In the account of Falstaff’s death in “Henry V.” (act ii. scene 3) we read, according to the received text, the well-known words, “His nose was as sharp as a pen, and ’a babbled of green fields.” In the first authentic edition, published in 1623, some years after Shakespeare’s death, the words, I believe, ran, “and a table of green fields,” which has no sense. Accordingly, an anonymous critic, reported by Theobald in the last century, corrected them to “and ’a talked of green fields,” Theobald himself improved the reading into “and ’a babbled of green fields,” which since his time has been the received text. But just twenty years ago an annotated copy of the edition of 1632 was found, annotated perhaps by a contemporary, which, among as many as 20,000 corrections of the text, substituted for the corrupt reading of 1623, the words “on a table of green frieze,” which has a sufficient sense, though far less acceptable to an admirer of Shakespeare, than Theobald’s. The genuineness of this copy with its annotations, as it is presented to us, I shall here take for granted. Now I understand, or at least will suppose, the argument, maintained in the article of the Magazine in question, to run thus:—“Theobald’s reading, as at present received, is to be retained, to the exclusion of the text of 1623 and of the emendation made on the copy of the edition of 1632;—to the exclusion of the text of 1623 because that text is corrupt; to the exclusion of the annotation of 1632 because it is anonymous.” I wish it then observed how many large questions are opened in the discussion which ensues, how many recondite and untractable principles have to be settled, and how impotent is logic, or any reasonings which can be thrown into language, to deal with these indispensable first principles. The first position is, “The authoritative reading of 1623 is not to be restored to the received text, because it is corrupt.” Now are we to take it for granted, as a first principle, which needs no proof, that a text may be tampered with, because it is corrupt? However the corrupt reading arose, it is authoritative. It is found in an edition, published by known persons, only six years after Shakespeare’s death, from his own manuscript, as it appears, and with his corrections of earlier faulty impressions. Authority cannot sanction nonsense, but it can forbid critics from experimentalizing upon it. If the text of Shakespeare is corrupt, it should be published as corrupt.