e pencil-writing fac-similed
above, the "1559" and the "_e_" in No. 1 and the "_Dudley_" in No. 8 are
so faint as to be almost indistinguishable; the rest of it, though very
much rubbed, is plain enough to those who have good eyes. As to the
period when these annotations were written, there can be no doubt that
it was between 1636 and the end of the third quarter of that century;
yet the difference between Nos. 1 and 2 and the last line of No. 8 is
very noticeable. There are many other words in pencil in the same volume
quite as modern-looking as "_favorite_" in No. 3. Does not this make it
clear that the pencil-writing on the margins of Mr. Collier's folio, the
greater part of which is so indistinct that to most eyes it is illegible
without the aid of a magnifying-glass, and of which not a few of the
most legible words are incomplete, may be the pencil-memorandums of a
man who entered these marginal readings in the century 1600? Who shall
undertake to say that pencil-writing so faint as to have its very
existence disputed, and which is written over so as to be partially
concealed, possesses a decided modern character, when such writing
as that of "_favorite_" above exists, both in pencil and in ink, the
production of which between 1636 and 1675 it would be the merest folly
to question? The possibility of the readings having been first entered
in pencil need not be discussed. It is not only probable that they would
be so entered, but that would be the method naturally adopted by a
corrector of any prudence, who had not an authoritative copy before him;
and that this corrector had such aid not one now pretends to believe. We
shall also find, farther on, that pencil-memorandums or guides, the good
faith of which no one pretends to gainsay, were used upon this volume. A
similar use of pencil is common enough nowadays. We know some writers,
who, when correcting their own proofs, always go over them with pencil
first, and on a second reading make the corrections, often with material
changes, in ink over the pencil-marks. Even letters are, or rather were,
written in this manner by young people in remote rural districts, where
an equal scarcity of money and paper made an economy of the latter
necessary,--a fact which would have a bearing upon the pencilled Marston
letter, but for one circumstance to be noticed hereafter.

But one point, and that apparently the strongest, made against another
of Mr. Collier's MSS., we are able t