As to be hated needs but to be seen."
The reader's memory will no doubt instantly substitute such hideous for "so frightful," and that for "as."
The same paper, a short time since, made sad work with Moore, thus:—
"You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang by it still."
Moore says nothing about the scents hanging by the vase. "Hanging" is an odious term, and destroys the sentiment altogether. What Moore really does say is this:—
"You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will cling round it still."
Now the couplet appears in its original beauty.
It is impossible to speak of the poets without thinking of Shakspeare, who towers above them all. We have yet to discover an editor capable of doing him full justice. Some of Johnson's notes are very amusing, and those of recent editors occasionally provoke a smile. If once a blunder has been made it is persisted in. Take, for instance, a glaring one in the 2nd part of Henry IV., where, in the apostrophe to sleep, "clouds" is substituted for "shrouds."