Fourteen years' additional consideration has not altered Mr. Knight's view of this passage. In 1853 we find him putting forth a prospectus for a new edition of Shakspeare, to be called "The Stratford Edition," various portions from which he sets before the public by way of sample. Here we have over again the same note as above, a little diversified, and placed parallel to Theobald's edition in this way: "It lies as sightly on the back of him As great Alcides' _shows_ upon an ass." "The folio reads 'Great Alcides' shoes.' Theobald says, 'But why _shoes_, in the name of propriety? For let Hercules and his _shoes_ have been really as big as they were ever supposed to be, yet they (I mean the _shoes_) would not have been an overload for an ass.'" "The 'shoes of Hercules' were as commonly alluded to in our old poets, as the _ex pede Herculem_ was a familiar allusion of the learned. It was not necessary that the ass should be overloaded with the shoes--he might be _shod_ (shoed) with them." Now who, in reading these parallel notes, but would suppose that it is Mr. Knight who restores _shoes_ to the text, and that it is Mr. Knight who points out the common allusion by our old poets to the shoes of Hercules? Who would imagine that the substance of this correction of Theobald was written by Steevens a couple of generations back, and that, consequently, Theobald's proposed alteration had never been adopted? I should not think of pointing out this, but that Mr. Knight himself, in this same prospectus, has taken Mr. Collier to task for the very same thing; that is, for taking credit, in his _Notes and Emendations_, for all the folio MS. corrections, whether known or unknown, necessary or unnecessary. Indeed, the very words of Mr. Knight's complaint against Mr. Collier are curiously applicable to himself: "It requires the most fixed attention to the nice distinctions of such constantly-recurring 'notes and emendations,' to disembarrass the cursory reader from the notion that these are _bona fide_ corrections of the common text.... "Who cares to know what errors are corrected in" (the forthcoming Stratford edition), "that exist in no other, and which have never been introduced into the modern text?"--_Specimen_, &c., p. xxiv. The impression one would receive from Mr. Knight's note upon Theobald is, that Shakspeare had his notion of _the shoes_ from "our old poets," while _the learned_ had _theirs_ from _ex pede Herculem_; but where the analogy lies, wherein the point, or what the application, is not explained. Steevens' original note was superior to this, in so much that he quoted the words of these old poets, thereby giving his readers an opportunity of considering the justness of the deduction. The only set-off to this omission by Mr. Knight is the introduction of "ex pede Herculem," the merit of which is doubtless his own.