Here all is congruous and clear. This slight correction of a palpable printer's error redeems a fine passage hitherto entirely unintelligible. I do not insist upon the correction in the fourth line of _lack_ for _crack_, yet what can be meant by _cracking a duty_? The duke, in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, speaks of his daughter as "_lacking_ duty;" and seeing how very negligently the whole passage has been given in the folio, I think there is good ground for its reception. With regard to the correction in the second line, I feel confident, and doubt not that it will have the approbation of all who, like myself, feel assured that most of the difficulties in the text of our great poet are attributable to careless printer or transcriber. When I proposed (Vol. vi., p. 468.) to read "_rail_ at once," instead of "_all_ at once," in _As You Like It_, Act III. Sc. 5., I thought the conjecture my own, having then only access to the editions of Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight; I consequently said, "It is somewhat singular that the passage should hitherto have passed unquestioned." My surprise was therefore great, on turning to the passage in the _Variorum Shakspeare_, to find the following note by Warburton, which had escaped my notice: "If the speaker intended to accuse the person spoken to only for _insulting_ and exulting, then, instead of '_all_ at once,' it ought to have been _both_ at once. But, examining the crime of the person accused, we shall discover that the line is to be read thus: 'That you insult, exult, and _rail_ at once,' for these three things Phoebe was guilty of. But the Oxford editor improves it, and, for _rail_ at once, reads _domineer_." I have no recollection of having ever read the note before, and certainly was not conscious of it. The coincidence, therefore, may be considered (as Mr. Collier observed in respect to the reading of _palpable_ for _capable_) as much in favour of this conjecture. {6} That the most careful printers can _misread_, and consequently _misprint_, copy, is evident from the following error in my last Note:--Vol. vi., p. 584., col. 1, for "in the edition which I gave of the _part_," read "_poet_." This mistake, like most of those I have indicated in the first folio Shakspeare, might easily occur if the word was indistinctly written. S. W. SINGER. Mickleham. * * * * * NOTES ON BACON'S ESSAYS. As I find that the editor of _Bacon's Essays_ for Bohn's _Standard Library_ has not verified the quotations, I venture to send you a few "N. & Q." on them, which I hope to continue from time to time, if they prove acceptable. In compliance with the recommendation of MR. SYDNEY SMIRKE and the REV. H. T. ELLACOMBE (Vol. vi., p. 558.), I append my name and address. N.B. The paging and notes of Bohn's edition are followed throughout.