The 'shoes of
Hercules' were as commonly alluded to by our old poets, as the _ex pede
Herculem_ was a familiar allusion of the learned." (Mr. Knight in
1839.)

Fourteen years' additional consideration has not altered Mr. Knight's view
of this passage. In 1853 we find him putting forth a prospectus for a new
edition of Shakspeare, to be called "The Stratford Edition," various
portions from which he sets before the public by way of sample. Here we
have over again the same note as above, a little diversified, and placed
parallel to Theobald's edition in this way:

"It lies as sightly on the back of him
As great Alcides' _shows_ upon an ass."

"The folio reads 'Great Alcides' shoes.' Theobald says, 'But why
_shoes_, in the name of propriety? For let Hercules and his _shoes_
have been really as big as they were ever supposed to be, yet they (I
mean the _shoes_) would not have been an overload for an ass.'"

"The 'shoes of Hercules' were as commonly alluded to in our old poets,
as the _ex pede Herculem_ was a familiar allusion of the learned. It
was not necessary that the ass should be overloaded with the shoes--he
might be _shod_ (shoed) with them."

Now who, in reading these parallel notes, but would suppose that it is Mr.
Knight who restores _shoes_ to the text, and that it is Mr. Knight who
points out the common allusion by our old poets to the shoes of Hercules?
Who would imagine that the substance of this correction of Theobald was
written by Steevens a couple of generations back, and that, consequently,
Theobald's proposed alteration had never been adopted?

I should not think of pointing out this, but that Mr. Knight himself, in
this same prospectus, has taken Mr. Collier to task for the very same
thing; that is, for taking credit, in his _Notes and Emendations_, for all
the folio MS. corrections, whether known or unknown, necessary or
unnecessary.

Indeed, the very words of Mr. Knight's complaint against Mr. Collier are
curiously applicable to himself:

"It requires the most fixed attention to the nice distinctions of such
constantly-recurring 'notes and emendations,' to disembarrass the
cursory reader from the notion that these are _bona fide_ corrections
of the common text....

"Who cares to know what errors are corrected in" (the forthcoming
Stratford edition), "that exist in no other, and which have never been
introduced into t