"'I have seen
Th' ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds.'"
Clouds in this instance is perfectly consistent; but here the scene is altogether different. We have no ship-boy sleeping on the giddy mast, in the midst of the shrouds, or ropes, rendered slippery by the perpetual dashing of the waves against them during the storm.
If in Shakspeare's time the printer's rule of "following copy" had been as rigidly observed as in our day, errors would have been avoided, for Shakspeare's MS. was sufficiently clear. In the preface to the folio edition of 1623, it is stated that "his mind and hand went together; and what he thought he uttered with that easinesse that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers."
D***N**R.
8th Nov. 1849.