Collier, it should be borne in mind, has been for forty years a professed student of Elizabethan literature, and is a man of hitherto unquestioned honor.īut he is now upon trial. lxxix.,) that he had “ often gone over the thousands of marks of all kinds in its margins,” and that, for the purpose of making the list in question, he had “ recently reëxamined every line and letter of the folio.” He had previously printed for private circulation a few fac-simile copies of eighteen corrected passages in the folio and with the volume last mentioned, his publications, and, we believe, all others,-of which more anon,-upon the subject, ceased. In 1856, he added to a Shakespearian volume a “ List of all the Emendations ” in his folio, remarking in the preface to the book, (p. and in 1854, he published an edition of Shakespeare, in the text of which these manuscript readings were embodied. He talked about it to his literary friends, and took it to a meeting of the Council of the Shakespeare Society, and to two or three meetings of the Society of Antiquaries, as we know by the reports of those meetings in the London “ Times.” He wrote letters in the summer of 1852 to the London “Athenæum,” setting forth the character of the volume, and giving some of its most noteworthy changes of Shakespeare’s text, He published, at last, in 1853, his volume of “ Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare’s Plays from Early Manuscript Corrections in a Copy of the Folio of 1632,” etc. For a year and more he hardly looked at it but his attention being directed particularly to it as he was packing it away to be taken into the country, he found that “there was hardly a page which did not represent, in a handwriting of the time, some emendations in the pointing or in the text.” He then subjected it to “ a most careful scrutiny,” and became convinced of the great value of its manuscript readings. Thomas Rodd, an antiquarian bookseller, well known in London.

Collier’s account, this folio was bought by him “in the spring of 1849,” of Mr. We write for those who are somewhat interested in this subject, and must assume that our readers are not entirely without information upon it but it is desirable, if not necessary, that in the beginning we should call to mind the following dates and circumstances.Īccording to Mr.

Payne Collier discovered and brought before the world with all the weight of his reputation and influence in favor of their authority and value.

WHEN the Lady Bab of “ High Life below Stairs,” having laid the forgetfulness which causes her tardy appearance at the elegant entertainment given in Mr, Level's servant’s hall to the fascination of her favorite author, “ Shikspur,” is asked, “Who wrote Shikspur?” she replies, with that promptness which shows complete mastery of a subject, “ Ben Jenson.” In later days, another lady has, with greater prolixity, it is true, but hardly less confidence, and, it must be confessed, equal reason, answered to the same query, “ Francis Bacon.” This question must, then, be regarded as still open to discussion but, assuming, for the nonce, that the Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies in a certain folio volume published at London in 1623 were written by William Shakespeare, gentleman, sometime actor at the Black Friars Theatre and a principal proprietor therein, we apply ourselves to the brief examination of another, somewhat related to it, and at least as complicated:-the question as to the authorship of certain marginal manuscript readings in a copy of a later folio edition of the same works,-that published in 1632,-which readings Mr.

Folio meaning shakespeare