She fwore," In faith, 'twas Arange, 'twas paffing ftrange,

" 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful”----

She withed the had not heard it ;---yet fhe wifhed That Heaven had made her fuch a man :------- the thanked me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I fhould but teach him how to tell my ftory,
And that would woo her. On this hint I fpake;
She loved me for the dangers I had pait,
And I loved her that the did pity them:
This only is the witchcraft I have used.
Here comes the lady, let her witne's it.

Enter DESDEMONA, IACO, and Attendants. Duke. I think,this tale would win my daughter tooGood Brabantio,

Take up this mangled matter at the best.
Men do their broken weapons use,
Than their bare hands.

Bra. I pray you, hear her speak;

If the confefs that fhe was half the wooer,
Destruction on my head, if my bad blame

Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress,
Do you perceive in all this noble

Where you most owe obedience?
Def. My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty;

company,

To you I'm bound for life and education:
My life and education both do learn me

How to refpe&t you. You're the Lord of duty;
I'm hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband;
And fo much duty as my mother fhewed
To you, preferring you before her father;
So much I challenge, that I may profefs.
Due to the Moor, my Lord.

Bra. God be with you: I have done. Pleafe it your Grace, on to the State-affairs; I had rather to adopt a child, than get it. Come hither, Moor:

I here do give thee that with all my heart,
Which, but thou haft already, with all my heart
I would keep from thee. For your fake, jewel,
I'm glad at foul I have no other child;

For thy efcape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them.

I have done, my Lord. Duke. Let me fpeak like yourself; and lay a fentence,

Which, as a grice, or ftep, may help these lovers Into your favour----.

-----

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
By feeing the worst which late on hopes depended.
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone,
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
What cannot be preferved when fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.

The robbed, that fmiles, fteals fomething from the
He robs himself, that spends a bootlefs grief. [thief;
Bra. So, let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile,
We lofe it not fo long as we can smile
le;

He bears the fentence well, that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
But he bears both the fentence, and the forrow,
That, to pay grief, muft of poor patience borrow.
Thefe fentences to fugar, or to gall,

Being ftrong on both fides, are equivocal.
But words are words; I never yet did hear, (16)

(16) But words are words; I never yet did hear,

That the bruifed heart was pierced through the ear.] One' fuperfluous letter has for thefe hundred years quite fubverted the fente of this paffage; and none of the editors have ever attended to the reaching of the context, by which

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

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 moft 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 ftate,
I crave fit difpofition for my wife,
Due reference of place and exhibition;
With fuch accommodation and befort
As levels with her breeding.

they might have discovered 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 ad"vice: but though you would comfort me, words are but "words; and the heart, already bru fed, 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 bruised 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 likewife communi cated to me by an ingenious unknowa correfpondent, who fubfcribes himself 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, Desdemona?

Def That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and ftorm 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 abfence. 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)

1 therefore beg it not

To plafe the palate of my appetite

Ner to comply with heat the young affects,

In my defunct and proper fitisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind.] As this has been all along hitherto printed and stopped, it seems 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 defun& fignifies 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 speculative and officed inftruments,
That my disports corrupt and taint my business;
Let housewives make a fkillet 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 must 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 says, 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 defun& was not defigned here at all. I have, by a flight change, refcued the Poet's text from abfurdity; and this I take to be the tenour of what he would fay; "I do not beg her company "with me, merely to please myself, 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.' Affects, for affections, our Author in feveral other paflages ufes.

For every man with his affects is born.

Love's Labour's Left.

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

Richard M. Tit. Andron.