Some time ago I ventured to call the attention of your readers to what I regarded as an oversight of the commentators on Shakspeare, in reference to a certain passage of the _Tempest_ in which the word "rack" occurs. It seemed to me that, with the exception of Malone, having overlooked the construction of the passage, they had been misled by the authority of Horne Tooke; for to every other part being conceded its due weight and meaning, and assuming, with Horne Tooke, that Shakspeare understood English at least as well as his commentators, I could not conceive it possible that there could be a serious doubt as to the value of the word in question. I have no wish, now, to say a word in addition upon this point, firmly convinced as I am that the time will come when "(w)rack" will be generally received by critics as it always has been by everybody else, as the true reading; but I have a few observations to make on the derivation of the word used by Shakspeare and others, with which it has been so often identified, which I trust will be found worthy of a few moments' consideration. Horne Tooke is justly regarded as a very high authority, and certainly I should be the last to deny how deeply philology is indebted to the originality of his views; yet with the respect that I entertain for his labours, I see no reason why my judgment should abdicate its place, even though its conclusion should be that he was not always infallible. In considering the meaning of "rack" in the _Tempest_, I treated the question entirely as one of construction, and therefore allowed the supposed derivation of the same word in other places from Recan, _to reek_, to stand unexamined and unquestioned; but let us look now a little more closely into the matter, and I think I shall be able to make it appear that this conclusion is not altogether so unquestionable as many may have supposed. That the application of the word may be more clearly seen, I beg leave to quote a few passages: "That which is now a horse, even with a thought, The _rack_ dislimns, and makes it indistinct As water is in water." _Ant. & Cleo._ Act IV. Sc. 12. "Far swifter than the sailing _rack_ that gallops Upon the wings of angry winds." _Women Pleased_, Act IV. Sc. 1. "Shall I stray In the middle air, and stay The sailing _rack_?" _Faithful Shepherdess_, Act V. Sc. 1. "But as we often see, against some storm, A silence in the heavens, the _rack_ stand still." _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2. "The winds in the upper regions which move the clouds above (which we call the _rack_)." Bacon, _Naturall Historie_.