66 66 ever he was changed the word " warre to warrs by superimposing the common English final s (exactly like that at the end of the word "throts on 1. 120) 15 over the terminal e. (It is a pleasure to add that Dr. Greg agrees with me as to this,-l. c., p. 243.) This "final s" really looks nothing like the mesial long s or the Italian s employed by Shakspere (cf. facsimile 11, ll. 113 and 120). As to the word "seriant" (sergeant) it is sufficient to say that our English confreres have failed to recognise the obvious fact that this word is one of the marginal additions made by C.16 Our facsimile of C's handwriting shows that this s is identical with his s in the word "Erasmus." That it was C who wrote the word seriant" is clinched by the fact that in this word we have a modern form of the letter r which is common in his handwriting but does not occur even once in the writing of D. Cf. facss. 14 and 17. The absence of the Italian long s from the Addition speaks strongly (but of course, not conclusively) against its Shaksperian authorship. 6. "The initial W in ["T3"] is remarkable in being unusually long and in leading off with a finely-drawn narrow opening which resembles an elongated needle-eye, a formation so rare that it suggests a personal peculiarity of the writer. . . . By a happy chance this elongated needle-eye occurs in a single instance in the Addition, in the word 'needs' (1. 130)." This, says Sir Edward, 15 Concerning this "small, round, looped" 8, Sir Edward makes the slightly misleading statement (Shakespeare's Hand, p. 98) that it was the form of the letter "used at the end of a word." Queen Elizabeth at least used it also initially and mesially. So too the old English long s, which Sir Edward says was employed at the beginning or in the middle of a word," was sometimes used as a terminal letter, e. g., in Cardinal Pole's letter to Queen Mary (Cotton MS. Titus B. ii. 177). 16 An error of the same kind was made by Mr. J. A. Herbert in The Library, Jan., 1917, p. 100. He finds a connecting link between the Addition and the Signatures in the fact that “ on page 1 [sic] of the play 'Willian' is written for 'William,' a similar blunder to that noticed in the signature to the deposition." Mr. Herbert failed to note not only that the word "Willian" (in the margin of 1. 10 of folio 8a) is in the handwriting of C but also that the first name in " Deposition" reads "Wilm," not "Willian." For this "Willian" cf. facs. 14. may "be considered sufficient to identify the writer of the Addition with the writer of the Signatures" (1. c., p. 80). As to this it is sufficient to say that the occurrence of such a hook proves absolutely nothing as to the writer's identity. Hooks of all kinds occur in innumerable manuscripts of the period in the writings of people who indulged in the common trick of beginning their words with these long straight or curved ascending strokes. The reader will find such upstrokes and just such a hook in Greene's diary referring to the Enclosure projects of 1614 (cf. facsimile in Halliwell-Phillipps, l. c., vol. 1, p. 248. Note especially the word "nor" in the third line). There is a long fine needle-eye hook in the word " Moor" in the margin of line 31 of folio 13b of The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore. 7. "The same delicate style [in the initial upstrokes] is maintained in both documents."-This proves nothing; such delicate upstrokes are common in manuscripts of the period. 8. "It is also a curious coincidence that m and w, the two letters which, as we have seen in surveying the upstrokes in the Addition, are, of all the amenable letters, those most subject to have the attachment of upstrokes, should happen to be the two letters carrying upstrokes in ["T3"]." The argument from the occurrence of the upstrokes in the single m proves nothing because the upstroke could be added to almost any minuscule. Sir Edward's argument is as invalid as it would be to contend that Shakspere did not write the Addition because his unquestioned initial m's all have initial upstrokes and only two-thirds of those in the Addition are provided with them. 9. "In many of the examples of the capital S both in the Signatures and in the Addition there is a tendency to sharpen the [central horizontal] curve projecting to the right, with the result of suggesting a caricature of a human chin drawn in profile. The action of the hand in this particular is common to the writer of the Signatures and the writer of the Addition" (l. c., p. 109). As to this it is sufficient to say that very few writing peculiarities are more common in Elizabethan manuscripts than this chin-like formation in the capital S. (For examples cf. the pages of the Thomas Moore written by C and others.) Besides, it is lacking in at least three of Shakspere's S's. Sir Edward has unquestionably made out as strong a case as |