en palaeographers like Sir Frederic Madden,
Sir Francis Palgrave, and Mr. Duffus Hardy, tell us that a manuscript,
professing to be ancient and original, is a modern fabrication, we
submit at once. A judgment pronounced by such experts commands the
unquestioning deference of laymen; unless, indeed, the doctors differ;
and then the humblest and most ignorant of us all must endeavor
to decide between them. And when a court, under extraordinary
circumstances,--and those of the present case are very extraordinary,--
not only pronounces judgment, but feels compelled to assign the reasons
for that judgment, thinking men who are interested in the question under
consideration will examine the evidence and weigh the arguments for
themselves.

In the present case reasons have been given by Sir Frederic Madden, Mr.
Hardy, and Dr. Ingleby, the chief-justice and two puisne judges of our
court. The first says, (in his letter of March 24th, 1860, to the London
"Critic,") that, on examining the folio with Mr. Bond, the Assistant
Keeper of his Department, they were both "struck with the very
suspicious character of the writing,"--certainly the work of one hand,
but presenting varieties of forms assignable to different periods,--the
evident painting of the letters, and the artificial look of the ink.

Mr. Hardy speaks more explicitly to the same purpose; and we must quote
him at some length. He says,--

"The handwriting of the notes and alterations in the Devonshire folio
[Mr. Collier's] is of a mixed character, varying even in the same page,
from the stiff, labored Gothic hand of the sixteenth century to the
round text-hand of the nineteenth, a fact most perceptible in the
capital letters. It bears unequivocal marks also of laborious imitation
throughout.

"In their broader characteristics, the features of the handwriting of
this country, from the time of the Reformation, may be arranged under
four epochs, sufficiently distinct to elucidate our argument:--

"1. The stiff upright Gothic of Henry VIII. and Edward VI.

"2. The same, inclining and less stiff, as a greater amount of
correspondence demanded an easier style of writing, under Elizabeth.

"3. The cursive, based on an Italian model, (the Gothic becoming more
flexible and now rapidly disappearing,) in the reign of James I., and
continuing in use for about a century.

"4. The round hand of the schoolmaster, under the House of Hanover,
degenerating into the careless, half-f