Indeed, it seems not a little
remarkable that neither Mr. Collier nor his opponents have thought it
worth their while to state that nearly half, and that undoubtedly the
better half, of the so-called new readings are to be found in the finely
printed, but little esteemed, text of the Oxford Shakspeare. If, indeed,
these corrections now come to us with the authority of a critic but
little removed from Shakspeare's own time, it is remarkable that Sir
Thomas Hanmer's, or rather Mr. Theobald's, ingenuity should have
forestalled the _fiat_ of Mr. Collier's folio in so many instances. On
the other hand, it may have been judged by others besides a learned
editor of Shakspeare from whom I once heard the remark, that the fact of
the so-called new readings being many of them in Rowe and Hanmer, and
therefore well known to the subsequent editors of Shakspeare, who
nevertheless did not adopt them, proved that in their opinion they were
of little value and less authority. But, says Mr. Collier, inasmuch as
they are in the folio of 1632, which I now give to the world, they are
of authority paramount to any other suggestion or correction that has
hitherto been made on the text of Shakspeare.
Thus stood the question in 1853. How stands it in 1860? After a slow,
but gradual process of growth and extension of doubt and questionings,
more or less calculated to throw discredit on the authority of the
marginal notes in the folio,--the volume being subjected to the careful
and competent examination of certain officers of the library of the
British Museum,--the result seems to threaten a considerable reduction
in the supposed value of the authority which the public was called upon
to esteem so highly.
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