More than pertains to feats of broils and battle;
And therefore little fhall I grace my cause
In fpeaking for myfelf. Yet, by your patience,
I will a round unvarnished tale deliver,

Of my whole courfe of love; what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration, and what mighty magic, (For fuch proceeding I am charged withal), I won his daughter with.

Bra. A maiden, never bold;

Of spirit fo still and quiet, that her motion
Blushed at itself; and fhe, in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
To fall in love with what fhe feared to look on---
It is a judgment maimed, and most imperfect, (13)
That will confefs, affection fo could err

Against all rules of nature; and must be driven
To find out practices of cunning hell,

Why this fhould be. I therefore vouch again,
That with fome mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
Or with fome dra:n, conjured to this effect,
He wrought upon her.

(13) It is a judgment maimed and most imperfe&,

That will confefs, perfection fo could err

Against all rules of nature] Perfection erring, seems a contradiction in terminis, as the schoolmen call it. Befides, Brabantio does not blazon his daughter out for a thing of abfolute perfection; he only fays, he was indued with fuch an extreme innate modefty, that for her to fall in love fo prepofterously, no found judgment could allow but it must be by magical practice upon her. I have ventured to imagine that our Author wrote;

That will confefs, affection fo could err, &c.

This is entirely confonant to what Brabantio would fay of her; and one of the fenators, immediately after, in his examination of the Moor, thus addreffes himself to him; -But, Othello, fpeak;

Did you by indirect and forced courfes

Subdue and poifon this young maid's affections, &c.

Duke. To vouch this is no proof,
Without more certain and more overt test,
Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
1 Sen. But, Othello, fpeak;

Did you by indirect and forced courfes

Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
Or came it by request, and fuch fair question
As foul to foul affordeth?

Oth. I befeech you,

Send for the lady to the Sagittary,

And let her speak of me before her father:
If you do find me foul in her report,

The truft, the office I do hold of you,

Not only take away, but let your sentence
Even fall upon my

life.

Duke. Fetch Defdemona hither.

[Exeunt two or three. Oth. Ancient, conduct them, you best know the

place.

[Exit lago. And till she come, as truly as to Heaven I do confefs the vices of my blood, So justly to your grave ears I'll prefent How I did thrive in this fair lady's love, And the in mine.

Duke. Say it, Othello.

Oth. Her father loved me, oft invited me; Still queftioned me the ftory of my life,

From year to year; the battles, fieges, fortunes,
That I have past.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I fpoke of most difaftrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;

Of hair-breadth 'fcapes in th' imminent deadly
Of being taken by the infolent foe, [breach;
And fold to flavery; of my redemption thence,

And portance in my travel's hiftory:

Wherein of antres vaft, and defarts idle, (14) Rough quarriers, rocks, and hills, whofe heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak; fuch was the procefs; (15).

(14) Wherein of entres vaft and defarts idle, &c.] Thus it is in all the old editions; but Mr Pope has thought fit to change the epithet. Defarts ile; "in the former editions (fays he) doubtlefs, a corruption from wilde."-But he must pardon me, if I do not concur in thinking this fo doubtful. I don't know whether Mr Pope has observed it, but I know that Shakespeare, efpecially in his defcriptions, is fond of ufing the more uncommon word in a poetic latitude. And ille, in feveral other paffeges, he employs in thefe acceptations, wild, ufelefs, uncultivated, &c.

Crowned with rank fumitar, and furrow weeds,
With hardocs, hemloc, nettles, cuckow-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow

In our fuftaining corn.

ie, wild and ufelefs.

-The murmuring furge,

That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard fo high.

King Lear.

Ibid.

i. e. ufelefs, worthlefs, nullus preti; for pebbles, constantly waflied and chafed by the furge, can't be called idle, i. e. to ly fill, in a fate of reft.

The even mead that erft brought fwectly forth
The freckled cowflip, burnet, and green clover,
Wanting the fcythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness.

Henry V.

i. c. by wildnefs, occafioned from its lying uncultivated. And exactly with the fame liberty, if I am not mistaken, has Virgil twice ufed the word ignavus:

-Hyems ignava olano.

