THE TRIAL OF THE " OLD CORRECTOR." * THE controversy which

has been pending since last July concern- ing lfr. Collier's famous folio copy of Shakspeare is now ripe for decision, the pleadings and depositions on both sides having been completed by the publication of Mr. Hamilton's book and Mr. Collier's answer to it. The latter appeared in the Atheneum of Saturday,-the 18th instant, along with an editorial article of the same complexion; nd we must say that the effect of both these efforts on -Mr. Collier's behalf is to make his position even worse than.it was before. The plaintiff's ease, strong enough in itself, is made still stronger by the weakness, shiftiness, irrelevancy, and deliberate shirking of the evidence, which are apparent in what isput -forward on the other side. The matter at issue involves two main questions : are the manuscript corrections in the folio genuine or forged ? and if they are not genuine who is the forger? /fora the physical proofs of forgery, as described by Mr. Hamilton and Hr. "Maskelyne, with the -concurrence of Sir Frederick Madden and many other competent observers are irresistible. On almost 'every par of the folio half-obliterated pencillings are found on the margin, written in an unmistakeably modern hand, and with modern spelling, but otherwise corresponding with the corrections in faded-looking ink, obsolete spelling, and quasi-autique pen- manship, and often underlying them. Examples of this fraudu- lent workmanship may be seen in a page of facsimiles prefixed to Mr. Hamilton's book, and they tell their own tale at a glance. The attempts made by Kr. Collier and by the writer of the entitle in the Athenfflunz to invalidate this fatal evidence are of the flimsiest kind. The reviewer quotes the following passage: Thom 'Mr. Hamilton for the purpose of totally misrepresenting his argument, and mystifying the seeder with a long parade of inappo- site learning.

" A-remarkable instance occurs in 'Richard ' (fol. 1632, p. 181, col.

2), where the stage direction with the body' is written in pencil in a -clear modern hand, while over this the ink _corrector writes in the antique and smaller character with the dead bodie,' the word dead' being seemingly ineertedto cover over the entire space occupied by the larger pencil wri- ting, and ' bcdie' instead of 'body' to give the requisite appearance of an- tiquity."

The reviewer jauntily assumes that in this instance—and of course in all the rest—the difference between the two styles of handwriting is of little moment as matter of evidence, that Mr. 'Hamilton knows this, and that be rests his ease on the change of spelling from -"body " to " bodie." "Find," says our reviewer,

a date for the pencilling and you may pretty safely fix a date'

for the writing." Quite true. The test of spelling is adopted." This is less than the tenth, therefore untrue. "The test of hand-1 writing, as everyone who knows manuscript is aware, is -ex- tremely deceptive." As a .general proposition this is fairly admis- sible within certain limits, but "error latet in generalibus," the sophist's readiest tool is a general proposition and this one is here employed for a purpose .decided-ly contraband. It is impos- eible to mistake the date of the pencilling by two uenturien or -by one.; it-certainly belongs to-the nineteenth century, and -not to the seventeenth, the style of which is imitated in the ink writing; and these facts remain unshaken by the reviewer's column-long dissertation on the fluctuations which the spelling of the word "body" has undergone during three centuries. He charges the • An lava'', into the Genuineness of the Manuscript Corrections in Mr..J. Pogne Collier's Annotated Shakspere, fedi° UM.; and Or certain •Sbakspenan ilocumenU likewise published ty Mr. Collier. By FT.T. E. A. Hamilton. Pub- Bailed by 'Bentley. gentlemen of the Manuscript Department with gross ignorance of the fact that Body or Bodye is the ancient form of the word, and that Bodie is a comparatively modern innovation; and after pelt- ing his reader's eyes with much learned dust of this .sort, lie asks, " What becomes of the preposterous induction that the ink writing must be modern incense it simulates ancient spelling upon more modern pencil marks ? " The induction remains where it was, safe and sound as ever. Quoad the present age Bodie is a moro ancient fca:m of the word than Body, though the latter was frequent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and.might have been seen by the pretended " Old Corrector" in the very folio in which he was writing ; but nothing is more common than for fabricators of modern antiques to overdo their work, and this is not the only instance in which -the author of the forged corrections has fallen into this mistake. Sometimes he betrays himself by the exaggerated air of antiquity- given to the handwriting, sometimes by the manner in which the letters are retouched, as if the operator was not-satisfied with his first attempt at the antique, and sometimes by such orthographical blunders as his friend of the Atheneum has here exposed.

