(Illustration)]
Of these, No. 1 ("_ffer Ph: 2_") explains that "the Emperour & the King
of Spaine" of the text are Ferdinand and Philip II.; No. 2 ("_ffr: 2
death_") directs attention to the mention of the decease of Francis II.
of France; and No. 3 ("_Dudley Q Eliz great favorite_") is apropos of
a supposition by the author of the History that the Virgin Queen "had
assigned Dudley for her own husband." Of the pencil-writing fac-similed
above, the "1559" and the "_e_" in No. 1 and the "_Dudley_" in No. 8 are
so faint as to be almost indistinguishable; the rest of it, though very
much rubbed, is plain enough to those who have good eyes. As to the
period when these annotations were written, there can be no doubt that
it was between 1636 and the end of the third quarter of that century;
yet the difference between Nos. 1 and 2 and the last line of No. 8 is
very noticeable. There are many other words in pencil in the same volume
quite as modern-looking as "_favorite_" in No. 3. Does not this make it
clear that the pencil-writing on the margins of Mr. Collier's folio, the
greater part of which is so indistinct that to most eyes it is illegible
without the aid of a magnifying-glass, and of which not a few of the
most legible words are incomplete, may be the pencil-memorandums of a
man who entered these marginal readings in the century 1600? Who shall
undertake to say that pencil-writing so faint as to have its very
existence disputed, and which is written over so as to be partially
concealed, possesses a decided modern character, when such writing
as that of "_favorite_" above exists, both in pencil and in ink, the
production of which between 1636 and 1675 it would be the merest folly
to question? The possibility of the readings having been first entered
in pencil need not be discussed.
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