throw off his mask, when he had most occasion for it; and without any provocation, stand before his captain a villain confessed; at a time, when, for the carrying on his plot, he should make the least show of it. For thus Mr. Theobald forces him to say, I shall have no remorse to obey your commands how bloody soever the business be. But this is not Shakspeare's way of preserving the unity of character. Iago, till now, pretended to be one, who, though in the trade of war he had slain men, yet held it the very stuff of the conscience to do no contrived murder; when, of a sudden, without cause or occasion, he owns himself a ruffian without remorse. Shakspeare wrote and pointed the passage thus: Let him command, And to obey shall be in me. REMORD What bloody business ever. i. e. however the business he sets me upon may shock my honor and humanity, yet I promise to go through with it, and obey without reserve. Here Iago speaks in character, while the sense and grammar are made better by it. Of these two emendations, I believe, Theobald's will have the greater number of suffrages; it has at least mine. The objection against the propriety of the declaration in lago, is a cavil; he does not say that he has no principle of remorse, but that it shall not operate against Othello's commands. To obey shall be in me, for I will obey you, is a mode of expression not worth the pains here taken to introduce it; and the word remorde has not in the quotation the meaning of withhold, or make reluctant, but of reprove, or censure; nor do I know that it is used by any of the contemporaries of Shaks peare. I will offer an interpretation, which, if it be received, will make alteration unnecessary, but it is very harsh and violent. Iago devotes himself to wronged Othello, and says, Let him command whatever bloody business, and in me it shall be an act, not of cruelty, but of tenderness, to obey him; not of malice to others, but of tenderness for him. If this sense be thought too violent, I see nothing better than to follow Pope's reading, as it is improved by Theobald. JOHN. Before I saw Dr. Johnson's edition of Shakspeare, my opinion of this passage was formed, and written, and thus I understood it: " Let him command any bloody business, and to obey shall be in me an act of pity, and compassion for wrong'd Othello." Remorse frequently signifies pity, mercy, compassion, or a tenderness of heart, unattended with the stings of a guilty conscience. TOLL. 'Let him command, &c. The editors are greatly mistaken in supposing that remorse is at any time employed to signify pity, that is to say, pity simply, or tenderness: that commiseration in short, which is excited in us by the distresses of our fellow men. Remorse' properly taken, is pain occasioned by a sense of guilt, in which pity for the injured person is necessarily included. Remorse, I say, must always have something compunctious or repentant in its nature, which is not the case with pity alone. This, however, is not the way in which the word must be understood in the passage before us. It has here the Latin metaphorical sense of revenge, and should be written without the final e, (remors). The meaning of the whole is this-" Let Othello give the word, and lago is ready to obey the call of revenge-to execute vengeance on the offending party, however bloody the vengeance may be." The lines must be read as follows 'Witness, that here Iago doth give up The execution of his wit, hands, heart, To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command, What bloody work soever.' In the several passages quoted by Mr. S. remorse should be explained by compunctive or sorrowing pity, and not by compussion merely, or sympathizing with the misery of another. B. Clown. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions, and make them answer. Clown. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions and by them answer.] This Clown is a fool to some purpose. He was to go seek for one; he says he will ask for him, and by his own questions make answer. Without doubt we should read, and bid them answer; i. e. the world; those whom we question. WARB. 'I will catechize the world for him, &c.' Dr. Warburton has done the fool injustice he does not say that he will answer his own questions. The obvious meaning is-" I will question of the world; and from or by what I shall gather in consequence of that question, I will make answer to you:-you shall know the result of my inquiries." B. Des. For let our finger ach, and it endues Our other healthful members, ev'n to a sense Of pain. For let our finger ach, and it endues Our other healthful members with a sense Of pain. Endues with a sense of pain, is an expression, which, though it might be endured, if it were genuine, cannot deserve to be introdu ced by artifice. The copies, both quarto and folio, read: "Endues our other healthful members even to a sense of pain." I believe it should be rather, "Subdues our other healthful members to a sense of pain." JOHN. 66 Endues," I believe, should be induces; i. e. brings on, superinduces. The passage should be printed thus: "For let our finger ach, and it induces "A sense of pain e'en to our healthful members." B. Des. Beshrew me much, Emilia, I was (unhandsome warrior as I am) Arraigning his unkindness with my soul; But now I find, I had suborn'd the witness, And he's indited falsely. Unhandsome warrior as I am.] How this came to be so blun dered, I cannot conceive. It is plain Shakspeare wrote, Unhandsome wrangler as I am. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "Fie, wrangling queen." WARE. Unhandsome warrior, is evidently unfair assailant. JOHN. "Unhandsome warrior" should surely be "unhandsome lawyer," or pleader. The context will sufficiently warrant this reading. Lawyer and warrior being somewhat alike in sound, the mistake was made in transcribing. B, Bian. What! keep a week away? seven days and "What! keep a week away?