human
) explains that
gpt
of the text are Ferdinand and Philip II.; No. 2 (
human
) directs attention to the mention of the decease of Francis II. of France; and No. 3 (
gpt
) is apropos of a supposition by the author of the History that the Virgin Queen
human
Of the pencil-writing fac-similed above, the
gpt
and the
human
in No. 1 and the
gpt
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
human
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