That text is abominably corrupt beyond a doubt; it contains many impossible readings, which must be misprints or otherwise erroneous; it contains also many improbable readings, harsh, strained, mean, inadequate, and the like. Now it is excessively unlikely that a truly corrected copy, could we find one, would remove all the impossible readings, and leave all the improbable ones. It is still more unlikely that, in correcting the improbable passages, it would leave those to which Mr. A., or Mr. B., or Mr. C., ay, or all of us together, have formed an attachment from habit, predilection, or prejudice of some kind. Such phrases as "the blanket of the dark," "a man that hath had losses," "unthread the rude eye of rebellion," and many more, have become consecrated in our eyes by habit; they have assumed, as it were, the character of additions to our ordinary vocabulary; and yet I think sound reason itself, and that kind of secondary reason or instinct which long familiarity with critical pursuits gives us, combine to suggest that, _occurring in a corrupt text_, they are probably corruptions; and corruptions in lieu of some very common and even prosaic phrases, such as the corrector substitutes for them, and such as no conjectural critic would venture on. In short, the kind of disappointment which many of these corrections unavoidably give to the reader, is with me an argument in favour of their genuineness, not against it. And, lastly, in so very corrupt a text, it is _a priori_ probable that many phrases which appear to need no correction at all, are misprints or {98} mistakes nevertheless. It is probably that the true text of the poet contained many variations utterly unimportant, as well as others of importance, from the printed one. Now here it is precisely, that we find in the corrector what we should anticipate, and what it is difficult to account for on any theory disparaging his authority. What could have induced him to make such substitutions as _swift_ for "sweet," _then_ for "there," _all arose_ for "are arose," _solemn_ for "sorry," _fortune_ for "nature," to quote from a single play, the _Comedy of Errors_, which happens to lie before me,--none of them necessary emendations, most of them trivial, unless he had under his eye some original containing those variations, to which he wished his own copy to conform? It is surely wild guessing to attribute corrections like these to a mere wanton itch for altering the text; and yet no other alternative is suggested by the corrector's enemies. I am myself as yet a sceptic in the matter, being very little disposed to hasty credulity on such occasions, especially where there is a possibility of deceit. But I must say that the doctrine of probabilities seems to me to furnish strong arguments in the corrector's favour; and that the attacks of professed Shakspearian critics on him, both in and out of "N. & Q.," have hitherto rather tended to raise him in my estimation. H. M.