The plays of William Shakespeare Volume 16 ; With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1809 Excerpt: ...hate " Ben Jonson in his preface to Volpone has a similar phraseology: " it being the office of the comick poet to stirre up gentle affections." Mr. Theobald reads--That weaken notion, i. e. says he, her right conception and idea of things; understanding, judgment. This reading, it must be acknowledged, derives some support from a passage in King Lear, Act II, sc. iv:-i-" either h.is notion weakens, or his discernings are lethstrgy'd." But the objection to it is, that no opiates or intoxicating "potions or powders of any sort ran distort or pervert the intellects, but by destroying them for a 'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking. I therefore apprehend and do attach thee, For an abuser of the world,4 a practiser time; nor was it ever at any time believed by the most credulous, that love-powders, as they were called could weaken the understand-ing, though it was formerly believed that they could fascinate the affections: or in other words, waken motion. Brabantio afterwards asserts: " That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood, " He wrought upon her." (Our poet, it should be remembered, in almost all his plays uses blood for passion See Hamlet, Act IV, sc. iv, Vol. XV; and Troilus and Cressida, Act II, sc. iii, Vol XII.) And one of the Senators asks Othello, not, whether he had weaken'd Desdemona's understanding, but w hether he did--"--b indirect and forced courses " Subdue and poison this voung maid's affections." The notion of the efficacy of love-powders v. as formerly so prevalent, that in the parliament summoned by K. Richard the Third, on his usurping the-throne, it w as publickly urged as a charge against lady Grey, that she had bewitched King Edward the Fourih, " by strange poti...