Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens, Saints in your injuries, devils being offended, Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.

DES. O, fie upon thee, flanderer!"

IAGO. Nay, it is true, or elfe I am a Turk; You rife to play, and go to bed to work.

EMIL. You fhall not write my praise.

IAGO.

No, let me not.

DES. What would'ft thou write of me, if thou fhould'ft praise me?

LGO. O gentle lady, do not put me to't; For I am nothing, if not critical.8

6 Saints in your injuries, &c.] When you have a mind to do injuries, you put on an air of fanctity. JOHNSON.

In Puttenham's Art of Poefie, 1589, I meet with almoft the fame thoughts: "We limit the comely parts of a woman to confift in four points; that is, to be, a fhrew in the kitchen, a faint in the church, an angel at board, and an ape in the bed; as the chronicle reports by miftrefs Shore, paramour to King Edward the Fourth."

Again, in a play of Middleton's, called Blurt Mafter Confiable; or, The Spaniard's Night-walk, 1602: "according to that wife faying of you, you be faints in the church, angels in the street, devils in the kitchen, and apes in your beds."

Again, in The Miseries of inforc'd Marriage, 1607: Women are in churches faints, abroad angels, at home devils."

Puttenham, who mentions all other contemporary writers, has not once spoken of Shakspeare; fo that it is probable he had not produced any thing of fo early a date.

The truth is, that this book appears to have been written feveral years before its publication. See p. 115, 116, where the author refers to Sir Nicholas Bacon, who died in 1579, and recounts a circumftance, from his own knowledge, that happened in 1553. STEEVENS.

See alfo Meres's Wit's Treafury, p. 48. REED.

70, fie upon thee, flanderer!] This fhort fpeech is, in the quarto, unappropriated; and may as well belong to Æmilia as to Dejde mona. STEEVENS. 8critical.] That is, cenforious. JOHNSON.

DES. Come on, affay :-There's one gone to the harbour?

IAGO. Ay, madam.

DES. I am not merry; but I do beguile The thing I am, by feeming otherwife.Come, how would'st thou praise me?

IAGO. I am about it; but, indeed, my invention Comes from my pate, as birdlime does from frize, It plucks out brains and all: But my mufe labours, And thus fhe is deliver'd.

If the be fair and wife,—fairness, and wit,
The one's for ufe, the other useth it.

DES. Well prais'd! How if she be black and witty? LAGO. If the be black, and thereto have a wit, She'll find a white that fhall her blackness fit." DES. Worfe and worse.

EMIL. How, if fair and foolish?

IAGO. She never yet was foolish that was fair;3 For even her folly help'd her to an heir.

"To critick and to flatterer ftopped are." MALONE.

my invention

Comes from my pate, as birdlime does from frize,] A fimilar thought occurs in The Puritan: "The excufe ftuck upon my tongue, like ship-pitch upon a mariner's gown." STEEVENS.

2

her blackness fit.] The first quarto reads-hit. So, in King Lear: "I pray you, let us hit together." I believe hit, in the prefent inftance alfo, to be the true reading, though it will not bear, as in Love's Labour's Loft, explanation. STEEVENS.

3 She never yet was foolish &c.] We may read :

She ne'er was yet 1⁄2 foolish that was fair,

But even her folly help'd her to an heir.

Yet, I believe, the common reading to be right: the law makes the power of cohabitation a proof that a man is not a natural; therefore, fince the foolishest woman, if pretty, may have a child, no pretty woman is ever foolish. JOHNSON.

DES. These are old fond paradoxes, to make fools laugh i'the alehoufe. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and foolish?

LAGO. There's none fo foul, and foolish thereunto, But does foul pranks which fair and wife ones do.

DES. O heavy ignorance!-thou praiseft the worst beft. But what praise could'ft thou bestow on a deferving woman indeed?' one, that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itfelf?4

LAGO. She that was ever fair, and never proud; Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud; Never lack'd gold, and yet went never gay; Fled from her with, and yet faid,—now I may; She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong stay, and her displeasure fly; She that in wifdom never was fo frail,

To change the cod's head for the falmon's tail;'

3 But what praife couldst thou beflow on a deferving woman indeed?” The hint for this question, and the metrical reply of lago, is taken from a ftrange pamphlet, called Choice, Chance, and Change, or Conceits in their Colours, 1606; when after Tidero has defcribed many ridiculous characters in verse, Arnofilo asks him, " But, I pray thee, didst thou write none in commendation of fome worthy creature?" Tidero then proceeds, like lago, to repeat more verses. STEEVENS

one,

that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself] The fenfe is this, one that was fo confcious of her own merit, and of the authority her character had with every one, that the durft venture to call upon ma lice itself to vouch for her. This was fome commendation. the character only of cleareft virtue; which could force malice, even against its nature, to do juftice. WARBURTON.

And

To put on the vouch of malice, is to affume a character vouched by the teftimony of malice itfelf. JOHNSON.

To put on is to provoke, to incite. So, in Macbeth:

the powers above

"Put on their inftruments." STEEVENS.

She that could think, and ne'er difclofe her mind,
See fuitors following, and not look behind;
She was a wight,-if ever fuch wight were,-

DES. To do what?

IAGO. To fuckle fools, and chronicle small beer."

DES. O moft lame and impotent conclufion!Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy hufband.-How fay you, Caffio? is he not a most profane and liberal counfellor? 9

8

5 To change the cod's head for the falmon's tail;] i. e. to exchange a delicacy for coarfer fare. See Queen Elizabeth's Household Book for the 43d year of her reign: "Item, the Mafter Cookes have to fee all the falmon's tailes" &c. p. 296. STEEVENS.

Surely the poet had a further allufion, which it is not neceffary to explain. The word frail in the preceding line fhews that viands were not alone in his thoughts. MALONE.

A frail judgement, means only a weak one. I fufpect no equivoque. STEEVENS.

See fuitors following, and not look behind;] The first quarto omits this line. STEEVENS.

7 To fuckle fools, and chronicle small beer.] After enumerating the perfections of a woman, Iago adds, that if ever there was such a one as he had been describing, she was, at the best, of no other use, than to fuckle children, and keep the accounts of a boufebold. The expreffions to fuckle fools, and chronicle small beer, are only instances of the want of natural affection, and the predominance of a critical cenforiousness in Iago, which he allows himself to be poffeiled of, where he says, O! I am nothing, if not critical. STEEVENS.

8 — profane ] Grofs of language, of expreffion broad and brutal. So Brabantio, in the first act, calls Iago profane wretch. JOHNSON.

Ben Jonfon in defcribing the characters in Every Man out of his Humour, ftyles Carlo Buffone, a publick, fcurrilous, and profane jefter. STEEVENS.

9 — liberal counfellor?] Liberal for licentious. WARBURTON. So, in The Fair Maid of Briftow, 1605, bl. 1:

"But Vallenger, most like a liberal villain,

"Did give her fcandalous, ignoble terms." STEEVENS.

Cas. He speaks home, madam; you may relish him more in the foldier, than in the scholar.

IAGO. [Afide.] He takes her by the palm: Ay, well faid, whisper: with as little a web as this, will I enfnare as great a fly as Caffio. Ay, fmile upon her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own courtship. You fay true; 'tis fo, indeed: if such tricks as these ftrip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had not kifs'd your three fingers so oft, which now again you are most apt to play the fir in.3 Very good; well kifs'd! an excellent courtefy! 'tis fo, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips? would, they were clyfter-pipes for your fake! -[Trumpet.] The Moor,-I know his trumpet.

See p. 295, n. 4. MALONE.

Counsellor feems to mean, not fo much a man that gives counsel, as one that difcourfes fearlessly and volubly. A talker. JOHNSON. Counsellor is here used in the common acceptation. Defdemona refers to the answers fhe had received from lago, and particularly her laft. HENLEY.

2

I will gyve thee -] i. e. catch, fhackle. POPE.

The first quarto reads-I will catch you in your own courtefies; the fecond quarto-I will catch you in your own courtship. The folio as it is in the text.

3

STEEVENS.

to play the fir in.] That is, to fhow your good breeding and gallantry. HENLEY.

4

well kifs'd! an excellent courtesy!] Spoken when Caffio kiffes his hand, and Defdemona courtefies. JOHNSON.

This reading was recovered from the quarto, 1622, by Dr. Johnfon. The folio has-and excellent courtesy.

I do not believe that any part of these words relates to Defdemona. In the original copy, we have just seen, the poet wrote"ay, fmile upon her, do; I will catch you in your own courteftes." Here therefore he probably meant only to fpeak of Caffio, while kiffing his hand. "Well kifs'd! an excellent courtesy !" i. e. an excellent falute. Courtefy, in the fenfe of an obeifance or falute, was in Shakspeare's time applied to men as well as women. Vol. VIII. p. 510, n. 4. MALONE.

See