its bosom with the ships in which they were being trans

ported.

III. 3. IAGO.

Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;

"Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

There are several passages in Wilson's Rhetorique which remind one of Shakespeare, so many that it might be affirmed to be a book which Shakespeare had at some period of his life not only read but studied. The resemblance to the lines above of the following passage found in the chapter on Amplification is remarkable:-"The places of Logique help oft for amplification. As, where men have a wrong opinion, and think theft a greater fault than slander, one might prove the contrary as well by circumstances as by arguments. And first, he might shew that slander is theft, and every slanderer is a thief. For as well the slanderer as the thief do take away another man's possession against the owner's will. After that he might shew that a slanderer is worse than any thief, because a good name is better than all the goods in the world, and that the loss of money may be recovered, but the loss of a man's good name cannot be called back again: and a thief may restore that again which he hath taken away, but a slanderer cannot give a man his good name again which he hath taken from him. Again, he that stealeth goods or cattle robs only but one man, but an evil-tongued man infecteth all their minds unto whose ears this report shall come." p. 126.

III. 3. IAGO.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-ey'd monster which doth MOCK

The meat it feeds on.

Sir Thomas Hanmer in this passage ventured on the bold

substitution of make for "mock," and has been followed by the Variorum editors, very improperly as seems to me.

Many attempts have been made to explain the passage, whether we read mock or make; but they have failed, owing to their having referred "meat it feeds on" to the object of jealousy and the circumstances, and not to the person jealous. The meaning of the Poet appears to me clearly and beautifully expressed. Jealousy mocks the person who surrenders his mind to her influence, deluding him perpetually with some new shew of suspicion, sporting herself with his agonized feelings, just as the feline tribe sport with the prey which they have got into their power. The cat is "greeneyed."

He must be a very cold reader of poetry indeed, who requires any justification of this expression, which is grand and beautiful. The critics have supplied us with two parallels. I add that it reminds of the equally grand image presented in the book of Job.

Hast thou with him spread out the sky,

Which is strong, and as a molten looking-glass?

Chap. xxxvii. v. 18.

III. 4. ОTHELLO.

That handkerchief

Did an Egyptian to my mother give.

By "Egyptian" Shakespeare may mean either an Egyptian properly so called, or a Gipsey, or Bohemian, as the same people are called in many parts of the continent. Presents of this kind from Gipseys proper occur in Italian poetry: thus Ariosto :

About her neck a jewel rich she ware,

A cross all set with stones in gold well tried:

This relick late a Boem pilgrim bare,

And gave her father other things beside,

Which costly things he kept with no small care.

O. F. Canto xxviii. St. 15.

But the mention of " mummy," and other points in the passage, seem to guide us to the true Egyptians, neighbours of the Moors.

There is something more classical in the expression

In her prophetic fury sewed the work,

than is perhaps anywhere else to be found in these plays; but the phrase may have presented itself to Shakespeare in the writings of Sylvester, where it often occurs.

III. 3. IAGO.

Not poppy, nor MANDRAGORA,

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,

Shall ever med'cine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou ow'd'st yesterday.

A little further justification or elucidation of "mandragora" than the notes supply may be acceptable. The word occurs again in Anthony and Cleopatra:

Give me to drink mandragora

That I may sleep out this great gap of time
My Anthony is away.

Act i. Sc. 6.

Parkinson (Paradisus Terrestris, fol. 1629, page 378) speaks of it as only another name for the mandrake; but it appears from what he says that it was not used in England as a soporific. He states, however, that it is regarded as possessed of the soporiferous quality :-"The apples have a soporiferous property, as Levinus Lemnius maketh mention, in his Herbal to the Bible, of an experiment of his own." Sir John Ferne (Blazon of Gentry, 4to. 1586, p. 112) says, that "Macrobius, Duke of Carthage, set upon the

Assyrians' camp, even when they were sunk into a drunken sleep, by the immoderate use of wine with mandrake;” and, like him, Parkinson says, that "Hamilcar, the Carthaginian captain, is said to have infected the wine of the Lybians with the apples of mandrake, whereby, they being made exceeding drowsy, he obtained a famous victory over them." Bartholomeus (De Proprietatibus Rerum, lib. xvii. cap. 104) says that the rind infused in wine is given to drink to them that are to be cut by the surgeon, that they should sleep. It may be suspected that when Shakespeare used the word, mandragora had but a traditional and historical claim to be reckoned among the "drowsy syrups of the world," though Cole says in his Dictionary that it is "a root used by the chirurgeons to cast men into a deep sleep."

So singular a use of the word "circumstance" requires something to shew that it was not without precedent. Take the following from Langley's Translation of Polydore Virgil, where we find that the Romans celebrated their dead" with great pomp and circumstance." Fol. 122 b.

IV. 2. OTHELLO.

but (alas!) to make me

A fixed figure, for the time of scorn

To point his slow unmoving finger at.

Thus the passage about which there has been so much controversy stands in the Variorum.

The quartos represent it thus:

but alas, to make me

A fixed figure, for the time of scorne,

To point his slow unmouing finger (and fingers) at.

The folios

But alas, to make me

The fixed Figure for the time of Scorne
To point his slow, and moving finger at.

These variations shew that there was some uncertainty about the true reading of the passage among the author's contemporaries. I have little doubt that the particles "of" and "for" have changed places: and that, on the whole, the true reading is—

but, alas! to make me

The fixed figure of the time, for Scorn

To point his slow and moving finger at.

It is of the nature of that feeling which leads a person to suppose himself an object of scorn and derision, to think of himself also as an object of universal attention. Thus Othello represents to himself that he shall be "the fixed figure of the time," the one object of public attention, every passer by pointing at him the finger of scorn.

My mother had a maid, called-Barbara ;
She was in love; and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her; she had a song of willow,

An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,
And she died singing it.

Ludovicus Vives cautions women of quality from entertaining in their service young women who could "sing a ballad with a clear voice." They were rather to choose one "sad, pale, and untrimmed." He was following Jerome. His Instruction of a Christian Woman was published in English in 1592.