The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1859-07-27


fsrgeries-Mr. eeiiiersh
ply 10 Mr.. Hamilton.
We alluded few days ago. TO n charge made
" MT. HAMILTON, Of the British Museum.
,rainst Mr. COLLIER, to the effect that he hai
foreea the corrections TO be found In his Ia
nous edition Of SHAKESPEARE. Mr.. eohbIEn
avs hs made no pencil marks on the boob,
.sexecpt crosses, ticks, or lines, TO direct my at
tention To particular emendasions," and eS-
cep, around certain fac SMILES from the VOL
,,me executed by Mr.. NETuErcLrFF aud given
10 his friends On the board at the ena there
being no fly.ieaf. he wrote various words, ana
they aye still there, TO be compared WIN inv
pencilingx In the body Of the book, SO that II
may I've aseertained from the hand-Wrihps
whether they are his. As TO the inference
meant to I've established. that he was guilty. Oh
forgery. he refers 10 his affidavit h'aoe ah''
sworn TO in the Queens Bench, In which ne
asserts the contrary. The book, as there swoFh'
had beiong ed 10 n Mr. PARRY. ABOUT MY years
AFRO and had been recognized by him, annota-
ted as Il now'is In 1870, as present given 10
him h, n relation. GEORGE GRAY. since II
came into his possession in 1919, Mr.. COLLIER
.ays he has not made the slightest alteration
ar addition 10 the notes. 1t having been as
serted nv Mr.. HAMILTON, that the binding OF
the hook is of th9 reign of GEORGE H., MI
Cot.,HEE takes issue with hiIa, and offers Ill.
evidence several volumes in his own library.
b,und exactly like it, one of them dating as
FAR hacI; az 16E1 To strengthen his position,
he SAYS the rough calf binding of his volumes
is the same with that of lord ELLsMEEE's edi-
ton. whose antiquity has not been disputed
m 10, a,,,apdofipnS and annOt1-
tons, he had already noticed in his pubiica-
.ion of the corrected passages. The corrector
or annotator. on some occasions, thought ne
could improve upon IN original einehoauo",
and did so. The volume must have passed
through many hands, and some Of The owners
probably thought 10 improve on their prede-
ccssors, and thus in some instances erased,
substituted pencil marks, &c. But Mr.. Col
LrER explained all these things when he hrs'
exhibited the copy to the SHAKESPEARE society,
where il was thoroughly inspected without
discovering any Of the pencil marks now al
legged 10 exist
The following passage from the letter of Mr..
COLLIER, now under consideration, we regard
as settling the controversy
81 shall say nothing of the indisputalle character
OF many Oh the emandationS. The rev. Mr.. Dsce
has declared. ,n his own hand wrItins that som"
conicctIrai,' and in the conTsc oi his recent I'm
preston of the works OF Shakespeare he has pro
nounced such he unavoldahly adopted lrreslstl p
ble inelnhtabc. infailihle. sc. All this | mi<hi
have appropriated TO myself; and having burnt the
corrected foiio of 1922 mkht have established ior
mssei bTi- liter ShahSpearian reputation than a!
the commentators put together. II, therefore,.
haze committed fraud. II has been merely sratrll-
tnus certainly preferred q !terent course. ~
spite of the waruin: given n,e by a friend IN the
outset. that NY enemies would never forgive my
discovery. aud that their hostility would oathyr
my existence.
One ,hing is very evident, that the corree-
lions Published by Mr.. COLLIER. whether for
geres or not, are worth all the others put to-
gether. and that. although PorR. WARBUE-
TON and JOHNSON. successfully tried their
hands upon thai bow Of ULYSSES, the emen
dation of SHAKESPEARE. we do not believe
any human Icing that ever existed could
have made Them without assistance either
from the author himself or from his MS, or
from some other source far more authentic
than any commentator of The eighteenth, OF
nineteenth century ever possessed. We believe
that most men who have been long III the
habit of correcting the press will agree with
Us in this. Any intelligent foreman of a news
paper office viii say, that even now. when the
compositors. il journeymen, are almost al
ways well enough acquainted with their own
language to write u res pectablc paragraph for
the pa ;,er proof-sherts presented to him
every day which it would Ice impossible To
correct without the assistance OF the MS
If asked whether it be possible. ut the end OF
two centuries and 4 half, 10 correct such al
enormous mass of printed matter is COM
prised in the works Of SHAKspEARE-every
page being as full of plumbers rs any proof he
ever gets fresh from the hands of the compos-
i.or s.SjSraurp pitipr from the q II
thor himself or from his MSS. in such n
manner that the best judges should pronounce
the corrections suggested Irresistible, in
dubitable.' $50 admirable that they can
hardly be conjectural,' &c.,-we have no hcsi-
tation in saying that he would answer in the
negative That is precisely the question in
volyed in The charge under consideration
The volume which Mr. COLLIER says con-
tans the corrections which he has made pub
lie, contains vast many more than he has
given to the world--about twenty thousand
in all Now. main tain that no human in
genuity could have discovered the errors. and
the real words whose place they occupy, SO
success fully us 10 entitlc the emendations t.
the high praise bestowed upon them By the
Rev. Mr.. DYCE, who. of all other judges is
probably the best Our inference we have
J
rections and did not make them, and conId ne,
hare made them. The man never lived who
could have made them, without assistance
from some quarter which is not now accessi-
bic.
NEW MJsIC.--We are indebted 10 J. W. RAN
DoLpH for a revised edition of the Rfccabocca
Wal.-, and Capitoia Polka, both by WIN. Boil
LING. of Goochland-the former from the press
of HENRY MCCAFFREY, and the latter from
that of MILLER d BEACHAM, Baltimore. Mr..
Boiling is a gentleman OF fine musical taste