That the bruifed heart was pieced through the ear.-Befeech you, now to the affairs o' th' state.

Duke. The Turk with a moft mighty preparation makes for Cyprus: Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you. And though we have there a fubftitute of most allowed fufficiency; yet opinion, a fovereign miftrefs of effects, throws a more fafe voice on you; you must therefore be content to flubber the glofs of your new fortunes, with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition. Oth. The tyrant Custom, most grave fenators. Hath made the flinty and fteel couch of war My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize A natural and prompt alacrity

I find in hardnefs; and do underta ke
This prefent war against the Ottomites.
Moft humbly therefore bending to your state
I crave fit difpofition for my wife,

Due reference of place and exhibition;
With fuch accommodation and befort
As levels with her breeding.

ad

they might have difcovered the error. The Duke has by fage fentences been exhorting Brabantio to patience, and to forget the grief of his daughter's ftolen marriage; to which Brabantio is made very pertinently to reply, to this effect: "My Lord, I apprehend very well the wifdom of your "vice; but though you would comfort me, words are but "words; and the heart, already brifed, was never pierced, "or wounded, through the ear."- Well! if we want arguments for a fenator, let him be educated at the feet of our fagacious editors It is obvious, I believe, to my better readers, that the text must be reftored, as Mr Warburton acutely obferved to me,

That the bruifed heart was pieced through the ear. ie. That the wounds of forrow were ever cured, or a man made heart-whole, merely by words of confolation. I ought to take notice, this very emendation was like wife communi cated to me by an ingenious unknown correfpondent, whe fubfcribes him felf only L. H.

Duke. Why, at her father's.

Bra I will not have it fo.
Oth. Nor I

Def. Nor would I there refide,

To put my father in impatient thoughts
By being in his eye. Moft gracious Duke,
To my unfolding lend your gracious ear,
And let me find a charter in your voice
T'affift my fimpleness.

Duke. What would you, Defdemona ?

Def. That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world. My heart's fubdued
Even to the very quality of my Lord;

I faw Othello's vifage in his mind,
And to his honours and his valiant parts
- Did I my foul and fortunes confecrate.
So that, dear Lords, if I be left behind
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites, for which I love him, are bereft me ::
And I a heavy interim fhall fupport,

By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

Oth. Your voices, Lords; 'befeech you, let her will Have a free way. I therefore beg it not (17)

(17)

-I therefore beg it not

To pleafe the palate of my appetite

Nor to comply with heat the young affects,

In my defunct and proper fatisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind.] As this has been all along hitherto printed and ftopped, it feems to me a period of as ftubborn nonfenfe as the editors have obtruded upon poor Shakespeare throughout his whole works. What a prepofterous creature is this Othello made, to fall in love with, and marry a fine young lady, when appetite. and heat, and proper fatisfaction are dead and defunct in him! (for defignifies nothing elfe, that I know of, either primitively or metaphorically :) but if we may take

To please the palate of my appetite;
Nor to apply with heat, the young affects,
In my diftinct and proper fatisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind.
And Heaven defend your good fouls, that

you

think,

I will your ferious and great business fcant,
For fhe is with me.-No, when light-winged toys
Of feathered Cupid foil with wanton dulnefs
My fpeculative and officed inftruments,

That my difports corrupt and taint my business;
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
And all indign and base adversities

Make head against my estimation.

Duke. Be it as you fhall privately determine, Or for her stay or going; the affair cries hafte; And speed muft anfwer. You must hence to-night.

Othello's own word in the affair, when he speaks for himfelf, he was not reduced to this fatal unperforming state. -or, for I am declined,

Into the vale of years; yet that's not much.

Again, why should our Poet fay, (for fo he fays, as the paffage has been pointed) that the young affect heat? Youth, certainly, has it, and has no occafion or pretence of affecting it, whatever fuperannuated lovers may have. And, again, after defunct, would he add fo abfurd a collateral epithet as proper? But, I think, I may venture to affirm, that affects was not defigned here as a verb; and that defunct was not designed here at all. I have, by a slight change, rescued the Poet's text from abfurdity; and this I take to be the tenour of what he would fay; "Ido not bcg her company "with me, merely to please myfelf, nor to indulge the "heat and affects i. e. affections) of a new married man, in my own diftinct and proper fatisfaction; but to comply "with her in her request and defire of accompanying me.' Affets, for affections, our Author in feveral other paflages

ufes.

For every man with his affects is born.

Love's Labour's Loft.

As 'twere to banish their affects with him.
Th' affects of forrow for his valiant fons.
&c. &c.

Richard II. Tit. Andron.

Def. To-night, my Lord?

Duke. This night.

Oth. With all my heart.

Duke. At nine i' th' morning here we'll meet again.

'Othello, leave fome officer behind,

And he thall our commiflion bring to you;
And fuch things elfe of quality and respect
As doth import you.

Oth. Pleafe your Grace, my Ancient;
(A man he is of honefty and truft),
To his conveyance I affign my wife,

With what else needful your good Grace fhall think To be fent after me.

Duke. Let it be fo;

Good-night to every one. And, noble Signior, If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

Your fon-in-law is far more fair than black.

Sen. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well. Bra. Adieu, brave Moor, if thou haft eyes to fee, She has deceived her father, and may thee.

[Exit Duke, with Senators.
Honeft lago,

Oth. My life upon her faith..
My Defdemona muft I leave to thee;
I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her;
And bring her after in the best advantage.
Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matter and direction
To speak with thee. We must obey the time.

Manent RODORIGO and IAGO.

Rod. Iago---

Jago. What fayeft thou, noble heart?
Rod. What will I do, thinkeft thou?
Lago. Why, go to bed, and fleep.

[Exeunt.

Red. I will incontinently drown myself.

Lago. Well, if thou doft, I fhall never love thee after. Why, thou filly gentleman!

Rod. It is filliness to live, when to live is a torment; and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our phyfician.

Iago. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times feven years, and fince I could diftinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himfelf. Ere I would fay, I would drown myself for the love of a Guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.

Rod. What should I do? I confefs it is my fhame to be fo fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

Iago. Virtue? a fig: 'tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. So that if we will plant nettles, or fow lettice; fet hyffop, and weed up thyme; fupply it with one gender of herbs, or diftract it with many; either have it steril with idlenefs, or manured with induftry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lyes in cur will. (18) If the beam of our lives had not one fcale of

(18) If the balance of our lives had not one jcale of reafon to poife another of fenfuality ] i. e. If the feale of our lives had not one feale, &c. which must certainly be wrong. Some of the old Quartos have it thus, but the two elder Folios read, If the braine of our lives had not one fcale, &c. This is corrupt; and I make no doubt but Shakespeare wrote, as I have reformed the text,

If the beam of our lives, &c.

And my reafon is this; that he generally diftinguishes betwixt the beam and balance, using the latter to fignify the fcales; and the former, the fteel-bar to which they are hung, and which poifes them. I'll fubjoin a few inftances of his ufage of both terms.

VOL. XII.