The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 47, September, 1861. Various

3

Notes and Emendations, p. vii.

4

This volume is universally spoken of as the Perkins folio by the British critics. But we preserve the designation under which it is so widely known in America.

5

An Inquiry, etc., pp. 86-89. See also Ingleby's Complete View, etc., pp. 279-288. Both Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Ingleby give fac-similes of this important postscript.

6

See Dyce's Strictures, etc., pp. 2, 22, 28, 35, 51, 54, 56, 57, 58, 70, 123, 127, 146, 168, 192, 203, 204.

7

Such hasty examinations as those which it must have received at the Society of Antiquaries and the Shakespeare Society, where Mr. Collier took it, are of little importance.

8

See, for instance, "I have been told, but I do not believe it, that Sir F. Madden and his colleagues were irritated by this piece of supposed neglect; and that they also took it ill that I presented the Perkins folio to the kindest, most condescending, and most liberal of noblemen, instead of giving it to their institution." (Reply, p. 11.) And see the same pamphlet and Mr. Collier's letters, passim.

9

This is finally admitted even by Mr. Collier's supporters. The Edinburgh Reviewer says,—"But then the mysterious pencil-marks! They are there, most undoubtedly, and in very great numbers too. The natural surprise that they were not earlier detected is somewhat diminished on inspection. Some say they have 'come out' more in the course of years; whether this is possible we know not. But even now they are hard to discover, until the eye has become used to the search. But when it has,—especially with the use of a glass at first,—they become perceptible enough, words, ticks, points, and all."

10

In Coriolanus, Act v. sc. 2, (p. 55, col. 2, of the C. folio,) "struggles or instead noise,"—plainly a memorandum for a stage-direction in regard to the impending fracas between Menenius and the Guard.

11

Having at hand some of Mr. Collier's own writing in pencil, we are dependent as to this point, in regard to the pencillings in the folio, only upon the accuracy of the fac-similes published by Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Ingleby, which correspond in character, though made by different fac-similists.

12

See Putnam's Magazine, October, 1853, and Shakespeare's Scholar, 1854, p. 74.

13

See the London Athenaeum of January 8th, 1853:—"We cannot hesitate to infer that there must have been something more than mere conjecture,—some authority from which they were derived…. The consideration of the nine omitted lines stirs up Mr. Collier to a little greater boldness on the question of authority; but, after all, we do not think he goes the full length which the facts would warrant."

Compare this with the following extracts from the same journal of July 9th, 1859;—"The folio never had any ascertained external authority. All the warrant it has ever brought to reasonable critics is internal." "If anybody, in the heat of argument, ever claimed for them [the MS. readings] a right of acceptance beyond the emendations of Theobald, Malone, Dyce, and Singer, (that is, a right not justified by their obvious utility or beauty,) such a claim must have been untenable, by whomsoever urged."

14

The Shakespeare Fabrications, p. 45.

15

See the fac-simile in Dr. Ingleby's Complete View. p. 262.

16

A Review, etc., p. 60.

17

We could point out numerous other similar failures and errors in the publications in which Mr. Collier is attacked; but we cannot spare time or space for these petty side-issues.

18

A Review, etc., pp. 6, 7.

19

A Complete View, p. 114.

20

Ib. p. 250.

21

Ib. p. 293.

22

Ib. p. 256.

23

Ib. p. 271.

24

Complete View, p. 309.

25

Inquiry, p. 23.

26

Lowndes mentions no other edition than that of 1652; and Mr. Bohn in his new edition of the Bibliographer has merely repeated the original in this respect. But if Lowndes had seen only the edition of 1652, he might have found in it evidence of the date of the publication of the book. It is dedicated to "Sir Francis Bacon Knight, his Ma'ties Attorney Generall"; and as Bacon was made Attorney General in 1613 and Lord Keeper in 1617, the book must have been published between those dates; and one of the plates, the 18th, is dated "Anno 1615," and another, the 24th, "1616."

27

The effect produced upon the brown ink on the margins of the Guazzo by the mere washing it for a few seconds with lint and warm water may be seen in the word "apollegy" on folio 25, reverse, of that volume, which, with the others noticed in this article, will be left for inspection at the Astor Library, in the care of Dr. Cogswell, for a fortnight after the publication of this number of the Atlantic. This slight ablution, hardly more effective than the rubbing of a child's wet finger, leaves only a pale yellow stain upon the paper.

28

See the Atlantic for October, 1859, p. 516.

29

Reply, p. 20.

30

Some of our readers may be glad to know that writing so faint as to be indistinguishable even in a bright open light may be often read in the shadow with that very light reflected upon it, as, for instance, from the opposite page of a book.

31

Mr. Bonnardot says:—"Taches des crayons. (Plombagine, sanguine, crayon noir, etc.) Les traces récentes que laissent sur le papier ces divers crayons s'effacent au contact du caoutchouc, ou de la mie de pain; mais, quand elles sont trop anciennes, elles résistent à ces moyens; on a recours alors à l'application du savon, etc., etc. On frotte, etc., etc. S'il restait, après cette opération, des traces opiniâtres sur le papier, il faudrait désespérer les enlever." p. 81.

32

By a common mistake, easily understood, the fac-similes have been put upon the block in reverse order. The lines between the words represent the coarse column-rules of the margins. (Illustration)

33

See above, p. 266.

34

It probably records the price paid by the buyer of the whole volume at second-hand in the first part of the century 1600. The first memorandum is quite surely the price paid for the Familiar Epistles alone; for on the binding of the three books into one volume, which took place at an early date, the tops of the capital letters of this possessor's name were slightly cut down.

35

Similar evidence must abound; and perhaps there is more even within the reach of the writer of this article. For he has made no particular search for it; but merely, after reading Dr. Ingleby's Complete View, looked somewhat hastily through those of his old books which, according to his recollection, contained old writing,—which, by the way, has always recommended an antique volume to his attention.

36

Dr. Ingleby says,—"The collations of that single play are a perfect picture of the contents of the original, and a just sample of the other plays in that volume."—Complete View, p. 131.

37

The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare: and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration.