Preface to Shakespeare

ACT I. SCENE iii. (I. ii. 25.)

Earth-treading stars that make dark HEAVEN's light.

This nonsense should be reformed thus,

Earth-treading stars that make dark EVEN light.
—Warburton.

But why nonsense? Is anything more commonly said, than that beauties eclipse the sun? Has not Pope the thought and the word?

Sol through white curtains shot a tim'rous ray,
And ope'd those eyes that must eclipse the day.

Both the old and the new reading are philosophical nonsense, but they are both, and both equally poetical sense.