"Of that I shall have also cause to speak, And from his mouth, whose voice shall draw on more. But let this _scene_ be presently perform'd, _While I remaine behind to tell a tale That shall hereafter turn the hearers pale_." Now, while Mr. Collier publishes the specious change of "this same" to "this _scene_" he entirely passes over the substitution of two whole lines immediately below. And who needs to be told why? Mr. Collier could have the face and the folly to bring forward other priceless additions of whole lines, even, in "Henry VI,"-- "My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff: _To think I fain would keep it makes me laugh_,"-- but he had judgment enough to see, that, if it were known that his corrector had foisted the two lines in Italic letter above into the most solemn scene in "Hamlet," the whole round world would ring with scornful laughter. This collation of "Hamlet" has not only extinguished Mr. Collier as a man of veracity, but it has given the _coup de grace_ to any pretence of deference due to these marginal readings on any score. But it has done something else. It has brought facts to light which in themselves are inconsistent with the supposition that Mr. Collier or any other man forged all these marginal readings,--that is, wrote them in a pretended antique character,--and which, taken in connection with the evidence that we have already examined, settles this part of the question forever. The number of marginal alterations in this play, according to Dr. Ingleby's count, which we believe is correct, is four hundred and twenty-six. Now for how many of this number does the reader suppose that the sharp eyes and the microscopes of the British Museum and its unofficial aids have discovered the relics of pencil memorandums? Exactly ten,--as any one may see by examining Mr. Hamilton's collation. Of these ten, three are for punctuation,--the substitution of a period for a semicolon, the introduction of three commas, and the substitution of an interrogation point for a comma; the punctuation being of not the slightest service in either case, as the sense is as clear as noonday in all. Two are for the introduction of stage-directions in Act I., Sc. 3,--"_Chambers_," and, on the entrance of the Ghost, "_armed as before_"; neither of which, again, added anything to the knowledge of the modern reader. This leaves but five pencil memorandums of changes in the text; and they, with two exceptions, are the mere adding of letters not necessary to the sense.