Notes and Queries, Number 38, July 20, 1850

I wish to call attention to the peculiar use of a word, or rather to a peculiar word, in Shakspeare, which I do not recollect to have met with in any other writer. I say a peculiar word, because, although the verb To delight is well known, and of general use, the word, the same in form, to which I refer, is not only of different meaning, but, as I conceive, of distinct derivation the non-recognition of which has led to a misconception of the meaning of one of the finest passages in Shakspeare. The first passage in which it occurs, that I shall quote, is the well known one from Measure for Measure :
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot,
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendant world. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Now, if we examine the construction of this passage, we shall find that it appears to have been the object of the writer to separate, and place in juxtaposition with each other, the conditions of the body and the spirit, each being imagined under circumstances to excite repulsion or terror in a sentient being. The mind sees the former lying in cold obstruction, rotting, changed from a sensible warm motion to a kneaded clod, every circumstance leaving the impression of dull, dead weight, deprived of force and motion. The spirit, on the other hand, is imagined under circumstances that give the most vivid picture conceivable of utter powerlessness: