Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Keep, then, fair league and truce with thy
true bed;
I live distained, thou undishonored."

Such is the reading of the Folio. Mr. White reads,

"I live distained, thou one dishonored."

But we cannot help thinking that the true reading should be,

"I live distained, though undishonored,"

which is a less forced construction, and coincides with the rest of the
passage,--"I am contaminate through thee, though in myself immaculate."

In "As You Like it," (Act ii. Sc. 3,) Mr. White (with the Folio and some
recent editors) calls the Duke's wrestler, "the _bonny_ priser of the
Duke." The common reading is "bony," which seems to us better, though
we believe _brawny_ to be the word intended. We likewise question
Mr. White's explanation of the word _priser_, which, he says, "is
prize-fighter, one who wins prizes." One who "fights for prizes" would
have been better; but we suspect that the word is more nearly akin
with the French _prise_ (in the sense of _venir aux prises_) than with
_prix_. We should prefer also "Aristotle's ethicks" (_Taming of the
Shrew_, Act i. Sc. 1) to the ordinary "Aristotle's checks," which is
retained by Mr. White. In "Much Ado about Nothing," (Act ii. Sc. 1,) we
have no doubt that Mr. Collier's corrector is right in reading "_sink_
apace," though Mr. White states authoritatively that Shakspeare would
not have so written. It is only fair to Mr. White, however, to say that
he is generally open-minded toward readings suggested by others, and
that he accepts nearly all those of Mr. Collier's Corrected Folio on
which honest lovers of Shakspeare would be likely to agree. In comparing
his notes with the text, our eye was caught by a verse in which there
seems so manifest a corruption that we shall venture to throw down the
discord-apple of a conjectural emendation. In the "Merchant of Venice,"
(Act iii. Sc. 2,) where Bassanio is making his choice among the caskets,
after a long speech about "outward shows" and "ornament," he is made to
say that ornament is,

"in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning _times_ put on
To entrap the wisest."

We find it hard to believe that _times_ is the right word here, and
strongly suspect that it has stolen the place of _tires_. The whole
previous tenor of the speech, and especially of the images immediately
preceding that in question, appears to demand such a word.

We have said, that we con