xt to stage purposes, which were
made before the marginal corrections of the text; otherwise they must
needs have maintained the preposterous position just above set forth.
And besides, it is admitted, that, in the numerous passages which are
both erased and corrected, the work itself shows that the corrections
were made upon the erasures, and not the erasures upon the corrections.
We have, therefore, here, upon the very pages of this folio, evidence
that alterations in pencil not only might have been, but were, made upon
it at an early period, even in regard to so very slight a matter as the
crossing out of fourteen lines; and that these pencilled lines served as
a guide for the subsequent permanent erasure in ink.

And this collation of "Hamlet" also enables us to decide with
approximate certainty upon the period when these manuscript readings
were entered upon the margins of the folio. Not more surely did the
lacking aspirate betray the Ephraimite at Jordan than the spelling of
this manuscript corrector reveals the period at which he performed his
labors. Take, for instance, the word "vile." Any man who could make the
body of these corrections knows that the most common spelling of "vile"
down to the middle of the century 1600 was _vild_ or _vilde_. This
spelling has even been retained in the text by some editors, and with at
least a semblance of reason, as being not a mere variation in spelling,
but as representing a different form of the word. No man knows all this
better than Mr. Collier; and yet we are called upon to believe that he,
meaning to obtain authoritative position for the marginal readings in
this folio, by making them appear to have been written by a contemporary
of Shakespeare's later years, altered _vild_ to _vile_ in three passages
of a single play, though he thereby made not the slightest shade of
difference in the meaning of the passage! And the same demand is made
upon our credulity in regard to the eight hundred and fifty similar
instances! Sir Frederic Madden, Mr. Duffus Hardy, Mr. Hamilton,
Dr. Ingleby, accomplished palaeographers, keen-eyed, remorseless
investigators, learned doctors though you be, you cannot make men who
have common sense believe this. Your tests, your sharp eyes, and your
optical aids, even that dreadful "microscope bearing the imposing and
scientific name of the Simonides Uranius," which carried such terror to
the heart of Mr. Collier, will fail to convince the world that h