Touching the Turkish loss,-yet he looks sadly, And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted With foul and violent tempest. MON. For I have serv'd him, 'Pray heaven he be; and the man commands Let's to the sea-side, ho! As well to see the vessel that's come in, As throw out our eyes for brave Othello: Even till we make the main, and the aerial blue, An indistinct regard. 3 GENT. Come, let's do so; For every minute is expectancy Of more arrivance *. Enter Cassio. CAS. Thanks to the valiant of this warlike isle', That so approve the Moor; O, let the heavens Give him defence against the elements, For I have lost him on a dangerous sea! Cas. His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilot Of very expert and approv'd allowance"; Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death, Stand in bold cure 9. * First folio, arrivancy. 5 Like a FULL Soldier.] Like a complete soldier. So, before, p. 226 : "What a full fortune doth the thick lips owe." MALone. 6 Even till we make the main, &c.] This line and half is wanting in the eldest quarto. STEEVENS. 7 -WARLIKE isle,] Thus the folio. worthy isle. STEEVENS. The first quarto reads— 8 Of very expert and approv'd allowance ;] I read 66 Very expert, and of approv'd allowance." JOHNSON. Expert and approv'd allowance is put for allow'd and approv'd expertness. This mode of expression is not unfrequent in "Shakspeare. STEEVENS. 9 Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death, Stand in bold cure.] I do not understand these lines. I know [Within.] A sail, a sail, a sail! Enter Another Gentleman. CAS. What noise? not how hope can be surfeited to death, that is, can be increased, till it be destroyed; nor what it is to stand in bold cure; or why hope should be considered as a disease. In the copies there is no variation. Shall we read: "Therefore my fears, not surfeited to death, 66 Stand in bold cure? This is better, but it is not well. Shall we strike a bolder stroke, and read thus: "Therefore my hopes, not forfeited to death, Presumptuous hopes, which have no foundation in probability, may poetically be said to surfeit themselves to death, or forward their own dissolution. To stand in bold cure, is to erect themselves in confidence of being fulfilled. A parallel expression occurs in King Lear, Act III. Sc. VI.: Again : "This rest might yet have balm'd his broken senses, "Stand in hard cure." "Stand in assured loss." In bold cure means, in confidence of being cured. STEEVENS. Dr. Johnson says, "he knows not why hope should be considered as a disease." But it is not hope which is here described as a disease; those misgiving apprehensions which diminish hope, are in fact the disease, and hope itself is the patient. A surfeit being a disease arising from an excessive overcharge of the stomach, the poet with his usual licence uses it for any species of excess.-Therefore, says Cassio, my hopes, which, though faint and sickly with apprehension, are not totally destroyed by an excess of despondency, erect themselves with some degree of confidence that they will be relieved, by the safe arrival of Othello, from those ill-divining fears under which they now languish. The word surfeit having occurred to Shakspeare, led him to consider such a hope as Cassio entertained, not a sanguine, but a faint and languid hope, (" sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,") as a disease, and to talk of its cure. A passage in Twelfth-Night, where a similar phraseology is used, may serve to strengthen this interpretation: "Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, 4 GENT. The town is empty; on the brow o'the sea Stand ranks of people, and they cry—a sail. CAS. My hopes do shape him for the governour. 2 GENT. They do discharge their shot of cour[Guns heard. tesy: Our friends, at least. CAS. 2 GENT. I shall. [Exit. MON. But, good lieutenant, is your general wiv'd? CAS. Most fortunately: he hath achiev'd a maid That paragons description, and wild fame; One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens', And in the essential vesture of creation, Does bear all excellency 2.-How now? who has put in ? Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona : "O, I have fed upon this woe already, "And now excess of it will make me surfeit." MALONE. I believe that Solomon, upon this occasion, will be found the best interpreter: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." HENLEY. 1 One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,] So, in our poet's 103d Sonnet : 66 a face "That over-goes my blunt invention quite, "Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace." Malone. 