In As You Like It, p. 127., in the line—
"Mistress dispatch you with your safest haste,"
the last two words are made "fastest haste," which, to say the least, are tautology, and are like talking, of the "highest height", or the the "deepest depth!" Surely, the original form of words, "Dispatch you with your safest haste;" that is, with as much haste as is consistent with your personal safety—is much more dignified and polished address from the duke to a lady, and at the same time more poetical!
In p. 129.,
"The constant service of the antique world,"
is converted into
"The constant favour of the antique world:"
in which line I cannot discover any sense. If I might hazard a guess, I should suggest that the error is in the second word, "service," and that it ought to be "servants:"
"When servants sweat for duty, not for meed."
In the Taming of the Shrew, p. 143., the substitution of "Warwickshire ale" for "sheer ale" strikes me as very far-fetched, and wholly unnecessary. There is no defect of sense in the term "sheer ale." Sly means to say, he was "fourteen pence on the score for ale alone:" just as one speaks of "sheer nonsense," i. e. nothing but nonsense, "sheer buffoonery," "sheer malice," &c. Why should Sly talk of being in debt for Warwickshire ale at Wincot? If he kind been drinking ale from Staffordshire, or Derbyshire, or Kent, he might possibly have named the county it came from; but to talk of Warwickshire ale within a few miles of Stratford-on-Avon seems absurd. It is as if a man came from Barclay and Perkins's, and talked of having been drinking "London porter."