[though some cast again;
And, by that destiny, to perform an act,
Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come,
In yours, and my discharge.]
These lines stand in the old edition thus:
--_though some cast again;
And, by that destiny, to perform an act,
Whereof what's past, is prologue; what to come,
In your and my discharge_.
The reading in the later editions is without authority. The
old text may very well stand, except that in the last line _in_
should be _is_. and perhaps we might better say--_and that by
destiny_. It being a common plea of wickedness to call temptation
destiny.
II.i.259 (45,6) [Keep in Tunis] There is in this passage a propriety
lost, which a slight alteration will restore:
--Sleep _in Tunis,
And let Sebastian wake_!
II.i.278 (45,7) [Twenty consciences, That stand 'twixt me and
Milan, candy'd be they, Or melt e'er they molest] I had rather
read,
Would _melt e'er they molest_.
i.e. _Twenty consciences, such as stand between me and my hopes,
though they were congealed, would melt before they could molest
one_, or prevent the execution of my purposes. (see 1765, I,40,7)
II.i.286 (46,8) [This ancient morsel] For _morsel_ Dr. Warburton
reads _ancient moral_, very elegantly and judiciously, yet I know
not whether the author might not write _morsel_, as we say a _piece
of a man_.
II.i.288 (46,9) [take suggestion] i.e. Receive any hint of villainy,
(1773)