2 And in the ESSENTIAL Vesture of creation, Does bear all excellency.] The author seems to use essential, for existent, real. She excels the praises of invention, says he, and in real qualities, with which creation has invested her, bears all excellency. JOHNSON. "Does bear all excellency." Such is the reading of the quartos ; for which the folio has this: "And in the essential vesture of creation "Do's tyre the ingeniuer." Which I explain thus: "Does tire the ingenious verse." This is the best reading, and that which the author substituted in Re-enter Second Gentleman. 2 GENT. 'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general. The reading of the quarto is so flat and unpoetical, when compared with that sense which seems meant to have been given in the folio, that I heartily wish some emendation could be hit on, which might entitle it to a place in the text. I believe the word tire was not introduced to signify-to fatigue, but to attire, to dress. The verb to attire, is often so abbreviated. Thus, in Holland's Leaguer, 1633: "And would you tire him like a senator ?" Again, in The Comedy of Errors, Act II. Sc. II.: To save the money he spends in tiring," &c. The essential vesture of creation tempts me to believe it was so used on the present occasion. I would read something like this: "And in the essential vesture of creation "Does tire the ingenuous virtue," i. e. invests her artless virtue in the fairest form of earthly sub stance. In The Merchant of Venice, Act V. Lorenzo calls the body"the muddy vesture of decay.' It may, however, be observed, that the word ingener did not anciently signify one who manages the engines or artillery of an army, but any ingenious person, any master of liberal science. As in the following instance from the ancient metrical romance of The Sowdon of Babyloyne, p. 55: "He called forth Mabon his "And saide, I charge thee engynour "To throwe a magnelle to yon tour So, in Ben Jonson's Sejanus, Act I. Sc. I.: "No, Silius, we are no good ingeners, "We want the fine arts," &c. Ingener, therefore, may be the true reading of this passage: and a similar thought occurs in The Tempest, Act IV. Sc. I. : "For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise, "And make it halt behind her." In the argument of Sejanus, Ben Jonson likewise says that his hero "worketh with all his ingene," apparently from the Latin ingenium. STEEVENS. Perhaps the words intended in the folio, were "Does tire the ingene ever." Ingene is used for ingenium by Puttenham, in his Arte of Poesie, 1589: 66 - such also as made most of their workes by translation CAS. He has had most favourable and happy speed: out of the Latin and French tongue, and few or none of their owne engine." Engine is here without doubt a misprint for ingene.-I believe, however, the reading of the quarto is the true one.-If tire was used in the sense of weary, then ingener must have been used for the ingenious person who should attempt to enumerate the merits of Desdemona. To the instance produced by Mr. Steevens from Sejanus, may be added another in Fleckno's Discourse of the English Stage, 1664: “Of this curious art the Italians (this latter age) are the greatest masters, the French good proficients, and we in England only schollars and learners, yet, having proceeded no further than to bare painting, and not arrived to the stupendous wonders of your great ingeniers." In one of Daniel's Sonnets, we meet with a similar imagery to that in the first of these lines: "Though time doth spoil her of the fairest vaile "That ever yet mortalitie did cover." MALONE. The reading of the folio, though incorrectly spelled, appears to have been "Does tire the engineer;" which is preferable to either of the proposed amendments; and the meaning of the passage would then be, "One whose real perfections were so excellent, that to blazon them would exceed the abilities of the ablest masters." The sense attributed to the word tire, according to this reading, is perfectly agreeable to the language of poetry. Thus Dryden says: "For this an hundred voices I desire, "To tell thee what an hundred tongues would tire; "How deeply those are seated in my breast." And in the last Act of The Winter's Tale, the third Gentleman says: "I never heard of such another encounter, which lames report to follow it, and undoes description to do it." The objection to the reading of inginer, is, that although we find the words ingine, inginer, and inginous in Jonson, they are not the language of Shakspeare; and I believe indeed that Jonson is singular in the use of them. M. MASON. Whoever shall reject uncommon expressions in the writings of Shakspeare, because they differ either from the exact rules of orthography, or from the unsettled mode of spelling them by other writers, will be found to deprive him no less of his beauties, than that the ornithologist would the peacock, who should cut out every eye of his train because it was either not circular, or else varied from some imaginary standard.-Ingenieur is no doubt of |