Your tests, your sharp eyes, and your
optical aids, even that dreadful "microscope bearing the imposing and
scientific name of the Simonides Uranius," which carried such terror to
the heart of Mr. Collier, will fail to convince the world that he spent
hour after hour and day after day in labors the only purpose of which
was directly at war with that which you attribute to him, and which, if
he made these manuscript corrections, must have been the motive of his
labors.
But if Mr. Collier, or some other man of this century, did not make
these orthographical changes, when were they made? Let us trace the
fortunes of _vile_, which is a good test word, as being characteristic,
and as it occurs several times in "Hamlet," and is there thrice
modernized by the manuscript corrector. It occurs five times in that
play, as the reader may see by referring to Mrs. Clarke's "Concordance."
In the folio of 1623, in all these cases, except the first, it is
spelled _vild_; in the folio of 1632, with the same exception, we also
find _vild_; even in the folio of 1664[ll] the spelling in all these
instances remains unchanged; but in the folio of 1685, _vild_ gives
place to _vile_ in every case. As with "vild," so with the other words
subjected to like changes.
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