"These sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours;
Most busy—less when I do it."
Tempest, Act III. Sc. 1.
I fear your readers will turn away from the very sight of the above. Be patient, kind friends, I will be brief. Has any one suggested—
"Most busy, least when I do"?
The words in the folio are
"Most busy lest, when I do it."
The "it" seems mere surplusage. The sense requires that the thoughts should be "most busy" whilst the hands "do least;" and in Shakspeare's time, "lest" was a common spelling for least.
Icon.
Shakspeare Controversy.—I think the Shakspeare Notes contained in your volumes are not complete without the following quotation from The Summer Night of Ludwig Tieck, as translated by Mary Maynard in the Athen. of June 25, 1853. Puck, in addressing the sleeping boy Shakspeare, says: