I see no reason for departing from the reading of the

old copy

where the aim reports.

Reports is, I apprehend, a verb.-In these cases where conjecture or suspicion tells the tale.

Aim is again used in this sense, in Julius Cæsar :

"What you would work me to, I have some aim." MALONE. 331. By Signior Angelo.] This hemistich is wanting in the first quarto. STEEVENS. 334. By no assay of reason.] Bring it to the test, examine it by reason, as we examine metals by the assay, it will be found counterfeit by all trials.

JOHNSON. 339. facile question-] Question is for the act of seeking. With more easy endeavour. JOHNSON. So may he with more facile question bear it,] That is, he may carry with less dispute-with less opposition. I don't see how the word question can signify the art of seeking, though the word quest may.

MONCK MASON.

340. For that it stands not, &c.] The seven following lines are added since the first edition. POPE. 340. -warlike brace,] State of defence. To arm was called to brace on the armour. JOHNSON.

346. To wake and wage, a danger profitless.] To

wage here, as in many other places in Shakspere, signifies to fight, to combat.

Thus, in King Lear:

"To wage against the enmity of the air."

It took its rise from the more common expression, to wage war. STEEVENS.

352. Ay so, &c.] This line is not in the first quarto. STEEVENS.

353. they do re-stem] The quartos mean to read re-sterne, though in the first of them the word is misspelt. STEEVENS. 358. And prays you to believe him.] The late learned and ingenious Mr. Thomas Clark, of Lincoln's-Inn, read the passage thus:

And prays you to relieve him. But the present reading may stand. not to doubt the truth of this intelligence.

362.

He entreats you

JOHNSON..

wish him,] i. e. recommend, desire him.

REED.

370. general care. ] The word general, when used by Shakspere as a substantive, always implies the populace, not the publick: and if it were used here as an adjective, without the word care, it must refer to grief in the following line, a word which may properly denote a private sorrow, but not the alarm which a nation is supposed to feel on the approach of a formidable enemy. MONCK MASON. 371. Take hold-] The first quarto reads, Take any holdSTEEVENS.

382. Being not, &c.] This line is wanting in the first quarto.

STEEVENS.

389. Stocd in your aclion.] Were the man exposed to your charge or accusation.

JOHNSON.

401. The very head and front of my offending] The main, the whole, unextenuated.

JOHNSON. 403. And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace ;] the set phrase of peace.

Soft is the reading of the folio.

JOHNSON.

To the set phrase of peace, no reasonable objection can be made; yet soft, which is found in the folio, was, I believe, the author's correction. He uses it for still and calm, as opposed to the clamours of war. So, in Coriolanus:

-Say to them,

"Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils,
"Hast not the soft way which thou dost confess
"Were fit for thee to use."

MALONE.

406. Their dearest action-] That is dear, for which much is paid, whether money or labour; dear action, is action performed at great expence, either of case or safe. JOHNSON,

I should give these words a more natural explanation, and suppose that they mean their favourite action

-the action most dear to them. MONCK MASON. 411. -unvarnished-] The second quarto reads→ unravagedSTEEVENS. 429. To vouch, &c.] The first folio unites this speech with the preceding one of Brabantio; and instead of certain reads wider. STEEVENS.

430.

-overt test,] Open proofs, external evidence.

The first quarto reads :

These are thin habits, and poore likelyhoods
Of modern seemings you prefer against him.

STEEVENS.

439. the Sagittary,] Means the sign of the fictitious creatures so called, i. e. an animal compounded of man and horse, and armed with a bow and quiver. STEEVENS.

442. The trust, &c.] This line is wanting in the first quarto. STEEVENS. 447 as truly] The first quarto reads, as faithful.

first quarto.

STEEVENS.

448. I do confess, &c.] This line is omitted in the STEEVENS. 459. Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents, by flood, and field,

Of hair-breadth scapes in the imminent deadly breach ;] "Heu! quibus ille

"Jactatus fatis; qua bella exhausta canebat!" There are some passages in this speech of Othello that remind me of Virgil's description of Dido's growing passion for Æneas. MONCK MASON.

464. And portance, &c.] I have restored,

And with it all my travel's history:

From the old edition. It is in the rest,

And portance in my travel's history:

Rymer, in his criticism on this play, has changed it to portents, instead of portance.

РОРЕ.

Mr. Pope has restored a line to which there is little objection, but which has no force. I believe portance

was

was the author's word in some revised copy, I read

To slavery, of my redemption thence,

And portance in't; my travel's history.

My redemption from slavery, and behaviour in it.

JOHNSON. Portance, is a word already used in Coriolanus, act ii. line 719.

"The apprehension of his present portance." 465. Wherein of antres vast, and desarts idle, &c.] Idle is an epithet used to express the infertility of the chaotick state, in the Saxon translation of the Pentateuch.

So, in the Comedy of Errors:

JOHNSON,

“ Usurping ivy, briar, or idle moss,”] STEEVENS -antres-] Caves and dens,

JOHNSON.

Do grow beneath their shoulders.-] Of these men there is an account in the interpolated travels of Mandeville, a book of that time. JOHNSON.

The Cannibals and Anthropophagi were known to an English audience before Shakspere introduced them. In the History of Orlando Furioso, play'd for the entertainment of Queen Elizabeth, they are mentioned in the very first scene; and Raleigh speaks of people whose heads appear not above their shoulders. Again, in the Tragedy of Locrine, 1595:

"Or where the bloody Anthropophagi,

"With greedy jaws "devour the wand'ring wights."