What Moore
really does say is this:--
"You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will _cling round_ it still."
Now the couplet appears in its original beauty.
It is impossible to speak of the poets without thinking of Shakspeare,
who towers above them all. We have yet to discover an editor capable
of doing him full justice. Some of Johnson's notes are very amusing,
and those of recent editors occasionally provoke a smile. If 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.
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