Their medicínal gum: Set you down this: gotten, or at leaft imperfectly remembered. I have read in fome book, as ancient as the time of Shakspeare, the following tale; though, at present, I am unable either to recollect the title of the piece, or the author's name: "A Jew, who had been prifoner for many years in distant parts, brought with him at his return to Venice a great number of pearls, which he offered on the 'change among the merchants, and (one alone excepted) disposed of them to his fatisfaction. On this pearl, which was the largest ever shown at market, he had fixed an immoderate price, nor could be perfuaded to make the least abatement. Many of the magnificoes, as well as traders, offered him confiderable fums for it, but he was refolute in his firft demand. At last, after repeated and unfuccefsful applications to individuals, he affembled the merchants of the city, by proclamation, to meet him on the Rialto, where he once more expofed it to fale on the former terms, but to no purpose. After having expatiated, for the last time, on the fingular beauty and value of it, he threw it fuddenly into the fea before them all.” Though this anecdote may appear inconfiftent with the avarice of a Jew, yet it fufficiently agrees with the spirit fo remarkable at all times in the scattered remains of that vindictive nation. Shakspeare's feeming averfion to the Jews in general, and his conftant defire to expofe their avarice and bafeness as often as he had an opportunity, may ferve to ftrengthen my fuppofition; and as that nation, in his time, and fince, has not been famous for crimes daring and confpicuous, but has rather contented itself to thrive by the meaner and more fuctefsful arts of baseness, there feems to be a particular propriety in the epithet. When Falstaff is juftifying himself in King Henry IV. he adds, " If what I have faid be not true, I am a Jew, an Ebrew Jew," i. e. one of the moft fufpected characters of the time. The liver of a Jew is an ingredient in the cauldron of Macbeth; and the vigilance for gain, which is described in Shylock, may afford us reafon to suppose the poet was alluding to a ftory like that already quoted. 1 Their medicínal gum:] Thus the quarto, 1622. This word is alfo ufed by our author in The Winter's Tale; and occurs in the works of two of our greateft poets-Milton and Dryden. STEEVENS. 66 any I have preferred the reading of the folio [medicinable] because the word occurs again in Much Ado about Nothing: impediment will be medicinable to me." i. e. falutary. MALONE. And fay, befides,-that in Aleppo once, Richer than all his tribe, feems to point out the Jew again in a mercantile light; and may mean, that the pearl was richer than all the gems to be found among a fet of men generally trading in them. Neither do I recollect that Othello mentions many things, but what he might fairly have been allowed to have had knowledge of in the courfe of his peregrinations. Of this kind are the fimiles of the Euxine fea flowing into the Propontick, and the Arabian trees dropping their gums. The reft of his fpeeches are more free from mythological and hiftorical allufions, than almost any to be found in Shakspeare, for he is never quite clear from them; though in the defign of this character he seems to have meant it for one who had spent a greater part of his life in the field, than in the cultivation of any other knowledge than what would be of ufe to him in his military capacity. It fhould be obferved, that most of the flourishes merely ornamental were added after the first edition; and this is not the only proof to be met with, that the poet in his alterations fometimes forgot his original plan. The metaphorical term of a pearl for a fine woman, may, for aught I know, be very common; but in the inftances Dr. Warburton has brought to prove it fo, there are found circumftances that immediately fhow woman to have been meant. So, in Troilus and Crefida: "HER BED IS INDIA, there SHE lies a pearl. Why SHE is a pearl whofe price hath launch'd" Sec. In Othello's fpeech we find no fuch leading expreffion; and are therefore at liberty, I think, to take the paffage in its literal meaning. Either we are partial to discoveries which we make for ourselves, or the fpirit of controverfy is contagious; for it usually happens that each poffeffor of an ancient copy of our author, is led to affert the fuperiority of all fuch readings as have not been exhibited in the notes, or received into the text of the laft edition. On this account, our present republication (and more especially in the celebrated plays) affords a greater number of thefe diversities than were ever before obtruded on the publick. A time however may arrive, when a complete body of variations being printed, our readers may luxuriate in an ample feaft of thats and whiches; and thenceforward it may be prophecied, that all will unite in a wifh that the selection had been made by an editor, rather than submitted to their own labour and fagacity. To this note fhould be fubjoined (as an apology for many others which may not be thought to bring conviction with them) that the true fenfe of a paffage has frequently remained undetermined, till repeated experiments have been tried on it; when one commentator, Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk' making a proper ufe of the errors of another, has at laft explained it to univerfal fatisfaction. When mistakes have fuch effects, who would regret having been mistaken, or be forry to prove the means of directing others, by that affinity which a wrong reading or interpretation fometimes has to the right, though he has not been fo lucky