The blot which disfigures the last line of this fine stanza, in the use of the word _lay_ for _lie_, has, I believe, been often observed; but the question I wish to throw out for the consideration of your readers is, whether it is quite certain that Lord Byron really wrote, or intended to write, the word _lay_. The following reasons appear to me to render it improbable that he did. 1. His lordship is admittedly, I believe, a great master of the English language, and would therefore be very unlikely to commit the somewhat vulgar blunder of writing _lay_ for _lie_, whatever might be the requirements of the rhyme. 2. This improbability is rendered much stronger by his having used the word _lies_ in the line next but one preceding; and therefore his attention could hardly have been averted from the distinction between the two words. 3. Though not professing to be a critic, it does appear to me that the sense itself of the line (taking the word _lay_ in the sense of _lie_) is weak and unmeaning, or at least far from worthy of the former part of the stanza. I am not perhaps bound to offer any emendation of the line, but in default of anything better I will venture to suggest that his lordship may have written, or intended to write, the word _pray_ as the concluding word of the stanza. The sense, with _pray_ instead of _lay_, would not, in my judgment, be inferior to that of the line in its present form; nor would it be in itself inappropriate, as allusion has just been made to man being sent "howling to his gods;" and, at all events, by the adoption of _pray_, an almost unpardonable grammatical error is avoided. PRISCIAN. I cannot agree with T. W. as to the stanza quoted from the Hymn to the Ocean. "Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since" (has wasted them), is very good sense, and much more Byronic than the cacophonous inversion T. W. proposes. _Blackwood's_ criticism of this hymn (probably by the Professor) is not at all too severe. Noble as are some parts of it, it is full of cockneyisms and platitudes. What can be worse than "There let him _lay_." Again: "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!" is most magnificent in its sonorous march: but the next line is equally absurd: "Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee _in vain_!" _In vain!_ Why, did not Columbus discover a world? Did not Nelson make England's fame eternal? Do not our tea, coffee, wine, and cotton cross the surging seas? As to the "Gladiator" stanza, nobody can doubt that _rushed_ is the right and most poetic reading. _Rush_ is a strong word: _gush_ a weak one, much hackneyed by neoteric poetasters. Byron never used _gush_ in such a sense. Thoughts do not _gush_, though blood and water may. I therefore venture to differ from T. W. and his two illustrious friends. MORTIMER COLLINS.