unofficial aids have discovered the relics of pencil memorandums?
Exactly ten,--as any one may see by examining Mr. Hamilton's collation.
Of these ten, three are for punctuation,--the substitution of a period
for a semicolon, the introduction of three commas, and the substitution
of an interrogation point for a comma; the punctuation being of not the
slightest service in either case, as the sense is as clear as noonday
in all. Two are for the introduction of stage-directions in Act I.,
Sc. 3,--"_Chambers_," and, on the entrance of the Ghost, "_armed as
before_"; neither of which, again, added anything to the knowledge of
the modern reader. This leaves but five pencil memorandums of changes in
the text; and they, with two exceptions, are the mere adding of letters
not necessary to the sense.

Of these four hundred and twenty-six marginal changes, a very large
proportion, quite one-half, and we should think more, are mere
insignificant literal changes or additions, such as an editor in
supervising manuscript, or an author in reading proof, passes over, and
leaves to the proof-readers of the printing-office, by whom they are
called "literals," we believe. Such are the change of "_Whon_ yond
same starre" to "_When_ yond," etc.; "_Looke_ it not like the king" to
"_Lookes_ it," etc.; "He _smot_ the sledded Polax" to "He _smote_,"
etc.; "_Heaven_ will direct it" to "_Heavens_ will," etc.; "list,
_Hamle_, list," to "list, _Hamlet_, list"; "the _Mornings_ Ayre" to
"the _Morning_ Ayre"; "My Liege and _Madrm_" to "My Liege and _Madam_";
"_locke_ of Wit" to "_lacke_ of Wit"; "both our _judgement_ joyne"
to "both our _judgements_ joyne"; "my _convseration_" to "my
_conversation_"; "the _strucken_ Deere" to "the _stricken_ Deere";
"_Requit_ him for your Father" to "_Requite_ him," etc.; "I'll _anoiot_
my sword" to "I'll _anoint_" etc.; "the _gringding_ of the Axe" to "the
_grinding_" etc. To corrections like these the alleged forger must
have devoted more than half his time; and if the thirty-one pages that
"Hamlet" fills in the folio furnish us a fair sample of the whole of
the forger's labors,[jj] we have the enormous sum of six thousand four
hundred, and over, of such utterly useless changes upon the nine hundred
pages of that volume. Such another laborious scoundrel, who labored for
the labor's sake, the world surely never saw!

[Footnote jj: Dr. Ingleby says,--"The collations of that single play are
a perfect picture of the c