as "debase," to make base, "defile," to make
foul. The analogy is not quite so perfect in such words as "define,"
"defile" (file), "deliver," "depart," &c.; yet they all may be
considered of the same class. The last of these is used with us only in
the sense of _to go away_; in Shakspeare's time (and Shakspeare so uses
it) it meant also _to part_, or _part with_. A correspondent of Mr.
Knight's suggests {114} for the word _delight_ in this passage, also, a
new derivation; using _de_ as a negation, and _light (lux), delighted_,
removed from the regions of light. This is impossible; if we look at the
context we shall see that it not only contemplated no such thing, but
that it is distinctly opposed to it.

I am less inclined to entertain any doubt of the view I have taken being
correct, from the confirmation it receives in another passage of
Shakspeare, which runs as follows:

"If virtue no _delighted_ beauty lack,
Your son-in-law shows far more fair than black."

_Othello_, Act i. Sc. 3.

Passing by the cool impertinence of one editor, who asserts that
Shakspeare frequently used the past for the present participle, and the
almost equally cool correction of another, who places the explanatory
note "*delightful" at the bottom of the page, I will merely remark that
the two latest editors of Shakspeare, having apparently nothing to say
on the subject, have very wisely said nothing. Yet, as we understand the
term "delighted," the passage surely needs explanation. We cannot
suppose that Shakspeare used epithets so weakening as "delighting" or
"delightful." The meaning of the passage would appear to be this: If
virtue be not wanting in beauty--such beauty as can belong to virtue,
not physical, but of a higher kind, and freed from all material
elements--then your son-in-law, black though he is, shows far more fair
than black, possessing, in fact, this _abstract_ kind of beauty to that
degree that his colour is forgotten. In short, "delighted" here seems to
mean, _lightened_ of all that is gross or unessential.

There is yet another instance in Cymbeline, which seems to bear a
similar construction:

"Whom best I love, I cross: to make my gifts
The more delay'd, _delighted_."

Act v. Sc. 4.

That is, "the _more_ delighted;" the longer held back, the better worth
having; lightened of whatever might detract from their value, that is,
refined or purified. In making the remark here, that "delighted" refers
not to th