In a word, the villain is for fixing him jealous: and therefore bids him beware of jealousy, not that it was an unreasonable, but a miserable state; and this plunges him into it, as we see by his reply, which is only WARBURTON,

O misery!

I have received Hanmer's emendation; because to mock, does not signify to loath; and because, when Iago bids Othello beware of jealousy, the green-eyed monster, it is natural to tell why he should beware, and for caution he gives him two reasons, that jealousy often creates its own cause, and that, when the causes are real, jealousy is misery. JOHNSON. In this place, and some others, to mock seems the same with to mammock.

FARMER.

If Shakspere had, written-a green-ey'd monster, we might have supposed him to refer to some creature existing only in his particular imagination; but the green-ey'd monster, seems to have reference to an object as familiar to his readers as to himself.

It is known that the tyger kind have green eyes, and always play with the victim to their hunger, before they devour it. Thus, a jealous husband, who discovers no certain cause why he may be divorced, continues to sport with the woman whom he suspects, and, on more certain evidence, determines to punish. There is no beast that can be literally said to make its own food, and therefore I am unwilling to receive the emendation of Hanmer, especially as I flatter myself that a glimpse of meaning may be produced from the ancient reading.

In Antony and Cleopatra the contested word occurs again:

-tell him

"He mocks the pauses that he makes."

i. e. he plays wantonly with those intervals of time which he should improve to his own preservation.

Should such an explanation be admissible, the advice given by Iago will amount to this:-Beware, my lord, of yielding to a passion which as yet has no proofs to justify its access. Think how the interval between suspicion and certainty must be filled. Though you doubt her fidelity, you cannot yet refuse her your bed, or drive her from your heart; but, like the capricious savage, must continue to sport with one whom you wait for an opportunity to destroy..

A similar idea occurs in All's Well that Ends Well: so lust doth play

"With what it loathes."

Such is the only sense that I am able to draw from the original text. What I have said, may be liable to some objections, but I have nothing better to propose. That jealousy is a monster which often creates the suspicions on which it feeds, may be well admit. ted according to Hanmer's proposition; but is it the monster? (i. e. a well known and conspicuous animal) or whence has it green eyes? Yellow is the colour which Shakspere appropriates to jealousy. It must be acknowledged that he afterwards characterizes it as -a monster,

Begot upon itself, born on itself:

but

but yet"What damned minutes counts he o'er, &c." is the best illustration of my attempt to explain the passage. To produce Hanmer's meaning, a change in the text is necessary. I am counsel for the STEEVENS.

old reading.

Yellow is not always the colour which Shakspere appropriates to jealousy; for we meet in The Merchant of Venice:

"shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy." By "the green-ey'd monster," I believe, Shakspere only means that green-eyed monster, which doth mock, &c. If we understand it in this way, it is the same as if he had said—a green-ey'd monster.

The passage alluded to by Mr. Steevens, in my opinion, strongly confirms the emendation proposed by Sir Thomas Hanmer [make]:

It is, strictly speaking, as false, that any monster can beget or be born on itself, as it is, that any monster can make his own food; but, poetically, both are equally true of that monster, JEALOUSY.

In Measure for Measure, act i. edit. 1623, make is printed instead of mock. MALONE.

It is so difficult, if not impossible, to extract any sense from this passage as it stands, even by the most forced construction of it; and the slight amendment proposed by Hanmer renders it so clear, elegant, and poetical, that I am surprised the editors should hesitate in adopting it, and still more surprised they should reject it. As for Mr. Steevens's objection, that the definite article is used, not the indefinite, he surely

need

need not be told in the very last of these plays, that Shakspere did not regard such minute inaccuracies, which may be found in every play he wrote.

When Mr. Steevens compares the jealous man, who continues to sport with the woman he suspects, and is determined to destroy, to the tyger who plays with the victim of his hunger, he forgets that the meat on which jealousy is supposed to feed, is not the woman who is the object of it, but the several circumstances of suspicion which jealousy itself creates, and which cause and nourish it. So Æmilia, at the end of the third act in answer to Desdemona, who speaking of Othello's jealousy says,

Alas the day! I never gave him cause.

Replies,

But jealous fools will not be answered so;
They are not jealous ever for the cause,

But jealous, for they are jealous—'tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.

This passage is a strong confirmation of Hanmer's reading.

The same idea occurs in Massinger's Pilure, where Matthias, speaking of the groundless jealousy he entertained of Sophia's possible inconstancy, says, -but why should I nourish

"A fury here, and with imagin'd food,
"Holding no real ground, on which to raise
"A building of suspicion she was ever,
"Or can be false?"

Imagin'd food, is food created by imagination, the

food

food that jealousy makes and feeds on:

MONCK MASON.

In order to make way for one alteration, Mr. Monck Mason is forced to foist in another; or else poor Shakspere must be arraigned for a blunder of which he is totally guiltless. This gentleman's objections both to the text in its present state, and to Mr. Steevens's most happy illustration of it, originate entirely in his own misconception, and a jumble of figurative with literal expressions. To have been consistent with himself he should have charged Mr. Steevens with maintaining, that it was the property of a jealous husband, first to mock his WIFE, and afterwards to eat her.

In act v. line 321, the word mocks occurs in a sense somewhat similar to that in the passage before us. Emil. O mistress, villany hath made mocks with HENLEY.

love!

260. strongly loves!] Thus the quarto; the folio-soundly loves. STEEVENS.

263. But riches, fineless-] Unbounded, endless, unnumbered treasures.

JOHNSON.

263. -as poor as winter,] Finely expressed: winWARBURTON.

ter producing no fruits.

273. To such exsuffolate and blown surmises,] This odd and far-fetched word was made yet more uncouth in all the editions before Hanmer's, by being printed, exsufficate. The allusion is to a bubble. Do not think, says the Moor, that I shall change the noble designs that now employ my thoughts, to suspicions