The peculiar and unusual epithet "civil," here applied to night, at once assured me of the accuracy of the proposed reading, it having evidently suggested itself as the antithesis of "rude" just before applied to day; the civil, accommodating, concealing night being thus contrasted with the unaccommodating, revealing day. It is to be remarked, moreover, that as this epithet _civil_ is, through its ordinary signification, brought into connexion with what precedes it, so is it, through its unusual meaning of _grave_, brought into connexion with what follows, it thus furnishing that equivocation of sense of which our great dramatist is so fond, rarely missing an opportunity of "paltering with us in a double sense." I think, therefore, I may venture to offer you the proposed emendation as rigorously fulfilling all the requirements of the text, while at the same time it necessitates a very trifling literal disturbance of the old reading, since by the simple change of the letters _naw_ into _ded_, we convert "runaways'" into "rude day's," of which it was a very easy misprint. Having offered you an emendation of my own, I cannot miss the opportunity of sending you {217} another, for which I am indebted to a critical student of Shakspeare, my friend Mr. W. R. Grove, the Queen's Counsel. In _All's Well that ends Well_, the third scene of the Second Act opens with the following speech from Lafeu: "They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things, supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors; ensconcing ourselves in a seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear." On reading this passage as thus printed, it will be seen that the two sentences of which it is composed are in direct contradiction to each other; the first asserting that we have philosophers who give a causeless and supernatural character to things ordinary and familiar: the second stating as the result of this, "that we make trifles of terrors," whereas the tendency would necessarily be to make "terrors of trifles." The confusion arises from the careless pointing of the first sentence. By simply shifting the comma at present after "things," and placing it after "familiar," the discrepancy between the two sentences disappears, as also between the two members of the first sentence, which are now at variance. It should be pointed thus: "They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless." It is singular that none of the editors should have noticed this defect, which I have no doubt will hereafter be removed by the adoption of a simple change, that very happily illustrates the importance of correct punctuation. R. H. C.