osed to be
from the Earl of Southampton. Giving his reason for this opinion, Dr.
Ingleby says,--"Among other similarities in the forms of the letters
to those characterizing the H.S. letter, is the very remarkable _g_ in
'Hemminges'."[W]

[Footnote S: A _Complete View_, p. 114.]

[Footnote T: _Ib._ p. 250.]

[Footnote U: _Ib._ p. 293.]

[Footnote V: _Ib._ p. 256.]

[Footnote W: _Ib._ p. 271.]

Let us examine the alleged grounds of these decisions,--"the varieties
of forms assignable to different periods," and the extension of those
varieties "from the stiff, labored Gothic hand of the sixteenth century
to the round-text hand of the nineteenth." This judgment is passed upon
_all_ the writing on the margins of the folio, including the pencil
memorandums. For the present we shall set aside the latter,--the pencil
memorandums,--as not properly belonging to this branch of the subject.
For this pencil writing, although it has a most important bearing
upon the question of the good faith of the marginal readings, has no
professed character, antique or modern: it is, of course, not set forth
directly or indirectly, either by the unknown writer of the marginalia,
or by Mr. Collier, as evidence of the date at which they were made. And
as, according to Dr. Ingleby, "the primal evidence of the forgery lies
in the ink writing, and in that alone," with that alone we shall at
present concern ourselves. As the careless, half-formed hand of the
present day, degenerate from "the round hand of the school-master,"
appears only in the pencil writing, we have therefore to deal but with
the first three styles of writing enumerated by Mr. Hardy; and as he
himself admits that "it is perfectly possible that any two of these
hands in succession may have been practised by the same person," if
those who maintain the side of forgery fail to show that "the stiff
upright Gothic of Henry VIII. and Edward VI." appears upon the margins
of this folio, we shall only have the second and third styles enumerated
by Mr. Hardy, i.e., the hands of Elizabeth and James I., to take into
consideration; and the so-called "primal evidence of the forgery," in
the "varieties of forms assignable to different periods," falls to the
ground.

Now it is most remarkable, that, among all the numerous fac-similes
of the writing in this volume which have been published either by Mr.
Collier himself, or by his opponents, with the very purpose of proving
the forgery, not