es. In due
time, as the crops had ripened, he convened the husbandmen, putting the
same question to them as he did the preceding year. Resolved not to be
deceived as before, they chose for their share what was below ground;
on which the Devil immediately set to work and collected the harvest,
leaving them to dig up the worthless roots. Having experienced that
they were not a match for the Devil, they grew weary of his friendship;
and it fortunately turned out that, on departing with his wheat, he
took the road from Lughman to Barikab, which is proverbially intricate,
and where he lost his road, and has never been heard of or seen since."

Surely here is simple coincidence, for there could scarcely ever have been
any communication between such distant regions in remote times, and the
legend has hardly been carried to Afghanistan by Europeans. There is, as
will be observed, a difference in the character of the legends. In the
Oriental one it is the Devil who outwits the peasants. This perhaps arises
from the higher character of the Shaitan (the ancient Akriman) than that of
the Troll or the mediaeval Devil.

THOS. KEIGHTLEY.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE READINGS, NO. VIII.

I have to announce the detection of an important misprint, which completely
restores sense, point, and antithesis to a sorely tormented passage in
_King Lear_; and which proves at the same time that the corrector of MR.
COLLIER'S folio, in this instance at least, is undeniably in error. Here,
as elsewhere (whether by anticipation or imitation I shall not take upon me
to decide), he has fallen into just the same mistake as the rest of the
commentators: indeed it is startling to observe how regularly he suspects
every passage that they have suspected, and how invariably he treats them
in the same spirit of emendation (some places of course excepted, where his
courage soars far beyond theirs; such as the memorable "curds and cream,"
"on a table of green frieze," &c.).

I say that the error of "the old corrector," in this instance, is
_undeniable_, because the misprint I am about to expose, like the
egg-problem of Columbus, when once shown, demonstrates itself: so that any
attempt to support it by argument would be absurd, because superfluous.

There are two verbs, one in every-day use, the other obsolete, which,
although of nearly opposite significations, and of very dissimilar sound,
n