"But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours; Most busy, least when I do it." with the following note-- "The meaning of this passage seems to have been misunderstood by all the commentators. Ferdinand says that the thoughts of Miranda so refresh his labours, that when he is most busy he seems to feel his toil _least_. It is printed in the folio 1623,-- 'Most busy _lest_ when I do it,' --a trifling error of the press corrected in the folio 1632, although Theobald tells us that both the oldest editions read _lest_. Not catching the poet's meaning, he printed,-- 'Most busy-_less_ when I do it,' and his supposed emendation has ever since been taken as the text; even Capell adopted it. I am happy in having Mr. Amyot's concurrence in this restoration." Mr. Knight adopts Theobald's reading, and Mr. Dyce approves it in the following words:-- "When Theobald made the emendation, 'Most busy-_less_,' he observed that 'the corruption was so very little removed from the truth of the text, that he could not afford to think well of his own sagacity for having discovered it.' The correction is, indeed, so obvious that we may well wonder that it had escaped his predecessors; but we must wonder ten times more that one of his successors, in a blind reverence for the old copy, should re-vitiate the text, and defend a corruption which outrages language, taste, and common sense." Although at an earlier period of life I too adopted Theobald's supposed emendation, it never satisfied me. I have my doubts whether the word _busyless_ existed in the poet's time; and if it did, whether he could possibly have used it here. Now it is clear that _labours_ is a misprint for _labour_; else, to what does "when I do _it_" refer? _Busy lest_ is only a typographical error for _busyest_: the double superlative was commonly used, being considered as more emphatic, by the poet and his contemporaries. Thus in Hamlet's letter, Act ii. Sc. 2.: "I love thee best, O _most best_." and in _King Lear_, Act ii. Sc. 3.: "To take the basest and _most poorest_ shape." The passage will then stand thus:-- "But these sweet thoughts, do even refresh my labour, Most busiest when I do it." The sense will be perhaps more evident by a mere transposition, preserving every word: "But these sweet thoughts, most busiest when I do My labour, do even refresh it."