-Seven days and nights!" Oth. Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion, without some instruction. Without some instruction.] The starts and broken reflections in this speech have something very terrible, and show the mind of the speaker to be in inexpressible agonies. But the words we are upon, when set right, have a sublime in them that can never be enough admired. The ridiculous blunder of writing instruction for induction (for so it should be read) has indeed sunk into arrant nonsense. Othello is just going to fall into a swoon; and as is common for people in that circumstance, feels an unusual mist and darkness, accompanied with horror, coming upon him. This, with vast sublimity of thought, is compared to the season of the sun's eclipse, at which time the earth becomes shadowed by the induction or bringing over of the moon between it and the sun. This being the allusion, the reasoning stands thus: "My nature could never be thus overshadowed, and falling, as it were, into dissolution, for no cause. There must be an induction of something: there must be a real cause. My jealousy cannot be merely imaginary. Ideas, words only, could not shake me thus, and raise all this disorder. My jealousy therefore must be grounded on matter of fact." Shakspeare uses this word in the same sense, in Richard III. "A dire induction am I witness to." Marston seems to have read it thus in some copy, and to allude to it in these words of his Fame: "Plots ha' you laid? inductions dangerous!" WARB. This is a noble conjecture, and whether right or wrong, does honour to its author. Yet I am in doubt whether there is any necessity of emendation. There has always prevailed in the world an opinion, that when any great calamity happens at a distance, notice is given of it to the sufferer by some dejection or perturbation of mind, of which he discovers no external cause. This is ascribed to that general communication of one part of the universe with another, which is called sympathy and antipathy; or to the secret monition, instruction, and influence of a superior Being which superintends the order of nature and of life. Othello says, "Nature could not invest herself in such shadowing passion without instruction. It is not words that shake me thus." This passion, which spreads its clouds over me, is the effect of some agency more than the operation of words; it is one of those notices which men have of unseen calamities. JOHN. "Shadowing passion." Dr. Warburton's conjecture, abstractedly taken, may, perhaps, appear ingenious; but his reasoning on the passage is, in my opinion, no way just. That a man in Othello's situation, and who is nearly falling into a swoon, should be pondering in a philosophic manner on the cause or nature of the sun's eclipse, or that he should even be tempted to allude to it, is highly improbable. For "shadowing" I read shadowy, and for "instruction," infraction. The meaning is: "Nature would not fill me with apprehension (shadowy passion) unless some violence had been done to her: unless there were some infraction of her moral laws. Des. I would do much B. To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio. Atone them.] Make them one; reconcile them. JOIN. "Atone them" seems harsh. Perhaps we may read, "Attune them," i. e. Create an harmony between them-reconcile them. B. Lod. This the noble nature 1 Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue IVhose solid virtue The shot of accident, nor dart of chance Could neither graze nor pierce.] But it is no commendation to the most solid virtue to be free from the attacks of fortune; but that it is so impenetrable as to suffer no impression. Now to graze signifies only to touch the superficies of any thing. That is the attack of fortune and by that virtue is tried, but not discredited. We ought certainly therefore to read: Can neither raze nor pierce, . i. e. neither lightly touch upon, nor pierce into. The ignorant transcribers being acquainted with the phrase a bullet grazing, and shot being mentioned in the line before, they corrupted the true word. Besides, we do not say, graze a thing; but graze on it. WARB. I have ventured to attack another part of this sentence, which my ingenious friend slipped over. I cannot see for my heart, the difference betwixt the shot of accident and dart of chance. The words and things they imply are purely synonymous; but that the poet intended two different things seems plain from the discretive adverb. Chance may afflict a man in some circumstances; but other distresses are to be accounted for from a different cause. I am persuaded our author wrote: "The shot of accident, nor dart of change, &c. And, in a number of other places, our poet industriously puts these two words in opposition to each other. THEOB. To graze is not merely to touch superficially, but to strike not directly, not so as to bury the body of the thing striking in the matter struck. Theobald trifles, as is usual. Accident and chance may admit a subtle distinction; accident may be considered as the act, and chance as the power or agency of fortune; as, It was by chance that this accident befel me. At least, if we suppose all corrupt that is inaccurate, there will be no end of emendation. JOHN. "Whose solid virtue," &c. These lines are neither corrupt, nor obscure; but the commentators have mistaken their particular meaning. When it is said of Othello that "his virtue was such, that neither the shot of accident nor the dart of chance could ever graze or pierce it"-the inference to be drawn is not that he was free from attack, but that he was invulnerable, or proof against the attack which might be made on him and this is sufficiently marked by the word solid. Although Mr. Theobald cannot " for his heart," discover the difference between shot and dart, it will not, I believe, be the case with others. As to Johnson's "subtle distinction" it is here unnecessarily in : |