as to produce at once authorities which could not be queftioned, or decifions to which nothing could be added? I abide by the old text, "the base Judian." to allude to Herod in the play of Mariamne: "I had but one inestimable jewel- STEEVENS. Shakspeare seems The words quoted by Dr. Warburton from Hamlet do not prove what they are adduced for. The Herod there alluded to, was a character in one of the ancient Myfteries. [See Candlemas-day, or the killing of the children of Ifrael, a Myftery, in Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama, Vol. Í.] I once thought that the accent here given to Judean was a strong objection to this reading: and that the word must have been Judean or Judæan, (as a derivative from Judæa) which would not fuit the metre. But the objection was founded on a mistake; for derivative words of this kind were thus accented in Shakspeare's time. Thus, in The Merry Wives of Windfor, we have in the old copies," an Epicurian rafcal," which ascertains the pronunciation of that word to have been different formerly from what it is now. The word is thus fpelt by North also in his tranflation of Plutarch. Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: Keep his brains fuming, Epicurean cooks." So, in Hamlet, we have the Némean lion (which is written in the old copy Nemian). Thofe who would adopt the original reading, Indian, may urge in its fupport that the pearl naturally brings a people of the Eaft to Shakspeare's mind; the connexion in his time being confidered fo ftrong, that a contemporary author has diftinguished the inhabitants of India by an epithet founded on the circumitance of their abounding in pearls: 8 Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk-] I am told that it is immediate death for a Chriftian to ftrike a Turk in Aleppo. Othello is boafting of his own audacity. STEEVENS. Beat a Venetian, and traduc'd the state, I took by the throat the circumcifed dog, LOD. O bloody period! GRA. [Stabs himself. All, that's fpoke, is marr'd. OTH. I kifs'd thee, ere I kill'd thee;-No way but this, [Falling upon DESDEMONA. Killing myself, to die upon a kifs." [Dies. CAS. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon; For he was great of heart. LOD. [To IAGO. "where the bright fun with his neighbour beams Cornelia, a tragedy, by T. Kyd, 1594. On the other hand, the word tribe is ftrongly in favour of the reading of the text, and I have now no doubt that it is the true one. Webfter in his Appius and Virginia appears to have had this paffage in his thoughts: 66 Had your lordship yesterday "Proceeded as 'twas fit, to a just sentence, "The apparel and the jewels that she wore, "More worth than all her tribe, had then been due "Unto our client." MALONE. Killing myfelf, to die upon a kifs.] So, in the Second Part of Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590: "Yet let me kifs my lord before I dye, "And let me dye with kiffing of my lord." STEEVENS. 20 Spartan dog,] The dogs of Spartan race were reckoned among thofe of the moft fierce and favage kind. HANMER. They are again mentioned in A Midsummer Night's Dream: When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear "With bounds of Sparta." HENLEY. The Spartan dogs in our poet's contemplation, were blood-bounds. See Vol. V. p. 128. MALONE. This is thy work: the object poifons fight;- 3 To you, lord governor, Remains the cenfure of this bellifh villain;] Rymer, who had neither vigour of imagination to make a poet, nor ftrength of judgement to make a critick, as appears from his Edgar, and his Remarks on Shakspeare, had yet just enough to play the buffoon and caviller. His criticifm on the Poets of the laft Age, with only a mixture of trite remarks, tranfcribed from the French commentators on Ariftotle, are one continued heap of ignorance and infolence, Almoft the only remark on Shakspeare, which, I think, deferves an answer, is upon Iago's character, which he thus cenfures: To entertain the audience (fays he) with fomething new and furprising, against common fenje and nature, he would pass upon us a close, diffembling, falje, ungrateful rafcal, instead of an open-hearted, frank, plain-dealing foldier, a character conftantly worn by them for fome thoufands of years in the world. This hath the appearance of fenfe, being founded on that rule of Nature and Ariftotle, that each character fhould have manners convenient to the age, sex, and condition. Atatis cujufque notandi funt tibi mores, &c. fays Horace. But how has our critick applied it? According to this rule it is confeffed, that a foldier fhould be brave, generous, and a man of honour. This is to be his dramatick character. But either one or more of any order may be brought in. If only one, then the character of the order takes its denomination from the manners of that one. Had therefore the only foldier in this play been lago, the rule had been tranfgreffed, and Rymer's cenfure well founded. For then this eternal villain must have given the character of the foldiery; which had been unjust and unnatural. But if a number of the fame order be reprefented, then the character of the order is taken from the manners of the majority; and this according to nature and common fenfe. Now in this play there are many of the order of the foldiery; and all, excepting Iago, reprefented as open, generous, and brave. From thefe the foldier's character is to be taken; and not from Iago, who is brought as an exception to it unless it be unnatural to fuppofe there could be an exception; or that a villain ever infinuated himself into that corps, And thus Shakspeare ftands clear of this impertinent criticitm. WARBURTON. |