And all indign and base adversities

Make head against my estimation » !

might have employed the past for the present: but the former objection appears to me fatal.

Proper is here and in other places used for peculiar. In this play we have unproper beds; not peculiar to the rightful owner, but common to him and others.

In the present tragedy we have many more uncommon words than disjunct: as facile, agnize, acerb, sequestration, injointed, congregated, guttered, sequent, extincted, exsufflicate, indign, segregated, &c.-lago in a subsequent scene says to Othello, "let us be conjunctive in our revenge ;" and our poet has conjunct in King Lear, and disjoin and disjunctive in two other plays. In King John we have adjunct used as an adjective:

"Though that my death be adjunct to the act-."

and in Hamlet we find disjoint employed in like manner : "Or thinking

"Our state to be disjoint, and out of frame."

MALONE.

As it is highly probable this passage will prove a lasting source of doubt and controversy, the remarks of all the commentators are left before the publick. Sir Thomas Hanmer's distinct, however, appearing to me as apposite a change as Mr. Malone's synonymous disjunct, I have placed the former in our text, though perhaps the old reading ought not to have been disturbed, as in the opinion of more than one critick it has been satisfactorily explained by Dr. Johnson and Mr. Henley. STEEVENS.

6-defend, &c.] To defend, is to forbid. So, in Chaucer's Wife of Bathes Prologue, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit, ver. 5641 : "Wher can ye seen in any maner age

"That highe God defended mariage,

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By expresse word ? ”

From defendre, Fr. STEEVENS.

7

when light-wing'd toys

Or feather'd Cupid SEEL with wanton dulness

My speculative and ACTIVE instruments,] Thus the folio, except that instead of active instruments, it has offic'd instrument. Speculative instruments, in Shakspeare's language, are the eyes; and active instruments, the hands and feet. So, in Coriolanus: where, the other instruments

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"Did see, hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel," &c.

To seel is to close the eyelids of a hawk by running a thread through them. As it is here metaphorically used, it applies very properly to the speculative instruments; but foils, the reading of the quarto, agrees better with active instruments,

Wanton dulness is 'dulness arising from wanton indulgences.'

MALONE.

DUKE. Be it as you shall privately determine, Either for her stay, or going: the affair cries

haste,

And speed must answer it; you must hence to

Othello, leave some officer behind,

And he shall our commission bring to you;
With such things else of quality and respect,
As doth import you.

Отн.

Please your grace, my ancient ;

A man he is of honesty, and trust :

To his conveyance I assign my wife,

With what else needful your good grace shall think To be sent after me.

Good night to every one.-And, noble signior,

[TO BRABANTIO.

If virtue no delighted beauty lack 9,

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

For a particular explanation of the verb-to seel, the reader is referred to Macbeth, Act III. Sc. II.

"And feather'd Cupid foils with wanton dulness

My speculative and active instruments-."

All these words (in either copy) mean no more than this:When the pleasures and idle toys of love make me unfit either for seeing the duties of my office, or for the ready performance of them, &c.

So, in Chapman's translation of the eighteenth book of Homer's Odyssey:

8

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and were palsied

"In his mind's instruments-."

STEEVENS.

- my ESTIMATION!] Thus the folio; the quarto-reputation. STEEVENS.

1 SEN. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. BRA. Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see 1;

She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

3

[Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, &c. Отн. My life upon her faith.-Honest Iago, My Desdemona must I leave to thee; I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her; And bring them after 2 in the best advantage 3. Come, Desdemona; I have but an hour Of love, of worldly matters and direction, To spend with thee: we must obey the time. [Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA.

ROD. Iago.

IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?
ROD. What will I do, thinkest thou?
IAGO. Why, go to bed, and sleep.

ROD. I will incontinently drown myself.

IAGO. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee after it. Why, thou silly gentleman!

ROD. It is silliness to live, when to live is a tor

9 If virtue no DELIGHTED beauty lack,] The meaning, I believe, is, if virtue comprehends every thing in itself, then your virtuous son-in-law of course is beautiful: he has that beauty which delights every one. Delighted, for delighting; Shakspeare often uses the active and passive particles indiscriminately. Of this practice I have already given many instances. The same sentiment seems to occur in Twelfth-Night:

"In nature is no blemish, but the mind;

"None can be call'd deform'd; but the unkind :
"Virtue is beauty." STEEVENS.

Delighted is used by Shakspeare in the sense of delighting, or delightful. See Cymbeline, Act V.:

"Whom best I love, I cross, to make my gift,

"The more delay'd, delighted." TYRWHITT.

have a quick eye to see ;] Thus the eldest quarto. The folio reads:

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if thou hast eyes to see." STEEVENS.

2 And bring THEM after-] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1622, reads-and bring her after.

MALONE.

3-best advantage.] Fairest opportunity. JOHNSON.

ment; and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician.

LAGO. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years! and since I could distinguish between a benefit and an injury, I never found a man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, 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 confess, it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in virtue to amend it.

LAGO. 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

The

4 I have looked upon the world FOR FOUR TIMES SEVEN YEARS:] From this passage Iago's age seems to be ascertained; and it corresponds with the account in the novel on which Othello is founded, where he is described as a young, handsome man. French translator of Shakspeare is, however, of opinion, that Iago here only speaks of those years of his life in which he had looked on the world with an eye of observation. But it would be difficult to assign a reason why he should mention the precise term of twenty-eight years; or to account for his knowing so accurately when his understanding arrived at maturity, and the operation of his sagacity, and his observations on mankind commenced.

That Iago meant to say he was but twenty-eight years old, is clearly ascertained, by his marking particularly, though indefinitely, a period within that time, ["and since I could distinguish," &c.] when he began to make observations on the characters of men.

Waller on a picture which was painted for him in his youth, by Cornelius Jansen, and which is now in the possession of his heir, has expressed the same thought; "Anno ætatis 23; vitæ vix primo." MALOne.

5 — a Guinea-hen,] A showy bird with fine feathers.

JOHNSON. A Guinea-hen was anciently the cant-term for a prostitute. So, in Albertus Wallenstein, 1640:

"Yonder's the cock o'the game,

"About to tread yon Guinea-hen; they're billing."

STEEVENS.

will plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it steril with idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions: But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call-love, to be a sect, or scion 9.

ROD. It cannot be.

LAGO. It is merely a lust of the blood, and a permission of the will. Come, be a man: Drown thyself? drown cats, and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness'; I

6 - either To have it steril with idleness,] Thus the authentick copies. The modern editors following the second folio, have omitted the word to.-I have frequently had occasion to remark that Shakspeare often begins a sentence in one way, and ends it in a different kind of construction. Here he has made lago say, if we will plant, &c. and he concludes, as if he had written-if our will is either to have it, &c. See p. 255, n. 1. MALONE.

See Tempest, Act I. Sc. II. where the remark on which the foregoing note is founded was originally made. STEEVENS.

7 If the BALANCE, &c.] The folio reads-If the brain. Probably a mistake for-beam. STEEVENS.

8

UNBITTED

reason to cool-our CARNAL STINGS, our LUSTS;] So, in A Knack to Know An Honest Man, 1596:

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Virtue never taught thee that;

"She sets a bit upon her bridled lusts.”

See also As You Like It, Act II. Sc. VI.:

"For thou thyself hast been a libertine ;

"As sensual as the brutish sting itself." MALOne.

9 - a SECT, or scion.] Thus the folio and quarto. A sect is what the more modern gardeners call a cutting. The modern editors read-a set. STEEVENS.

-I confess me KNIT to thy DESERVING with CABLES of FERDURABLE TOUGHNESS;] So, in Antony and Cleopatra :