of the same epithet, reads: " -your prosperous ear ;” is e. your propitious ear.

STEEVENS.

576. —a charter in your voice] Let your favour privilege me.

JOHNSON.

577. To assist my simpleness.] The first quarto reads this, as an unfinished sentence:

And if my simpleness

STEEVENS.

582. Even to the very quality of my lord:] The first quarto reads,

Even to the utmost pleasure, &c.

STEEVENS.

Quality here may mean profession. "I am so much enamoured of Othello, that I am even willing to endure all the inconveniences incident to a military life, and to attend him to the wars." "I cannot mervayle (said lord Essex' to Mr. Ashton, a puritan preacher who was sent to him in the Tower) though my protestations are not believed of my enemies, when they so little prevaile with a man of your quality.”

MALONE.

That quality here signifies the Moorish complexion of Othello, and not his military profession, is obvious from what immediately follows:

I saw Othello's visage in his mind :

and also from what the Duke says to Brabantic: If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

Desdemona, in this speech asserts, that the virtues of Othello had subdued her heart, in spite of his visage; and that, to his rank and accomplishments as

a soldier,

tunes.

a soldier, she had consecrated her soul and her for HENLEY. 583. I saw Othello's visage in his mind:] It must raise no wonder, that I loved a man of an appearance so little engaging; I saw his face only in his mind; the greatness of his character reconciled me to his form. JOHNSON.

591. Your voices, lords :] The folio reads, Let her STEEVENS. have your voice. 593. Vouch with me-] Thus the second quarto and STEEVENS. the folio. 595. Nor to comply with heat (the young affects

In me defunct) and proper satisfaction;] As this has been hitherto printed and stopped, it seems to me a period of as stubborn nonsense, as the editors have obtruded upon poor Shakspere throughout his works. What a preposterous creature is this Othello made, to fall in love with, and marry a fine young lady, when appetite and heat, and proper satisfaction, are dead and defunct in him! (For, defunct signifies 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 state.

for I am declin'd

Into the vale of years; yet that's not much.

Again, Why should our poet say (for so he says, as the passage has been pointed) that the young affect heat? Youth, certainly, has it, and has no occasion or pretence of affecting it. And, again, after defunct, would he add so absurd a collateral epithet as proper?

But

But affects was not designed there as a verb, and defunct was not designed here at all. I have, by reading distinct for defunct, rescued the poet's text from absurdity; and this I take to be the tenor of what

he would say ; "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 distinct and proper satisfaction but to comply with her in her request, and desire of accompanying me." Affects for affections our author in several other passages uses. THEOBALD.

Nor to comply with heat, the young affects

In my defunct and proper satisfaction ;] 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 passage. WARBURTON.

I do not think that Mr. Theobald's emendation clears the text from embarrassment, though it is with a little imaginary improvement received by Hanmer, who reads thus:

Nor to comply with heat, affects the young
In my distinct and proper satisfaction.

Dr. Warburton's explanation is not more satisfactory: what made the difficulty will continue to make it. I read,

I beg it not,

To please the palate of my appetite,
Nor to comply with heat (the young affects

D

In me defund) and proper satisfallion;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind.

Affects stands here, not for love, but for passions, for that by which any thing is affected. I ask it not, says he, to please appetite, or satisfy loose desires, the passions 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. Theobald has observed the impropriety of making Othello confess, that all youthful passions were defunct in him; and Hanmer's reading may, I think, be received with only a slight 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 distinct and proper satisfaction i

But to be, &c.

Affects stands for affections, and is used in that sense by Ben Jonson in The Case is altered, 1609:

There is, however, in The Bondman, by Massinger, a passage which seems to countenance and explain young affects in me defun&t, &c.

-the

"" -youthful heats,

"That look no further than your outward form, "Are long since buried in me."

Timoleon is the speaker.

STEEVENS.

I would venture to make the two last lines change

places.

I there

-I therefore beg it not,

To please the palate of my appetite,

Nor to comply with heat, the young affects;
But to be free and bounteous to her mind,
In my defunct and proper satisfaction.

And would then recommend it to consideration, whether the word defunct (which would be the only remaining difficulty) is not capable of a signification, drawn from the primitive sense of its Latin original, which would very well agree with the context.

TYRWHITT.

Othello here supposes, that his petition for the attendance of his bride, might be ascribed to one of these two motives :-either solicitude for the enjoyment of an unconsummated and honourable marriage; -or the mere gratification of a sensual and selfish passion. 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 satisfaction.

The former, having nothing in it unbecoming, he simply disclaims; but the latter, ill according with his season of life (for Othello was now declin'd into the vale of years) he assigns a reason for renouncing; -the young affects,

In me defunct.

As if he had said, “I have outlived that wayward im