And that he—
"Exhausted worlds and then imagined new."
There is no passion that he has not pourtrayed, and laid bare in its beauty or deformity; no feeling or affection to which his genius has not given the stamp of immortality: and does he want an interpreter? It is treading on dangerous ground to attempt to improve him. Even Mr. Knight, enthusiast as he is in his veneration for Shakspeare, and who, by his noble editions of the poet's works, has won the admiration and secured the gratitude of every lover of the poet, has gone too far in his emendations when he changes a line in Romeo and Juliet from
"Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell."
to
"Hence will I to my ghostly friar's close cell."
As in the latter case the line will not scan unless the word "friar" be reduced to a monosyllable, which, on reflection, I think Mr. Knight will be inclined to admit. But my paper is, I fear, extending to a limit beyond which you have occasionally warned your correspondents not to go, and I must therefore draw my remarks to a close, with a hope that not any offence will be taken where none is intended by those to whom any of my observations may apply.
George Blink.
Canonbury.