I should say very unlikely: but if heat had been actually printed in the folios, without speculating as to the probability that the press-copy was written from dictation, I should have had no hesitation in altering it to cheek. To this I should have been directed by a parallel passage in Richard II., Act III. Sc. 3., which has been overlooked by Mr. Collier:
"Methinks, King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements
Of fire and water, when their thundering shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven."
Commentary here is almost useless. Every one who has any capacity for Shakspearian criticism must feel assured that Shakspeare wrote cheek, and not heat.
The passage I have cited from Richard II. strongly reminds me of an old lady whom I met last autumn on a tour through the Lakes of Cumberland, &c.; and who, during a severe thunderstorm, expressed to me her surprise at the pertinacity of the lightning, adding, "I should think, Sir, that so much water in the heavens would have put all the fire out."
C. Mansfield Ingleby.
Birmingham.
The Case referred to by Shakspeare in Hamlet (Vol. vii., p. 550.).—