In a small pamphlet, published a month or two since by MR. HALLIWELL, in opposition to _Mr. Collier's_ folio, he lays down at p. 7. "a canon in philology;" from which he deduces the following as one of the "_circumstances under which no manuscript emendation of so late a date as 1632 will be admissible_." "It will not be admissible in any case where good sense can be satisfactorily made of the passage as it stands in the original, even although the correction may appear to give greater force or harmony to the passage." Now, in the case referred to from _Measure for Measure_, I had previously ("N. & Q." Vol. v., p. 410.) shown to MR. HALLIWELL that "_good sense can be satisfactorily made of the passage as it stands in the original_;" and therefore I feel the greater curiosity to know what _this verb_ can be which carries conviction to him _even in the face of his own canon_? A. E. B. Leeds. * * * * * RESTIVE. Can the editor, or any of the readers of "N. & Q." account for the very prevalent misuse of the word _restive_ or _restiff_? Of course, everybody knows that the affix _ive_ or _iff_ does not imply "privation," but the opposite; and that therefore _restive_ means--as we find it defined in our dictionaries--"unwilling to stir," "inclined or determined to rest," &c.; but yet the most common use of the word now would require it to mean "unwilling to rest," "rest_less_," "unquiet," &c. As the word is most frequently employed in newspaper paragraphs, in describing accidents arising from the _restiveness_, or much more frequently _restlessness_, of horses, we can easily account for the misuse of the word in such cases: as the free use of the whip, which is sure to follow the restiveness of a horse or ass, is almost as surely followed by a sudden restlessness, at least when the nobler animal is under chastisement; what ends in restlessness and running away has thus got confounded with what it only has become, in some cases; while in others nothing is more common than to find the sudden shying and starting off of a horse, which has been anything but _restive_, described as such by some forgetfulness of the meaning of the word. Were the misuse of the word confined to such cases, however, it might not be worthy of notice in "N. & Q.", but I think it will be found to extend further: for instance, in _The Eclipse of Faith_ (recently published), although evidently written by a scholar, and one who weighs the meaning of words, I find the following passage: "'But,' said Fellowes, rather warmly, for he felt rather _restive_ at this part of Harrington's discourse," &c.