hen he should groan."

In p. 73. we find--

"Soul-tainted flesh," &c.

substituted for "_foul_ tainted flesh;" and we are told that the critics
have been all wrong, who supposed that Shakspeare intended any "metaphor
from the kitchen!" If so, what meaning can be attached to the line--

"And salt too little which may season give?"

If that is not a metaphor from the kitchen, I know not what could be? I
still believe that "foul tainted flesh" is the correct reading. The
expression "_soul_-tainted flesh" is not intelligible. It should rather be
"_soul-tainting_ flesh." The _soul_ may be tainted by the _flesh_: but how
the _flesh_ can be _soul-tainted_, I cannot understand.

Turning further back, to p. 69., we find it asserted, quite dogmatically,
that the word "truths" of the folios ought to be "proofs;" but no reason
whatever is offered for the change. I cannot help thinking that "seeming
_truths_" is much the most poetical expression, while in "seeming _proofs_"
there is something like redundancy,--to say nothing of the phrase being
infinitely more common-place!

In the play of the _Tempest_, p. 4., the beautiful passage--

"he being thus _lorded_
Not only with what my revenue yielded," &c.,

is degraded into "he being thus _loaded_," &c. Can there be a moment's
doubt that "lorded" was the word used by Shakspeare? It is completely in
his style, which was on all occasions to coin verbs out of substantives, if
he could. "He being thus _lorded_," i. e. _ennobled_ "with what my revenue
yielded," is surely a far superior expression to "being thus _loaded_,"--as
if the poet were speaking of a costermonger's donkey!

Again, in p. 10.:

"Wherefore _this_ ghastly looking?"

or, this ghastly appearance? Who will venture to say, that the substitution
of "_thus ghastly_ looking" is not decidedly a change for the worse?

In the Merchant of Venice, p. 118.:

"and leave itself _unfurnished_,"

is altered to "leave itself _unfinished_!" I confess I cannot see the
slightest warrant for this change. The words--

"having made one,
Methinks IT should have power to steal _both his_,"

distinctly show that the author was alluding to the _eye_ only, and not to
the _portrait_ and how could the eye (already _made_) describe itself as
_unfinished_? Surely the sense is _unfurnished_, that is, _unfurnished_
with its companion, or probably with the other accessories required to
complete