Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/358

 scope applied by Professor Maskelyne (Times, 16 July) proved that in some cases they underlie the ink-writing of the so-called 'Old Corrector.' Collier (7 July) denied that he had written either ink-notes or pencillings, and refused to discuss the matter further. He also repeated his former statement of the recognition of the folio, notes and all, by Mr. Parry in 1853. When, however, it was now shown to Mr. Parry, he repudiated it at once, as differing from his own lost volume in every respect ; he had hastily assumed the identity in 1853 without seeing the book, from a facsimile of part of a page. Upon this point Collier flatly contradicted him, and their statements (20 July, 1 Aug.) remained hopelessly at variance. Early in 1860 Hamilton's ' Inquiry,' &c., impeached the Perkins folio in more detail, and brought within the charge of spuriousness not only the manuscript notes in the Ellesmere folio, 1623, but a number of Shakespearean documents published by Collier at various times since 1831. As regards the Bridgewater House papers this was no more than a confirmation of the opinion of Mr. Halliwell, published as far back as 1853 ; but further forgeries were now brought to light at Dulwich College, and one even in the State Paper Office. A lengthy 'Reply' from Collier speedily followed. It was weak, disingenuous, and ineffective, and by its gross insinuations it further embittered an acrimonious contest. He produced, indeed, in a letter from Dr. H. Wellesley, evidence of some weight to confirm his account of the purchase of the folio. The terms of the letter, however, were ambiguous, and the writer's refusal to be more explicit left it still doubtful whether after all he referred to the same volume. Meanwhile Collier did not lack zealous support in the press. All that could be said for the ' Old Corrector ' was urged by H. Merivale in the ' Edinburgh Review ' (April 1860), but his remarks on Collier himself were by no means flattering. The adverse view was ably and temperately argued by T. J. Arnold in a series of articles in ' Fraser's Magazine ' (January, February, May, 1860). The verdict of all competent paleographers, with Sir F. Madden and T. D. Hardy at their head, went the same way, nor could any trained eye judge otherwise. Whether Collier had been himself the victim of fraud or its actual contriver was left undecided. Besides the corrections in the two folios, he had printed, so far as was known down to the end of 1860, a dozen separate documents adjudged to be spurious, all of which he distinctly claimed to have discovered himself at various times and in four different localities. It was shown beyond the possibility of doubt that in editing a genuine letter at Dulwich he had not scrupled to falsify it in order to introduce Shakespeare's name. But the full extent of the fabrications to which he gave currency has never been ascertained. At Dulwich alone sixteen more forgeries were detected in 1881. All of them had been printed by Collier, except the interlineations in Alleyn's 'Diary,' and convincing proof that he forged the latter was before long supplied. After his ' Reply ' he remained obstinately mute on the subject, even when, in 1861, directly challenged in a volume from Dr. C. M. Ingleby.

In 1862 he published 'The Works of Edmund Spenser,' 5 vols., an excellent edition, with the completest life of the poet that had as yet appeared. During the same year he projected a series of reprints in very limited impressions; and in this way, between 1863 and 1871, he issued a large number of rare pieces in prose and verse of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His 'Bibliographical and Critical Account,' &c., 2 vols. 1865, already mentioned, gave in a different form the fruit of his lifelong researches in the same field, and is in many respects the most practically useful of all his works. With the exception of a new edition of his 'History of English Dramatic Poetry,' &c., 1875, from which none of the spurious matter was withdrawn, his subsequent productions were all privately printed. Foremost in interest was the autobiographical fragment, 'An Old Man's Diary Forty Years ago' (1832-3), 4 parts, 1871-2, containing a mass of curious literary gossip extending back into the preceding century. In a 'Trilogy,' 1874, he returned once more to the Perkins folio, for the purpose of showing how many of its manuscript readings had been adopted by Dyce and other editors. After an attempt to prove (Athenæum, 28 March 1874) that Shakespeare was the author of ' Edward III,' he reprinted the play itself; and finally, 1875-8, he issued (fifty-eight copies only) yet another edition of Shakespeare, 8 vols., 'with the purest text and the briefest notes.' It included not only 'Edward III,' but 'The Two Noble Kinsmen,' ' A Yorkshire Tragedy,' and ' Mucedorus,' and the preface was dated on his eighty-ninth birthday. He died at Maidenhead on 17 Sept. 1883. His library was sold on 7-9 Aug. 1884 ; many of the lots were enriched with his own notes, and some fetched extraordinary prices. A transcript in his own hand from Alleyn's ' Diary ' (lot 200, now at Dulwich) yielded the proof hitherto lacking that he was personally guilty of actual forgery. Interlineations agreeing with the spurious entries in the original diary appear