O beware, my Lord, of jealousy: It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock What is meant by jealousy mocking the meat it feeds on, is not very clear. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads make, which is somewhat more intelligible; but his emendation hath given scope to a very long combat, carried on chiefly between those preux chevaliers, Mr Steevens and Mr Malone, which is really one of the most precious pieces of learned trifling that is to be found even among the notes of Shakespeare's commentators. As I have a very great esteem for that sort of writing, I was half inclined to submit to thee, reader, the whole of this controversy; but as thou mayest not value it so highly as I do, I shall not hazard expending upon it twelve pages of this treatise, for I verily believe it could not be brought into smaller room. I would yet, at the same time," entreat thee to consider how important such dis cussions are to the peace and happiness of society. The vast abilities of those learned commentators must have found some outlet or other; and how dost thou know, if they had not been so innocently employed, but that they would have got vent in a much more offensive channel? Nothing, indeed, is of mightier moment than to keep great men, like boys and monkeys, out of mischief. If Voltaire had continued to comment, after his own fashion, upon Shakespeare, that is to say, B 1 to throw his little French squibs and crackers at a poet, the latchet of whose shoes he was not worthy to unloose, he might have refrained from spitting out his venom against a still more sacred object, I mean the Christian religion; and if the Emperor Napoleon had employed the former part of his life, as I trust he will do the remainder, in merely spilling ink, that awful effusion, which the world hath been doomed to suffer, of a certain red liquor of somewhat more value, would in all likelihood have been spared. Although, however, I cannot venture to lay before thee this grand controversy, I may give thee some idea of it by the following simile extracted from an excellent book of biography, entitled the History of Joseph Andrews: "So have I seen (saith the ingenious biographer,) in the hall of Westminster, where Serjeant Bramble hath been retained on the right side, and Serjeant Puzzle on the left, the balance of opinion (so equal were their fees,) alternately incline to either scale. Now Bramble throws in an argument, and Puzzle's scale strikes the beam; again Bramble shares the like fate, overpowered by the weight of Puzzle. Here Bramble hits, there Puzzle strikes ; here one has you, there the other has you; till at last all becomes one scene of confusion in the tortured minds of the hearers; equal wagers are laid on their success, and neither judge nor jury can possibly make any thing of the matter; all things are so enveloped by the careful serjeants in doubt and obscurity." Such is pretty much the picture of the dispute respecting the comparative merits of mock and make; and it is odds if (as hath often, I doubt not, occurred to the learned serjeants above mentioned,) the great commentators, after all their debate, should not have entirely mistaken the point at issue. What if the poet meant to say that the meat mocked the monster, instead of the monster mocking the meat? This is an inverted construction to be sure, but it is admissible, and gives a very good meaning. Jealousy is certainly a monster, which the meat it feeds on doth mock, that meat consisting of mere surmises and "trifles light as air:" It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock- A passage occurs in CORIOLANUS which hath given much difficulty to the commentators, and hath exercised the ingenuity of Warburton and Tyrwhitt, in making experiments on the text. In the ninth scene of the first act, Coriolanus says, in reproof of the applause which the soldiers are bestowing upon him. May these same instruments which you profane Soft as the parasite's silk, let him be made Warburton reads, certainly with considerable invention, but with great licence, Be made of false-fac'd soothing! When steel grows An overture for the wars! Tyrwhitt suggests, When steel grows Soft as the parasite's silk, let this [i. e. silk] be made Steevens is for no change, but imagines that him refers to the silk, and that overture means a preparation for the wars. This seems to me extremely harsh, and may not the sense very naturally be the following?" When steel becomes as soft as the parasite's silk, then let there be made to him [the parasite] an overture or proposal to attend the wars.' The sense of another difficult passage in this play will be got, if we suppose gestures to supply the place of words, which may easily be admitted in some speeches; and the following indeed is a speech entirely of gesture. In the second scene of the third act, Volumnia says to her son, I pr'ythee now, my son, Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand, The construction of this speech hath given much scope for discussion, conjecture, and amendinent, and it is at last left in total darkness. Now it appeareth to me that Volumnia is only exemplifying her own doctrine, that " action is eloquence," and when she says, Which often, thus, Waving thy head She bows her own head, and intends that gesture to supply the place of the verb which ought to follow the word thus. I do not recollect, reader, that I ever saw Mrs Siddons in the character of } Volumnia, but I doubt not, that, in her manner of repeating this speech, the defect of language would be perfectly supplied by the inimitable eloquence of her action. There are one or two remarks to be made on some passages in TROILUS and CRESSIDA. In the third scene of the first act, Ulysses, commending the speeches which had just been delivered by Agamemnon and Nestor, says, |