Mr. Collier's remarks on the disooveries made in the folio at the British Museum, are discreetly brief ; for with the exception of a sneering allusion to the microscope, which has proved as useful there as elsewhere for the detection of adulteration, they are com- prised in the following paragraph :—

"A great deal has been said about pencil marks, and here again may ene- mies have been so charitable as to assign them to me. Mr. Hamilton, in his Inquiry,' has given a fac-simile of some that best answered his pur- pose, and in a manner that best answered his purpose. I never sa w them, and they-were-never seen by anybody (not .even by the lithographer who made for me no fewer than ainetesa fite.sionlles from every part of the book) until the Perkins Polio had found its way to thc British Museum. There, and there only, they originated, I mean of course the discovery of them; and Mr. Hamilton and his friends have displayed wonderful ingenuity in construing, what they often admit to be mere specks and points of plum- ing°, into continuous lines and-even into complete words. It is enough for me to assert, most unequivocally, that.I never introduced one of them.; and it is singular that the late Duke of Devonshire, whom I have seen day after day looking over the emendations, and calling in the assistance of -my eyes and spectacles, never once observed that they existed." Is Mr. Collier joking, or does he in sober earnest appeal frem the microscope to the unaided vision of the late Duke of Devonehire, Whose weakness of sight was notorious ? His Grace was one of the lest men who could have been expected to discern the-feint remains of pencil marks, which so much care had been taken to obliterate, unless his attention had been directed to them by others. Mr. Collier never showed any desire to subject-the folio to a searching scrutiny. He showed it _four times in public, as winking'madonnas are shown ; thrice he showed it at the evening meetings of the Society of Antiquaries, and once at a meeting of the Shakspeare Society-; but he took no heed of-Mr. Charles Knight's earnest proposal in 1853, that the folio should be-" deposited in the custody of -some -public body, who will allow access under proper regulations, for a futl and free inspection of its contents" ; nor is it due to him that the bock was atlast placed-for examina- tion in Sir Frederick Madden's hands upon a request whisk that gentleman addressed directly to the noble owner in May last. Sir Frederick says "I had a great wish to see the volume After this second avowal of-doubts expressed by Mr. Staunton and Dr. Ingleby, but -rmy mind was so free from any bias, that I did not entertain the least suspicion of _forgery, and in Sep- tember 1858, I eagerly availed myself of the opportunity afforded meby Collier (who had sent me a copy of the 'Hamlet' of 1608, lithographed at the expense of the late Duke ofHevonsliire,) to express to kin my with to see the annotated folio, but not having the honour to be acquainted with the now Duke of Devonshire, I asked Mr. Collier if he wad manage to gain inc access to the volume. To this request Mr. Collier stayer made any reply."

Mr. Collier says that the manuscript emendations, such .as they are, were all in the folio before it came into his possession ; but how is this assertion to be reconciled with another which he has thrice emphatically made in the preface to Coleridge's Seven Lectures," published by him in 1-856, that the List appended to that work contains "Cie entire body of the emendateone and that with reepect to it he " can safelynssertthat no sin of omission can be discovered," the fact being that the Complete List does not contain one habr of the corrections, many of the most significant being among those omitted? tithe List was indeed complete at the moment when Mr. Collier -made-the last entry in it, the in- ference is unavoidable, that the person, whoever he wan who forged .the originals from which its contents were copied, must have subsequently ceirtMued the-work of fabrication. Mr. Collier alleges that he bought the folio in the spring of '1849, that he cursorily examined it in Mr. Rodd's Shop at the time of purchase, and again when he -took it home, but that it was not -until the spring of 1830 that he "first-observed some marks in the margin," and not until after some further indefinite lapse of time that he discovered, to his surprise, "that 'there was hardly a page which did not present, in a handwriting of the time, some emendation in the pointing or in the text, edule on most of them they were frequent, and on many numerous." This

is very strange. 'Has Mr. Collier no suspicion that somebody tampered with the volume while it lay neglected for a year and upwards on his book-shelf? Whatever may now be his secret

