authority which gave them at first the fullest and most uncompromising
support.[M]

[Footnote L: See _Putnam's Magazine_, October, 1853, and _Shakespeare's
Scholar_, 1854, p. 74.]

[Footnote M: 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."]

Other points sought to be established against Mr. Collier and the
genuineness of his manuscript authorities must be noticed in an article
which aims at the presentation of a comprehensive view of this subject.
These are based on certain variations between Mr. Collier's statements
as to the readings of his manuscript authorities and a certain supposed
"philological" proof of the modern origin of one of those authorities,
the folio of 1632. Upon all these points the case of Mr. Collier's
accusers breaks down. It is found, for instance, that in the folio an