I faw Othello's visage in his mind;3 By his dear abfence: Let me go with him. OTн. Your voices, lords: +-'befeech you, let her will Have a free way. Vouch with me, heaven,' I therefore beg it not, That this is the meaning, appears not only from the reading of the quarto," my heart's fubdued, even to the utmost pleasure of my lord, i. e. fo as to prompt me to go with him wherever he wishes I fhould go," but alfo from the whole tenour of Defdemona's fpeech; the purport of which is, that as the had married a foldier, fo fhe was ready to accompany him to the wars, and to confecrate her foul and fortunes to his honours, and his valiant parts; i. e. to attend him wherever his military character and his love of fame fhould call him. MALONE. That quality here fignifies the Moorish complexion of Othello, and not his military profeffion, is obvious from what immediately follows: "I faw Othello's vifage in his mind:” and alfo from what the Duke fays to Brabantio: "If virtue no delighted beauty lack, "Your fon-in-law is far more fair than black.” Defdemona, in this fpeech afferts, that the virtues of Othello had fubdued her heart, in fpite of his vifage; and that, to his rank and accomplishments as a foldier, fhe had confecrated her foul and her fortunes. HENLEY. 3 I faw Othello's vifage in his mind;] It must raise no wonder, that I loved a man of an appearance fo little engaging; I faw his face only in his mind; the greatnefs of his character reconciled me to his form. JOHNSON. 4 Your voices, lords :] The folio reads,-Let her have your voice. • Vouch with me, heaven,] Thus the second quarto These words are not in the original copy, 1622. STEEVENS. and the folio. STEEVENS. MALONE. To please the palate of my appetite; 6 Nor to comply with heat, the young affects, In my diftinct and proper fatisfaction;] [Old copies-defun&} As this has been hitherto printed and ftopped, it feems to me a period of as ftubborn nonfenfe as the editors have obtruded upon poor Shakspeare throughout his 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, defunct fignifics nothing else, that I know of, either primitively or metaphorically:) But if we may take Othello's own word in the affair, he was not reduced to this fatal ftate: or, for I am declin'd "Into the vale of years; yet that's not much.” Again, Why should 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. And, again, after defunct, would he add fo abfurd a collateral epithet as proper? But affects was not defigned here as a verb, and defunct was not defigned here at all. I have by reading diftinct for defunct, rescued the poet's text from abfurdity; and this I take to be the tenor 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 Affels for affections, our author in feveral other paffages ufes. THEOBALD. Nor to comply with heat, the young affects In my defunct and proper fatisfaction:] i. e. with that heat and new affections which the indulgence of my appetite has raised and created. This is the meaning of defunct, which has made all the difficulty of the paffage. WARBURTON. I do not think that Mr. Theobald's emendation clears the text from embarraffment, though it is with a little imaginary improvement received by Sir T. Hanmer, who reads thus: Nor to comply with heat affects the young, In my diftinct and proper fatisfaction. Dr. Warburton's explanation is not more fatisfactory: what made the difficulty will continue to make it. I read, But to be free and bounteous to her mind: In me defunct) and proper fatisfaction; But to be free and bounteous to her mind. Affects ftands here, not for love, but for paffions, for that by which any thing is affected. I ask it not, fays he, to please appetite, or fatisfy loofe defires, the paffions of youth which I have now outlived, or for any particular gratification of myself, but merely that I may indulge the wishes of my wife. Mr. Upton had, before me, changed my to me; but he has printed young effects, not seeming to know that affects could be a noun. JOHNSON. Mr. Theobald has obferved the impropriety of making Othello confefs, that all youthful paffions were defunct in him; and Sir T. Hanmer's reading [diftinct] may, I think, be received with only a flight alteration. I would read, I beg it not, To please the palate of my appetite, Nor to comply with heat, and young affects, In my diftinct and proper fatisfaction; But to be &c. Affects ftands for affections, and is used in that fense by Ben Jonfon in The Cafe is Altered, 1609: 66 -I fhall not need to urge "The facred purity of our affects.” Again, in Love's Labour's Loft: "For every man with his affects is born." Again, in The Wars of Cyrus, 1594: "The frail affects and errors of my youth." Again, in Middleton's Inner Temple Mafque, 1619: "No doubt affects will be fubdu'd by reason." There is, however, in The Bondman, by Maffinger, a paffage which feems to countenance and explain -the young affects In me defunct &c. "That look no further than your outward form, Timoleon