SOME NEW EMENDATIONS IN SHAKESPEARE. 383 
hidden by the logs of wood which he had been carrying to Pros- 
pero’s cave, and which he had thrown down in terror on seeing 
Trinculo. 
“ What have we here—a man or a fish—dead or alive? Were I 
in England now, &c., then would this monster make a man. When 
they will not give a doit to relieve a Jame beggar, they will lay out 
ten to see a dead Indian.” I venture to suggest that Shakespeare 
wrote live, and not Jame. The two words, if carelessly written, look 
very much alike, but /ive seems the natural and true word, and gives 
force to the contrast which the jester Trinculo wishes to draw, viz.: 
That the English sight seer would spend ten times as much on seeing 
a dead Indian as in relieving a dive countryman. 
The opening speech of Ferdinand in the 3rd Act of the same play 
contains a line which has been a veritable enigma for the critics. 
Ferdinand, being commanded by Prospero to pile up a number of 
logs at his cave, enters carrying one. Pausing in his work he thus 
soliloquizes : 
‘*There be some sports are painful, 
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labour ; 
Most busie least when | do it.” 
The last line is hopelessly meaningless. To quote Staunton: 
“Tt is the great crux of the play. ‘so passage of Shakespeare has 
occasioned more speculation, and on none has speculation proved less 
happy. The first folio reads, ‘most busie lest when I do it.’ The 
second, ‘most busie least when I do it.’ Pope prints, ‘least busie 
when I do it.’ Theobald, ‘ most busiless when I do it.’ ” 
All will agree with Staunton that none of the emendations pro- 
posed are very happy, and it were prudence, probably, not to attempt 
to solve a difficulty which has baffled so many. It seems to me, 
however, clear that “most” and “least” cannot stand together in 
the line, and that one or the other. was written as a gloss for the 
one which Shakespeare wrote. Hither “most busie when I do it,” 
or “least busie when I do it,” is intelligible. “ Most busie,” how- 
ever, would refer to “these sweet thoughts” of which he has just 
spoken, and ‘least busie” to his feelings when at work. ‘Studio. 
fallente laborem.” I am disposed to believe that Shakespeare wrote : 
** But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labour ; 
Most busie—when I do it.” 
