LLIER'S volume appeared, it was
again suggested as if it were new.

Let us select a still more palpable instance (_Measure for Measure_, Act
II. Sc. 1.): "If this law hold in Vienna ten years, I'll rent the fairest
house in it after threepence a _bay_." If this reading be wrong, which I do
not admit, the second change in the first letter creates an obvious
alteration, _day_, making at least some sort of sense, if not the correct
one. Some years ago, I was rash enough to suggest _day_, not then observing
the alteration was to be found in Pope's edition, and MR. COLLIER has
fallen into the same oversight, when he gives it as one of the corrector's
new emendations. I regard these oversights as very pardonable, and
inseparable from any extensive attempt to correct the state of the text.
All Shakspearian conjectures either anticipate or are anticipated.

Mr. Dyce being _par excellence_ the most judicious verbal critic of the
day, it will scarcely be thought egotistical to claim for myself the
priority for one of his emendations--"_Avoid thee_, friend," in the _Few
Notes_, p. 31., a reading I had mentioned in print before the appearance of
that work. This is merely one of the many evidences that all verbal
conjecturers must often stumble on the same suggestions. Even the MS.
corrector's alteration of the passage is not new, it being found in Pope's
and in several other editions of the last century; another circumstance
that exhibits the great difficulty and danger of asserting a conjecture to
be absolutely unknown.

J. O. HALLIWELL

P.S. The subject is, of course, capable of almost indefinite extension, but
the above hasty notes will probably occupy as much space as you would be
willing to spare for its consideration.

_Alcides' Shoes._--There is merit, in my opinion, in elucidating, if it
were only a single word in our great dramatist. Even the attempt, though
mayhap a failure, is laudable. I therefore have made, and shall make, hit
or miss, some efforts that way. For example, I now grapple with that very
odd line--

"As great Alcides' shoes upon an ass."--_King John_, Act II. Sc. 1.

out of which no one has as yet extracted, or I think ever will extract, any
good meaning: _Argal_, {267} it is corrupt. Now it appears to me that the
critic who proposed to read _shows_, came very near the truth, and would
have hit it completely if he had retained _Alcides'_, for it is the
genitive with _robe_ understood. To explain: