We have seen that the text of Shakespeare suffered sorely at the outset from its first printers, and that their errors have been the occasion of its undergoing quite as much from the presumption and incapacity of his editors and critics; and that, to use the phrase of his player friends, "from the most able to him that could but spell," all his editors, critics and commentators, with two or three exceptions, have wantonly, impertinently, and ignorantly mutilated his works. We have seen that great abilities have not preserved his editors and critics from the worst and most ridiculous errors; for the narrow pedagogism of Seymour, the blatant stupidity of Becket, and the complacent feeblemindedness of Jackson, did not seek to commit more insufferable outrages upon the text, than were for a time actually effected by the conceited wantonness of Pope,* the

*The justice of applying this epithet to Pope, as an editor, will not be denied by any one familiar with Shakesperian literature. The following jewel of annotation from the Variorum edition, and another from Pope's own edition, will amuse the general reader, and satisfy him as to the character of Pope's editorial labors. The first is upon that passage in the masquerade scene of Romeo and Juliet in which old Capulet welcomes his guests, and says,

"Gentlemen, welcome! ladies that have their toes
Unplagued with corns will have a bout with you."

"Their TOES] Thus all the ancient copies. The modern editors, following Mr. Pope, read, with more delicacy-their feet. An editor, by such capricious alterations, deprives the reader of the means of judging of the manners of different ages: for the word employed in the text undoubtedly did not appear indelicate to the audience of Shakespeare's time, though perhaps it would not be endured at this day."

This strange mixture of common sense and preposterous, indelicate