Without intending to follow MR. COLLIER through the course of his argument,
I should like to notice one or two points. The usage of Shakspeare's day
admitted many variations from the stricter grammatical rules of our own;
but no usage ever admitted such a sentence as this,--for though
elliptically expressed, MR. COLLIER treats it as a sentence,--

"Most busy, least when I do it."

This is neither grammar nor sense: and I persist in believing that
Shakspeare was able to construct an intelligible sentence according to
rules as much recognised by custom then as now.

But, indeed, does not MR. COLLIER virtually admit that the text is
inexplicable in his very attempt to explain it? He sums up by saying "that
in fact, his toil is no toil, and that when he is 'most busy' he 'least
does it,'" which is precisely the reverse of what the text says, if it
express any meaning at all. I will agree with him in preferring the old
text to any other text where it gives a perfect meaning; but to prefer it
here, when the omission of a single letter produces an image at once {338}
noble and complete, would, to my mind, savour more of superstition than
true worship.

P.S. It should be observed that MR. COLLIER'S "least" is as much of an
alteration of the original text as MR. SINGER'S "busyest", the one adding
and the other omittng a letter. The folio of 1632, where it differs front
the first folio, will hardly add to the authority of MR. COLLIER himself.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

Oct. 10. 1850.