Geor. I. v. 299..

Georg. II. v. 208,

Et nemora evertit multos ignava per annos.

(15)

Such was the process;

And of the Canibals that each other cat,

The Anthropophagi, and men whole hea's

Do grow beneath their fhoulders.] This paffage Mr Pope has thought fit to throw out of the text, as containing in credible matter, I prefume; but why, if he had any equality. in his critical judgement, did he not as well caftrate the tem peft of thefe lines?

And of the Canibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi; and men whose heads

Who would believe that there were mountaineers
Dewlapt like bulls, whofe throats had hanging at 'em
Wallets of fleth? Or that there were fuch men,

Whofe hea's food in their breaf?

I have obferved several times, in the courfe of thefe notes, our Author's particular defence of Sir Walter Raleigh; and both thefe paffages feem to me intended complimentally to him. Sir Walter, in his Travels, has given the following account, which I shall subjoin as briefly as I may. "Next unto Arvi, there are two rivers, Atoica and Caora; and on that branch which is called Caora, are a nation of people whofe heads appear not above their shoulders; which, though it may be thought a mere fable, yet, for mine own part, I am refolved it is true; becaufe every child in the provinces of Arromania and Canuri affirm the fame. They are called Ewaipanomaws, they are reported to have their eyes in their foulders, and their mouths in the middle of their breasts. It was not my chance to hear of them. till I was come away; and if I had but fpoken one word of it while I was there, I might have brought one of them with me, to put the matter out of doubt. Such a nation was written of by Mandeville, whose reports were holden for fables for many years; and yet Since the Eaft-Indies were difcovered, we find his relations true of such things as heretof. re were held incredible. Whether it be true or no, the matter is not great; for mine own part, I faw them not, but I am refolved that fo many people did not all combine, or forethink to make the report To the west of Caroli are diverfe nations of canibals and of thofe Ewaipanomaws without heads."

Sir Walter Raleigh made his voyage to Guiana in 1595 Mr Lawrence Keyinith, (fometime his lieuter ant) who went thither the next year, and who dedicates his relation to Sir Walter, mentions the fame people; and, fpeaking of a person who gave him confiderable informations, he adds, "He certified me of the headlefs; men, and that their mouths in their breafts are exceeding wide." Sir Walter, at the time that his travels were published, is styled Captain of her Majefty's guard, Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and Lieutenant-general of the county of Cornwal If we coutder the retutation, as the ingenious Martin Folkes Efq; ob ferved to me, any thing from fuch a;erfon, and at that tilue

Do grow beneath their fhoulders. All thefe to hear Would Defdeinona ferioufly incline;

But still the house affairs would draw her thence,
Which ever as the could with hafte difpatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my difcourfe: which I obferving,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate;
Whereof by parcels fhe had fomething heard,
But not diftintively. I did confent,

And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did fpeak of fome distressful stroke
That my youth fuffered. My ftory being done,.
She gave me for
my pains a world of fighs:

in fuch pofts, muft come into the world with, we shall be of opinion that a paffage in Shakespeare need not be degraded for the mention of a story, which, however ftrange, was countenanced with fuch authority. Shakespeare, on the other hand, has fhewn a fine addrefs to Sir Walter, in facrificing. fo much-credulity to fuch a relation. Eefides, both the paffages in our Author have this further ufe; that they do in fome meafure fix the chronology of his writing Othello, as well as the Tempet; for as neither of them could be wrote before the year 1597; fo the mention of thefe circumftances thould perfuade us, they appeared before these Travels became ftale to the public, and their authority was too nar Jowly fcrutinized.

We may be able to account, perhaps, in a few lines, for the mystery of thefe fuppofed headless people; and with that I will close this long note Oleasius, fpeaking of the manner of cloathing of the Samojeds, a people of northern Mufcovy, fays; Their garments are made like thofe that are called cofaques, open only at the necks. When the cold is extraordinary, they put their cofoques over their heads, and let the fleeves hang down; their faces being not to be feen, but at the cleft which is at the neck. Whence fome have taken occafion to write, that in thefe northern countries there are people without heads, having their faces in their breafts."