“It is to be observed,” says Mr. Malone, “that we are not told where the deed was first discovered; it is said in a mansion-house, but where situated is not stated. Another very remarkable incident is mentioned: the discoverer met the possessor, to whom he was unknown, at a coffee-house, or some public place, and the conversation turning on old autographs, of which the discoverer was a collector, the country gentleman said to him, ‘If you are for autographs, I am your man; come to my chambers, any morning, and rummage my old deeds, and you will find enough of them.’ Accordingly the discoverer goes, and taking down a parcel, in a few minutes lighted on the name of Shakspeare. The discovery of the title to a considerable estate was so fortunate and beneficial a circumstance to this unknown gentleman, that we cannot wonder at his liberality in giving up all his right to these valuable literary curiosities; but one naturally wishes to know in what county this estate lies, or whether any suit has been instituted within the last year or two, in consequence of such a discovery of title-deeds so little dreamt of.”
According to Mr. Malone, the great objections, critically speaking, to be brought against the manuscripts are, firstly, the orthography; this is not only not the orthography of Elizabeth or her time, but for the most part of no one age whatever. The spelling of the copulative _and_, and the preposition _for_, ande--forre, is unprecedented. “I have,” says Mr. Malone, “perused some thousands of deeds and manuscripts, and never once found such a spelling of them; the absurd way in which almost every word is overladen with both vowels and consonants, will strike every reader who has any knowledge on the subject.”
Quotations from manuscripts are made by Mr. Malone, from Chaucer downwards to the end of the sixteenth century, showing the progressive changes in the mode of orthography; and they certainly appear to prove, most satisfactorily, that the papers in which such laboured and capricious deformity of spelling is introduced, are an entire forgery. For example, the word _masterre_, at that period, was spelt maister. There is not a single authority for Londonne. So early as the time of Edward the First, Robert of Gloucester said,