"You leaden messengers, That ride upon the violent wings of fire, Fly with false aim; _move_ the _still-piecing_ air, That sings with piercing,--do not touch my lord!" _All's Well that Ends Well_, Act III. Sc. 2. "the elements, Of whom your swords are tempered, may as well _Wound_ the loud winds, or with bemock'd at stabs Kill the _still-closing_ waters, as diminish One dowle that's in my plume." _The Tempest_, Act III. Sc. 3. There can be little doubt that the clever corrector of MR. COLLIER'S folio had the last of these passages in view when he altered the word _move_ of the first, into _wound_ of the second: but in this instance he overshot the mark, in not perceiving the nice and subtle distinction which exists between them. The first implies possibility: the second impossibility. In the second, the mention of, to "wound the loud wind, or kill the still-closing water," is to set forth the absurdness of the attempt; but in the first passage there is a direct injunction to a possible act: "Fly with false aim, move the still-piecing air." To say "_wound_ the still-piecing air" would be to direct to be done, in one passage, that which the other passage declares to be absurd to expect! If it were necessary to disturb _move_ at all, the word _cleave_ would be, all to nothing, a better substitution than _wound_. Whether the annotating of MR. COLLIER'S folio be a real or a pseudo-antique, it is impossible to deny that its executor must have been a clever, as he was certainly _a slashing_ hitter. It cannot, therefore, be wondered that he should sometimes reach the mark: but that these corrections should be received with that blind and superstitious faith, so strangely exacted for them, can scarcely be expected. Indeed, it is to be regretted that they have been introduced to the public with such an uncompromising claim to authority; as the natural repugnance against _enforced_ opinion may endanger the success of the few suggestive emendations, to be found amongst them, which are really new and valuable. A. E. B. Leeds. P.S.--With reference to the above Note, which, although not before printed, has been for some time in the Editor's hands, I have observed in a Dublin paper of Saturday, April 9th, a very singular coincidence; viz. the recurrence of the self-same misprint corrected by Malone, but retained by Messrs. Collier and Knight in their respective editions of Shakspeare. Had the parallel expressions _still-closing_, _still-piecing_, which I have compared in the above paper, been noticed by these {404} editors, they would no more have hesitated in accepting Malone's correction than they would object to the same correction in the misprint I am about to point out; viz.