ing 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 "reexamined 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 he