The word _building_ has always been a stumbling-block to editors. Johnson first proposed to read _binding_, and his successors have adopted it, and such is now the generally received reading. Mr. Collier's old corrector is also in favour of the same change. I have always felt convinced, however, that _building_ was the word which Shakspeare wrote. That which answers to it in the A.-S. is _bytling_, _bytleing_, a building; _bytlian_, to build; which are inflected from _byth_, _biotul_, a hammer or mallet (whence our _beetle_); so that the strict meaning of the verb is _firmare_, _confirmare_, to fasten, close, or bind together. This will give much the same meaning to _building_ as that implied in the proposed substitute _binding_. Not having met with the word used in this peculiar sense by any old writer, I could not venture to maintain the reading of the folio on these grounds, which I have just mentioned, alone. At length, however, I have been successful, and I am now able to quote a passage from a work published very shortly before this play, entitled: "The Jewel House of Art and Nature", &c., "faithfully and familiarly set downe according to the Author's owne experience, by Hugh Platte, of Lincoln's Inne, gentleman. London, 1594." in which this word _building_ is used in precisely the same sense as that which I defend. In "the Preface of the Author," the following passage occurs: "I made a condicionall promise of some farther discouerie in arteficiall conceipts, then either my health {195} or leisure would then permit: I am now resolued (notwithstanding the vnkind acceptation of my first fruits, which then I feared and hath since falne out, is a sufficient release in law of the condition) to make the same in some sort absolute (though not altogether according to the fulnesse of my first purpose), and to become a _building_ word unto me." I apprehend that this parallel instance is all that is wanting to preserve, for the future, the reading of the first folio unimpaired. The third passage on which I have a remark to offer, is that much tormented one in Act III. Sc. 1., which stands in my first folio thus: "_Cla._ The prenzie, Angelo? _Isa._ Oh, 'tis the cunning liuerie of hell, The damnest bodie to inuest, and couer In prenzie gardes."