surmises on this point he has hitherto sought to fix the author- ship of the emendations on some unknown .person of the seven- teenth century, an the ground that the folio with ellitsnorres- tions had been in the possession tof Mr. Pinny some .balf centurjr ago, and might be traced far back with some ,probabilq.from.bis hands to those of the Perkins family, of :Upton Court, Berlubse. Mr. Collier has given to the world two distinct narratives of the identification of the book by Mr. Parry, but they are mutually conflicting, if not actually contradictory, and Mr. Parry has con- tandieted them both, altogether denying having ever possessed the volume in question, and stating that he had not even seen it until the 13th of July in the last year (1859). In his letter in last week's Athenceum Mr. Collier commiserates Mr. Parry's fail- ing memory, and boasts of the unimpaired accuracy of his own— with how much reason we shall presently see. In the following passage of his letter Mr. Collier presents what he believes to be a triumphant refutation of all the objections that have been urged against his account of the purchase of the Folio and subsequent discovery of its manuscript contents. The first line of italics in the extract is our own, the rest are Mr. Collier's. Speaking of Mr. Hamilton's letters to the Times in July last, he says :— “ Those Letters could not fail to attract much public attention, and as it was urged, among other things, that my account of the purchase of the Per- kins Folio was highly unsatisfactory,' it seems to have met the eye of the Principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, who, by his own testimony, was for- tunately able, in all essential particulars, to confirm my statement. I bought the book of Rodd, the bookseller, in 1819, for 308., not being then aware, nor till long afterwards, that it contained a single MS. note. The implied, almost the expressed, imputation was, that in 1849 it was actually without Rates, but that I, being skilled in the imitation of old writing, had subse- quentry inserted them, and had passed them off as ancient emendations of the text of Shakespeare. It so happened, that just after I had left Rodd's and had secured my purchase by paying for it, leaving the volume to be sent kerne, the Reverend Dr. H. Wellesley entered the shop, looked at the book, and seeing the MS. notes, which I had not seen, wished to become the pos- sessor. Rodd informed Dr. Wellesley that the old folio had been already 56/d for the very price I had given or it ; and it was mentioned to me in Augnst last, that Dr. Wellesley had openly stated this circumstance, I therefore took the liberty, though a perfect stranger' of writing to Dr. Wellesley for such particulars as he could recollect after the lapse of about ten years. He kindly lost no time in replying to my note, dating from his rectory at Woodmancote, Sussex; and if my account of the mode in which I obtained the Perkin's Folio have been 'highly unsatisfactory' Se my enemies, it may be reasonably doubted whether Dr. Wellesley's substantial confirmation of that account will be more acceptable. It is as f011ows :—

" Woodmaneote Rectory, Hursterpoint, August 13th, 1859.

"'Sir—Although I do not recollect the precise date, I remember some years ago being in the shop of Thomas Redd on one occasion when a case of kooks from the country had just been opened. One of those books was an imperfeet folio Shakespeare, with an abundance of manuscript notes in the mammy. He observed to me that it was of little value to collectors as a espy, and that the price was thirty shillings. I should have taken it my- seU; but as he stated that he had put it by for another customer, I did not continue to examine it, nor did I think any more about it, until I heard afterwards that it had been found to possess great literary curiosity and vatue. In all probability Mr. Rodd named you to me, but whether he or others did so, the affair was generally spoken of at the time, and I never heard it doubted that you had become the possessor of the book.

" I am, sir, your faithful and obedient servant, "'To J. P. Collier, Esq. H. WELLESLEY; "

Mr. Collier next discusses the points on which Mr. Parry's tes- timony is opposed to his own, and adds :—

" However, independently of Mr. Parry's evidence' which would have traced the MS. emendations to the very commencement of the present cen- tury, Dr. Wellesley's note establishes beyond dispute that they were in the volume when I /purchased it of Rodd in 1849." Mr. Collier is a barrister and ought to be able to estimate the force and import of evidence, yet we will venture to assert that there is not a judge in the land who would agree with him in thinking that "Dr. Wellesley's note establishes beyond dispute" the positive conclusion which he draws from such uncertain pre- mises. All that the note tends to prove is, that the book seen by Dr. Wellesley may have been the same as that bought by Mr. Collier, but much is wanted to convert that possibility into a cer- tainty. Coincidence of dates is a requisite link in the chain of evidence, but the note fails to supply it, and if the event it men- tions did not occur in the spring of 1849 it has no bearing on the present question. Again, the "abundance of manuscript notes in the margins" by no means warrants the inference which Mr. Collier would draw from it, because the same description is ap- plicable to five or six folios which are known to exist, besides the missing folio of 1623 which was once in Mr. Parry's possession, and which may have been in the market within the last ten or twelve years for anything that is known to the contrary. So vague is l3r. Wellesley's recollection of the whole matter, that he is not even able to specify the date of the folio he saw at Road's; the chances are even that it was that of 1623, whilst Mr. Collier's is that of 1632. Mr. Collier boasts of the tenacity of his memory ; in his introductory remarks on Dr. Wellesley's note he gives one more proof of its plasticity. In his first account of the mode in which he obtained his folio, he states that he was in Rodd's shop when the parcel containing it was first opened, that he bought it, paid for it on the spot, and "took it home." If he did so Dr. Wellesley could have had no opportunity of seeing it at the book- seller's ; but on the receipt of the Doctor's note a new version of the affair presented itself to Mr. Collier's memory, and he now tells us that he secured his purchase by paying for it, "leaving the volume to be sent home."

Here we must pause for the present, want of space compelling as to postpone until next week the consideration of many other alleged literary forgeries for which Mr. Collier has been so un- fortunate as to make himself sponsor.