To mourn a mischief that is paft and gone,
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
What cannot be preferv'd when Fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.

The robb'd, that fmiles, fteals fomething from the thief;
He robs himself, that fpends a bootless grief.

Bra. So, let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile,

We lose it not, fo long as we can fmile;

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, (10)
That the bruis'd heart was pieced through the ear.
Befeech you, now to the affairs o' th' State.

(10) But Words are Words; I never yet did hear,

That the bruis'd Heart was pierced thro' the Ear.] One fuperfluous Letter has for thefe hundred Years quite fubverted the Senfe of this Paffage; and none of the Editors have ever attended to the Reasoning of the Context, by which they might have difcover'd the Error. The Duke bas by fage Sentences been exhorting Brabantio to Patience, and to forget the Grief of his Daughter's ftoln Marriage, to which Brabantio is made very pertinently to reply, to this effect: "My Lord, I apprehend very well the Wisdom of your Advice; but tho' you would comfort me, Words are but "Words; and the Heart, already bruis'd, was never pierc'd, " or wounded, thro' the Ear." Well! If we want Arguments for a Senator, 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 refior'd, as Mr. Warburton acutely obferv'd to me.

That the bruis'd Heart was pieced thro' the Ear.

i. e. That the Wounds of Sorrow were ever cur'd, or a Man made heart-whole meerly by Words of Confolation. I ought to take notice, this very Emendation was likewife communicated to me by an ingenious, unknown, Correfpondent, who fubfcribes himself only L. H.

Duke.

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 substitute of most 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 ftubborn and boisterous expedition.

Oth. The tyrant cuftom, moft 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 hardness; and do undertake
This prefent war against the Ottomites.
Moft humbly therefore bending to your State,
I crave fit difpofition for my wife,
Due reference of place and exhibition;
With fuch accommodation and befort
As levels with her breeding.

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
Taffift my fimpleness.

Duke. What would you, Desdemona?

Def. That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My down-right violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world. My heart's fubdu'd
Ev'n 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 support,

By

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, (11)
To please the palate of my appetite;

Nor to comply with heat, the young Affects,
In my diftinct and proper Satisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind.
And heav'n defend your good fouls, that you think,
I will your ferious and great bufinefs fcant,

(11)

I therefore beg it not

To pleafe the Palate of my Appetite,
Nor to comply with Heat the young affects,

In my defun& and preper Satisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her Mind.] As this has been all along hitherto printed and stop'd, it seems to me a Period of as stubborn Nonsense, 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 Satisfaction are dead and defunct in him! (For, defunct fignifies nothing else, that I know of, either primitive. ly or metaphorically:) But if we may take Othello's own Word in the Affair, when he speaks for himself, he was not reduc'd to this fatal, unperforming, State.

-or, for I am declin'd

Into the Vale of Tears; yet That's not much.

Again, Why fhould our Poet fay, (for fo he fays, 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 defign'd here as a Verb; and that defunct was not defign'd 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 (ise. Af"fections) of a new-married Man, in my own diftinct and proper Satisfaction; but to comply with her in her Requeft, "and Defire, of accompanying me. Affects, for Affections, our Author in feveral other Paffages uses.

For

For fhe is with me. -No, when light-wing'd toys
Of feather'd Cupid foil with wanton dulnefs
My fpeculative and offic'd inftruments,

That my difports corrupt and taint my business;
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
And all indign and base adverfities
Make head against my estimation.

Duke. Be it as you fhall privately determine,
Or for her stay or going; th' affair cries hafte;
And speed must answer.

You must hence to night.

Def. To night, my lord?
Duke. This night.

Oth. With all my heart.

Duke. At nine i'th' morning here we'll meet again.

Othello, leave fome officer behind,

And he fhall our commiffion bring to you;

And fuch things elfe of quality and respect

As doth import you.

Oth. Please your Grace, my Ancient ; (A man he is of honefty and truft,)

To his conveyance I affign my wife,

With what else needful your good Grace fhall think
To be fent after me.

Duke. Let it be fo;

Good night to every one. And, noble Signior,
If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

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

Sen. Adieu, brave Moor, ufe Desdemona well.

Bra. Look to her, Moor, if thou haft eyes to fee, She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

[Exit Duke, with Senators. Honeft lago,

Oth. My life upon her faith.
My Desdemona muft I leave to thee;
I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her;
And bring her after in the best advantage.
Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matter and direction

To speak with thee. We must obey the time. [Exeunt.

Manent

Rod. Iago

Manent Rodorigo and Iago.

Iago. What fayeft thou, noble heart?
Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou?
Iago. Why, go to bed, and fleep.

Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago. Well, if thou doft, I fhall never love thee after. Why, thou filly gentleman!

Rod. It is fillinefs to live, when to live is a torment; and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our phyfician.

Iago. O villainous! I have look'd upon the world for four times feven years, and fince I could diftinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would fay, I would drown my self for the love of a Guinney-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.

Rod. What fhould I do? I confess, it is my shame to be fo fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

or thus.

Iago. Virtue? a fig: 'tis in our felves that we are thus Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardiners. So that if we will plant nettles, or fow lettuce; fet hyffop, and weed up thyme; fupply it with one gender of herbs, or diftra&t it with many; either have it fteril with idleness, or manured with induftry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our will. (12) If the beam of our lives had not

one

(12) If the Balance of our Lives had not one Scale of Reason If the Scale of our Lives to poife another of Senfuality.] i. e. had not one Scale, &c. which muft certainly be wrong. Some of the old Quarto's have it thus, but the two elder Folio's read,

If the Braine of our Lives had not one Scale, &c.

This is corrupt; and I make no doubt but Shakespeare wrote, as I have reform'd the Text,

If the Beame of our Lives, &c.

And my Reason is this ; that he generally distinguishes betwixt

the