which is retained by Mr. White.  In “Much Ado about Nothing,” (Act ii.  Sc. 1,) we have no doubt that Mr. Collier’s corrector is right in reading “sink apace,” though Mr. White states authoritatively that Shakspeare would not have so written.  It is only fair to Mr. White, however, to say that he is generally open-minded toward readings suggested by others, and that he accepts nearly all those of Mr. Collier’s Corrected Folio on which honest lovers of Shakspeare would be likely to agree.  In comparing his notes with the text, our eye was caught by a verse in which there seems so manifest a corruption that we shall venture to throw down the discord-apple of a conjectural emendation.  In the “Merchant of Venice,” (Act iii.  Sc. 2,) where Bassanio is making his choice among the caskets, after a long speech about “outward shows” and “ornament,” he is made to say that ornament is,

                   “in a word,
  The seeming truth which cunning times put on
  To entrap the wisest.”

We find it hard to believe that times is the right word here, and strongly suspect that it has stolen the place of tires.  The whole previous tenor of the speech, and especially of the images immediately preceding that in question, appears to demand such a word.

We have said, that we considered the style and matter of Mr. White’s notes excellent.  Indeed, to the purely illustrative notes we should hardly make an exception.  There are two or three which we think in questionable taste, and one where the temptation to say a sharp thing has led the editor to vulgarize the admirable Benedick, and to misinterpret the text in a way so unusual for him that it is worth a comment.  When Benedick’s friends are discussing the symptoms which show him to be in love, Claudio asks,

  “When was he wont to wash his face?”

Mr. White annotates thus:—­

“That the benign effect of the tender passion upon Benedick in this regard should be so particularly noticed, requires, perhaps, the remark, that in Shakspeare’s time our race had not abandoned itself to that reckless use of water, whether for ablution or potation, which has more recently become one of its characteristic traits.”

Now, if there could be any doubt that “wash” means cosmetic here, the next speech of Don Pedro ("Yea, or to paint himself?”) would remove it.  The gentlemen of all periods in history have been so near at least to godliness as is implied in cleanliness.  The very first direction in the old German poem of “Tisch-zucht” is to wash before coming to table; and in “Parzival,” Gurnamanz specially inculcates on his catechumen the social duty of always thoroughly cleansing himself on laying aside his armor.  Such instances could be multiplied without end.