is the fpeaker. STEEVENS. I would venture to make the two last lines change places. To please the palate of my appetite, Nor to comply with heat, the young affects; I will your ferious and great business scant, But to be free and bounteous to her mind, In my defunct and proper fatisfaction. And would then recommend it to confideration, whether the word defunct (which would be the only remaining difficulty,) is not capa ble of a fignification, drawn from the primitive fense of its Latin original, which would very well agree with the context. TYRWHITT. I would propofe to read-In my defent, or defenc'd, &c. i. e. I do not beg her company merely to please the palate of my appetite, nor to comply with the heat of luft which the young man affects, i. e. loves and is fond of, in a gratification, which I have by marriage defenc'd, or inclofed and guarded, and made my own property. Unproper beds, in this play, means, beds not peculiar or appropriate to the right owner, but common to other occupiers. In The Merry Wives of Windfor the marriage vow was reprefented by Ford as the ward and defence of purity or conjugal fidelity. "I could drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, and a thousand other her defences, which are now too strongly embattled against me." The verb affect is more generally, among ancient authors, taken in the construction which I have given to it, than as Mr. Theobald would interpret it. It is fo in this very play, "Not to affect many propofed matches," means not to like, or be fond of many propofed matches. I am perfuaded that the word defunct must be at all events ejected. Othello talks here of his appetite, and it is very plain that Def demona to her death was fond of him after wedlock, and that he loved her. How then could his conjugal defires be dead or defun&? or how could they be defunct or difcharged and performed when the marriage was confummated? TOLLET. Othello here fuppofes, that his petition for the attendance of his bride, might be afcribed to one of these two motives:—either folicitude for the enjoyment of an unconfummated and honourable marriage; or the mere gratification of a fenfual and selfish paffion. But, as neither was the true one, he abjures them both: Vouch with me heaven, I therefore beg it NOT To please the palate of my appetite; NOR to comply with heat ( -) and proper fatisfaction. The former, having nothing in it unbecoming, he fimply disclaims; but the latter, ill according with his feafon of life (for Othello was now declin'd into the vale of years) he affigns a reafon for renouncing: the young affects, In me defunct. For fhe is with me: No, when light-wing'd toys As if he had faid, "I have outlived that wayward impulfe of paffion, by which younger men are ftimulated: thofe -youthful heats, "That look no further than the OUTWARD FORM, The fupreme object of my heart is to be free and bounteous to her MIND. By YOUNG affects, the poet clearly means thofe " YOUTHFUL lufts" [Tus NEQTEPIKAΣ is, cupiditates rei nove, thence JUVENILES, and therefore EFFRENES cupiditates,] which St. Paul admonishes Timothy to fly from, and the Romans to MORTIFY. HENLEY. For the emendation now offered, [disjuna] I am refponfible. Some emendation is abfolutely neceffary, and this appears to me the least objectionable of those which have been propofed. Dr. Johnfon, in part following Mr. Upton, reads and regulates the paffage thus: Nor to comply with heat (the young affects In me defunct) and proper fatisfaction. To this reading there are, I think, three ftrong objections. The firft is, the fuppreffion of the word being before defunct, which is abfolutely neceffary to the fenfe, and of which the omiffion is fo harfh, that it affords an argument against the probability of the proposed emendation. The fecond and the grand objection is, that it is highly improbable that Othello fhould declare on the day of his marriage that heat and the youthful affections were dead or defunct in him; that he had outlived the paffions of youth. He himfelf (as Mr. Theobald has obferved,) informs us afterwards, that he is "declined into the vale of years;" but adds, at the fame time, "yet that's not much." This furely is a decifive proof that the text is corrupt. My third objection to this regulation is, that by the introduction of a parenthefis, which is not found in the old copies, the words and proper fatisfaction are fo unnaturally disjoined from thofe with which they are connected in fenfe, as to form a moft lame and impotent conclufion; to fay nothing of the aukwardness of ufing the word proper without any poffeffive pronoun prefixed to it. All thefe difficulties are done away, by retaining the original word my, and reading disjunct inftead of defunct; and the meaning will be, I ask it not for the fake of my feparate and private enjoyment, by the gratification of appetite, but that I may indulge the wishes of my wife. The young affects, may either mean the affections or paffions of |