_Hamle_, list," to "list, _Hamlet_, list"; "the _Mornings_ Ayre" to
"the _Morning_ Ayre"; "My Liege and _Madrm_" to "My Liege and _Madam_";
"_locke_ of Wit" to "_lacke_ of Wit"; "both our _judgement_ joyne"
to "both our _judgements_ joyne"; "my _convseration_" to "my
_conversation_"; "the _strucken_ Deere" to "the _stricken_ Deere";
"_Requit_ him for your Father" to "_Requite_ him," etc.; "I'll _anoiot_
my sword" to "I'll _anoint_" etc.; "the _gringding_ of the Axe" to "the
_grinding_" etc. To corrections like these the alleged forger must
have devoted more than half his time; and if the thirty-one pages that
"Hamlet" fills in the folio furnish us a fair sample of the whole of
the forger's labors,[jj] we have the enormous sum of six thousand four
hundred, and over, of such utterly useless changes upon the nine hundred
pages of that volume. Such another laborious scoundrel, who labored for
the labor's sake, the world surely never saw!

[Footnote jj: 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.]

But among these marginal changes in "Hamlet," a large number present
a very striking and significant peculiarity,--a peculiarity which was
noticed in our previous article as characterizing other marginal changes
in the same volume, and which it is impossible to reconcile with the
purpose of a forger who knew enough to make the body of the corrections
on these margins, and who meant to obtain authority for them as being,
in the words of Mr. Collier, "Early Manuscript Corrections in the Folio
of 1632." That peculiarity is a _modernization of the text absolutely
fatal to the "early" pretensions of the readings;_ and it appears in the
regulation of the loose spelling prevalent at the publication of this
folio, and for many years after, by the standard of the more regular