Why not get down to brass tacks? We do not know much about Shakespeare's life. We do not know anything about his manuscripts, or the playhouse versions. We cannot even rely on the printed date of a quarto. We do not know whether a corrupt line was corrupted by Shakespeare or the printer or somebody else. Many emendations consist largely in a kind of scholarly punning. For example: Shakespeare wrote a line that every scholar remembers, for it is a causer of gray hairs and a prodigal spender of the midnight taper: "The blind Rush hath proclaimed his Bowells search." Johnson conjectures that four lines have been omitted. Steev. conj.: For "blind rush," read "mind rush." That is, the impetuousness of his thought makes one aware of how his instinct is struggling for the solution of his difficulties. Malone conj.: "Bowells lurch." Evidently referring to the sea-sickness of Antony after the battle of Actium. Craik conj.: "Rowell's search, meaning that his blind rush, that is headlong rush, is caused or indicated by the speed of his horse into which he has thrust his rowels." Cf. B. Jonson, "Every man out of His Humor"; "One of the rowels catched hold of the ruffle of my boot." Oechelhauser (_Einleitung_, p. 1185): But this must refer to the speed of the intellect going through purely idealistic experiences. There is no question here of either sea or land. Macbeth has not been near the sea and Henry V. has not yet set sail for France. As for horses, it is now well established that there were no horses in England; otherwise why should Richard have cried, "My kingdom for a horse"? If there had been horses, one could surely have bought one, especially a King, for 80 marks, the then ruling price in Schleswig-Holstein; and even the ecstasies of expression would not have made appropriate the offer of an entire kingdom. So they go "conjing" and "conjing" through desolate miles of notes. In spite of the fact that now and again a genuine bit of historic information, a light of interpretative intuition flashing from a scholar's note, does vivify and elucidate a puzzling line, or a line that you might pass over in an oblivious mood, nevertheless, is it not true that this whole institution of literary theology is a stupid superstition? There are plenty of unsolved problems in Shakespeare, fascinating questions of biography and interpretation to which conjectural answers are legitimate. But for illuminating answers, or partial answers, one has to go outside orthodox scholarship, to Walter Begley, to "The Shakespeare Problem Restated," by George C. Greenwood, to "Shakespeare's Mystery Play: A Study of The Tempest" by Colin Still, and to other heretical inquirers whom the pundits dismiss as cranks.