transformed to "sharp'st _knife_ of justice:" but I cannot assent to this change. The obvious meaning of the poet is, that the contempt of the world, "_shutting all doors_" against the accused, is a sharper _kind_ of justice than any which the law could inflict: but, to be given up to "the sharp'st _knife_ of justice" could only mean, being consigned to the public executioner,--which was just what Katherine was deprecating. In p. 325. the lines relating to Wolsey's foundations at Ipswich and Oxford are printed thus in the folio-- "one of which fell with him, Unwilling to outlive the good that did it:" that is, unwilling to outlive the virtues which prompted it,--a passage teeming with poetical feeling: but the commentator has ruthlessly altered it to-- "Unwilling to outlive the _good man_ did it;" which, I submit, not only destroys all the poetry, but is decidedly _not English!_ The next passage I would notice is from _Much Ado about Nothing_, p. 76. How, I would ask, can the phrase-- "And sorrow wag," be a misprint for "call sorrow joy?" No compositor, or scribe either, could possibly be misled by any sound from the "reader" into such a mistake as that! The words "and sorrow wag," I admit, are not sense; but the substitution of "call sorrow joy" strikes me as bald and common-place in the extreme, and there is no pretence for its having any authority. If, then, we are to have a mere fanciful emendation, why not "bid sorrow wag?" This would be doing far less violence to the printed text, for it would only require the alteration of two letters in the word "and;" while it would preserve the Shakspearian character of the passage. "Wag" is a favourite expression in {451} the comedies of the Bard, and occurs repeatedly in his works. The passage would then run thus-- "If such a one will smile and stroke his beard, _Bid sorrow wag_--cry hem! when he should groan." In p. 73. we find-- "Soul-tainted flesh," &c. substituted for "_foul_ tainted flesh;" and we are told that the critics have been all wrong, who supposed that Shakspeare intended any "metaphor from the kitchen!" If so, what meaning can be attached to the line-- "And salt too little which may season give?" If that is not a metaphor from the kitchen, I know not what could be? I still believe that "foul tainted flesh" is the correct reading. The expression "_soul_-tainted flesh" is not intelligible. It should rather be "_soul-tainting_ flesh." The _soul_ may be tainted by the _flesh_: but how the _flesh_ can be _soul-tainted_, I cannot understand. Turning further back, to p. 69., we find it asserted, quite dogmatically, that the word "truths" of the folios ought to be "proofs;" but no reason whatever is offered for the change. I cannot help thinking that "seeming _truths_" is much the most poetical expression, while in "seeming _proofs_" there is something like redundancy,--to say nothing of the phrase being infinitely more common-place!