It would seem difficult to defend this couplet upon any accepted theory of aesthetics, rhyme, or syntax; and the "Household Tub" provoked quite naturally a shout of derision from all the critics; it became the poetical scandal of the day. Jeffery, mindful of "the established laws" of poetic art, protested that there was nothing, down to the wiping of shoes, or the evisceration of chickens, which may not be introduced in poetry, if this is tolerated. The tub, in short, proved intolerable to the reviewers; and when next the poem appeared in a new edition, that of 1815, Wordsworth transmuted the craft into a green turtle shell, noting the change as made "upon the suggestion of a Friend": The shell of a green Turtle, thin And hollow: you might sit therein, It was so wide and deep. 'Twas even the largest of its kind, Large, thin, and light as birch tree rind; So light a shell that it would swim, And gaily lift its fearless brim Above the tossing waves. Lamb's comment upon this change was as follows: I am afraid lest that substitution of a shell (a flat falsification of the history) for the household implement, as it stood at first, was a kind of tub thrown out to the beast, or rather thrown out for him. The tub was a good honest tub in its place, and nothing could be fairly said against it. You say you made the alteration for the "friendly reader," but the "malicious" will take it to himself. Damn 'em, if you give 'em an inch, etc. Wordsworth, however, instead of restoring the old text, went on amending, and with reason; the reading just given is diffuse. But see now the third and final form which he gave to the passage. The sublimation of the Household Tub is now completed; it becomes, at last, A shell of ample size, and light As the pearly car of Amphitrite, That sportive dolphins draw. And as a Coracle that braves On Vaga's breast the fretful waves, This shell upon the deep would swim. Here again are some new readings that Wordsworth discarded after long trial. A well-known sonnet, one of his earliest, began thus in 1807: I grieved for Buonaparte, with a vain And an unthinking grief! The vital blood Of that Man's mind, what can it be? What food Fed his first hopes? What knowledge could he gain? In 1815 we find the passage rewritten as follows: I grieved for Buonaparte, with a vain And an unthinking grief! for, who aspires To genuine greatness but from just desires, And knowledge such as He could never gain? But in the later editions the first reading was restored, except the words "vital blood," and we now read: The tenderest mood Of that man's mind, what can it be?