The ink in which the annotations are made has been subjected to chemical
analysis, and betrays, under the characters traced in it, others made in
pencil, which are pronounced by some persons of a more modern date than
the letters which have been traced over them.
Here at present the matter rests. Much angry debate has ensued between
the various gentlemen interested in the controversy,--Mr. Collier not
hesitating to suggest that pencil-marks in imitation of his handwriting
had been inserted in the volume, and a fly-leaf abstracted from it,
while in the custody of Messrs. Hamilton and Madden of the British
Museum; while the replies of these gentlemen would go towards
establishing that the corrections are forgeries, and insinuating that
they are forgeries for which Mr. Collier is himself responsible.
While the question of the antiquity and authority of these marginal
notes remains thus undecided, it may not be amiss to apply to them the
mere test of common sense in order to determine upon their intrinsic
value, to the adequate estimate of which all thoughtful readers of
Shakspeare must be to a certain degree competent.
The curious point, of whose they are, may test the science of
decipherers of palimpsest manuscripts; the more weighty one, of what
they are worth, remains, as it was from the first, a matter on which
every student of Shakspeare may arrive at some conclusion for himself.
And, indeed, to this ground of judgment Mr.
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