It is not only probable that they would
be so entered, but that would be the method naturally adopted by a
corrector of any prudence, who had not an authoritative copy before him;
and that this corrector had such aid not one now pretends to believe. We
shall also find, farther on, that pencil-memorandums or guides, the good
faith of which no one pretends to gainsay, were used upon this volume. A
similar use of pencil is common enough nowadays. We know some writers,
who, when correcting their own proofs, always go over them with pencil
first, and on a second reading make the corrections, often with material
changes, in ink over the pencil-marks. Even letters are, or rather were,
written in this manner by young people in remote rural districts, where
an equal scarcity of money and paper made an economy of the latter
necessary,--a fact which would have a bearing upon the pencilled Marston
letter, but for one circumstance to be noticed hereafter.
But one point, and that apparently the strongest, made against another
of Mr. Collier's MSS., we are able to set aside entirely. It is that
alleged identity of origin between the List of Players appended to the
letter from the Council to the Lord Mayor of London and the well-known
"Southampton" letter signed H.
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