once
a blunder has been made it is persisted in. Take, for instance, a
glaring one in the 2nd part of Henry IV., where, in the apostrophe
to sleep, "clouds" is substituted for "shrouds."

"Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery _clouds_,
That with the hurly death itself awakes?"

That _shrouds_ is the correct word is so obvious, that it is
surprising any man of common understanding should dispute it. Yet
we find the following note in Knight's pictorial edition:--

"_Clouds_.--Some editors have proposed to read _shrouds_. A line
in Julius Caesar makes Shakspere's meaning clear:--

"'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.

* * * * *

HERBERT AND DIBDIN'S AMES.

BORDE'S BOKE OF KNOWLEDGE--BOWLAND'S CHOISE OF CHANGE--GREENE'S ROYAL
EXCHANGE.

Mr. Editor,--I am induced to mention the following misstatement in
Herbert's edition of Ames' _Typographical Antiquities_, enlarged by
Dibdin, not by its importance, but by its supplying an appropriate
specimen of the benefits which would be conferred on bibliography by
your correspondents complying with Dr. Maitland's recommendations.

"Mr. Bindley," says Dibdin, "is in possession of the original
impression of Borde's _Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge_, which
was successively in the collection of West and Pearson. This copy,
and another in the Chetham Library at Manchester, are the only ones
kno